Interim Brazilian President booed at opening

The world is threatened because of global warming.

“Our admiration for you is even greater because you managed this at a very hard time in Brazilian history”, Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, told the country during the ceremony at the famed Maracana stadium.

Interim President Michel Temer took over following the suspension in May of President Dilma Rousseff on impeachment charges.

Michel Temer spoke for only a few seconds, and as he sat back down he was roundly booed by numerous 60,000 or so fans inside Maracana Stadium for the opening ceremony on Friday night.

The cannonball-shaped cauldron was lit by Brazilian marathoner Vanderlei Cordeiro de Lima.

But tonight numerous favela’s residents were just proud to be Brazilians with the eyes of the world on their city. “They’re saying in this ceremony, we are who we are, with a lot of social problems, a lot of crises in the political system, etc”.

“It is not enough to stop harming the planet, it is time to start healing it”, programme notes from the ceremony’s organisers read. Leading up to the opening ceremony, excitement had been building among the worldwide visitors filling the streets and corners of Rio.

Greece, the historical and spiritual home of the games, led the march by athletes into the stadium.

Around 70 Indian athletes (out of 118) and 24 officials took part in the march past with the male athletes wearing navy blue colour blazer and pants and their female counterparts donning blue blazer and traditional Saree.

The men’s hockey players skipped the parade as they have a match against Ireland. Athletes of the U.S. during the opening ceremony.

As the teams entered the stadium, the audience broke into applause. Olympic champion Kipchoge Keino who was honoured with the Olympic Laurel, requested all men and women to join him “to respect all the youth of the world and to mould them to get basic needs of food, shelter and education”.

The ceremony then progressed into modern-day Brazil, with a sprawling city taking shape at one end of the stadium, complete with a mix of capoeira performers and break-dancers to portray the South American nation’s cultural and technical progression.

After one of the roughest-ever rides from vote to games by an Olympic host, the city of beaches, carnival, grinding poverty and sun-kissed wealth celebrated Brazil’s can-do spirit, biodiversity and melting pot history.

Supermodel Gisele Bundchen, walked across the stadium to the sound of bossa nova hit “Girl from Ipanema” performed by Daniel Jobim, the grandson of the song’s composer Tom Jobim, whose image was projected on the stage.

But hundreds of other notable athletes did show.

Everyone at Rio de Janeiro’s iconic stadium Maracana admitted that it was anti-depressant despite the limited budget and the struggling country that faces its worst economic time and recession in 80 years.

“Olympics will prosper peace”.

Phelps, 31, is competing in his fifth and final Olympics. Promises that the Games would leave an improved infrastructure and cleaned-up waterways around Rio have not been kept, making the estimated $4.6 billion price of these Olympics (it spikes to $20 billion counting infrastructure costs) feel unconscionable to many. “We are all equal”, said Bach.

“I call upon you the athletes, respect yourself, each other to make the Olympic values unique for the entire world. Selfishness is gaining ground, certain people claim to be superior, here is our Olympic answer”, he added. Only Brazil’s team, which marched last, drew a louder roar from the crowd than the refugees.

Team India at the Olympics opening ceremony.

International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said the refugee team were sending “a message of hope to the millions of refugees around the globe”.