Refugee Olympic team gets huge Opening Ceremony ovation in Rio

A joyful sashay through Brazil’s extraordinary musical heritage was infused with a social message and a warning over the dangers of climate change as Rio de Janeiro drew back the curtain of the 2016 Olympic Games with a highly charged opening ceremony.

Throughout the ceremony, athletes dropped seeds into a series of mirrored planters that were then arranged to look like the rings.

When the Parade of Nations was finished, trees sprang up from the planters and rained confetti throughout the stadium.

“Because of your human spirit, you are making a great cause to humanity”.

“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.

Not all fireworks are created equal, however.

I cheered for our local USA and British Virgin Islands teams, and when everyone heard me, they cheered along too.

After the formal declaration of the Games, Brazilian 2004 Athens Olympics marathon bronze victor Vanderlei de Lima lit the Olympic cauldron after former tennis world number one and three-time French Open victor Gustavo Kuerten brought the torch into the arena to the thunderous applause of spectators.

Other possible factors include a storm of bad press for the Rio Games, a strong box office buoyed by the success of Suicide Squad and general indifference toward the idea of the Olympics.

The archery, table tennis and weightlifting teams also skipped the opening ceremony.

Since the event won’t able to avoid the issues that are gripping Brazil – a president facing impeachment, a deep recession and environmental threats – organizers made sure that global warming and the environment, especially the country’s magnificent Amazon rainforest, are important parts of the Olympic opening ceremony. Supermodel Gisele Bundchen will also be on hand.

Unlike the opening ceremonies in Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012, a financially constrained Brazil had little choice but to put on a more “analogue” show, with minimal high-tech and a heavy dependence on the vast talent of Brazil and its Carnival party traditions. First, the awarding of the newly inaugurated Olympic Laurel to two-time Olympic gold medallist athlete Kipchoge Keino, 76, recognising his work educating orphaned children, and the arrival of the Refugee Olympic Team to roars nearly as deafening as those reserved for the home athletes.

The 75-year-old has been in Rio de Janeiro in the build-up to the opening ceremony to launch an academy in his name. The team from the United States – Estados Unidos, in Portugese – paraded in earlier than it usually does, this time wearing blue blazers and being led by legendary swimmer Michael Phelps.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was not present at Maracana Stadium.

Small groups of protesters waving banners reading “Exclusion Games” gathered near the Maracana stadium where Friday’s opening ceremony will be held, but heavily armed riot police barred the streets and prevented them from approaching the venue.

Ramon Gittens of Barbados leads his team.