March of the Athletes

A nice 30 minute program, filled with action. Best use of the Olympic rings I've seen, personally, in an opening ceremony. I liked this one a lot, despite the awful 70s disco music they over-used.

Now, this is the CBC, and if the pattern holds true, once the Canadians come in we won't get anything but Canadians with only glimpses of other countries walking in after that. We'll get interviews with Canadian athletes, and such... but the march itself will mostly be ignored until near the end.

But still, excellent overall. I'm sure I'll see the whole thing again tonight when Eric gets home.

Update: I swear, it's got to be completely bizarre for the English-speaking athletes to walk into the stadium with that disco music going. I find it freaky and I'm just watching. It must be surreal for the athletes.

Update: They're doing a split-screen. Canadians in the upper right, and the commentators mostly talking about Canadians. The rest of the march down in the lower left. Heh. At least they are showing it. I wonder how the NBC coverage will compare?

Update: Whoa! They've already gone back to the full screen for the main march. Amazing. I'm very pleased. I don't think we missed any country at all. And no commercial breaks so far, knock on wood. I wonder what "United States" is in Italian? I'm sure I'll learn soon.

Update: Nothing negative when Denmark came in, but the athletes they showed didn't look very happy. Hrm. Ah, they've split the screen again to show more Canadians. They're going back and forth from split-screen to regular.

Update: BIG cheers for France. Commentators telling us that the athletes are going into the "mosh pit" to watch Pavorotti, Yoko Ono, and Peter Gabriel. Germany is walking in. Their outfits are TRULY HIDEOUS.

Update: Giappone. I didn't guess that it was Japan.

Update: The crowd went nuts for the Kenyan athlete. For a moment I thought the Italians must be coming in.

Update: Showing the Canadian athletes, all of them are either on their cell phones or taping the action with a camcorder.

Update: Madagascar's first Winter Games. And the music is slowly getting more modern. Eurythmics now. Ooooh, and now "Video Killed the Radio Star". The Mongolian flag-bearer has an awesome outfit.

Update: The Canadian Commentator just said they aren't going to cut away to commercial break until the parade of nations is over. They plan to show the whole thing uninterrupted. Except by split-screen shots of excited Canadians on their cell phones.

Update: "YMCA" is playing while Slovakia comes in. Totally surreal.

Update: United States comes in. Surprisingly loud cheer from the crowd.

Update: Now they're playing Van Halen "Jump" as the Swiss come in. This is by far the strangest background music I've ever heard in an Olympic's Opening Ceremony.

Update: The "mosh pit" is nearly full. The march is nearly over.

Update: The crowd is getting more and more excited as the Italians are about to come in. Venezuala got big cheers... They crowd is drowning out the music now as Italy comes in. The CBC's sound equipment is being overcome. The music is Italian now.

That's it for live-blogging. Unless something more exciting happens.