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question: if the US basketball team wins the gold, will it be counted as 15 gold medals or just 1 for the USA?
That stadium is pretty bad ass. That's all that interested me in these opening ceremonies.
question: if the US basketball team wins the gold, will it be counted as 15 gold medals or just 1 for the USA?
Where do yall find da pix from da Olympics????
I didn't watch everything live, but I liked it.
Here is a youtube video with the opening ceremony:
Even after 13 hours, I still can't get over the excitement.
This opening ceremony is probably the best I've ever seen.
Moments like this make me even more proud to be Chinese
http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/summer...pat&id=3525842
"Beijing opens Games with best show on earth
BEIJING -- One world, one dream.
One of a show.
The only people who didn't enjoy the awe-inspiring Opening Ceremony of the XXIX Olympic Summer Games had to be the folks with the London Olympic organizing committee. They host the 2012 Summer Games, meaning they have to follow the greatest show on Earth -- and, for my yuan, the greatest show in Opening Ceremony history.
If I were the Brits, I'd punt and go with Monty Python reruns. Unless they can top a gold medalist elevating and running on air around the entire cir ference of National Stadium to light the torch.
"I was very excited," torchbearer Li Ning said. "I could feel the strength rising from the depth of my heart. This was the result of one month's training. That moment means China is standing side by side with the rest of the world."
Seminal as it was, that moment was merely the last gasp-inducing scene in a show full of fireworks, flying and gravity-defying. For four sweaty hours, the Olympics literally levitated in the thick Beijing air. The 14,000 performers staged a tour de force of choreography, technology and can-do-ology for a country intent on using the Games as a springboard to new world prominence.
About six months ago, Steven Spielberg bailed out as a creative consultant to these ceremonies in protest of China's cozy relationship with the despotic Sudanese government that has spawned genocide in Darfur. The protest was justified, but in creative terms, the Chinese didn't miss him. They produced a blockbuster longer than "Schindler's List" and more special effects-laden than "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."
China once was all about Mao. Friday night, it was all about wow. With an assist from Yao.
The one thing the host nation didn't do was cram it all into one day, the eighth day of the eighth month of 2008. Eight is a lucky number in China, but by the time this extravaganza had run its course, it was the early minutes of Aug. 9.
Hopefully, that's not a bad omen for the rest of the Games.
But a run-on production can happen when you're staging the biggest coming-out party in the history of the world. The long-cloistered Chinese had 5,000 years worth of culture and 1.3 billion citizens to show off to the world.
They had a lot to say.
"It will be shocking," predicted Marwin Joe of the Beijing newspaper Liberation Army Daily, who sat next to me for the ceremony.
He'd seen the rehearsal twice. And he was right.
But the thing more shocking to Joe -- and, assuredly, many of his countrymen -- is how far China has come as an Olympic power, and how fast. In 1984, the Chinese won 32 total medals in an Olympics boycotted by the Eastern Bloc powers.
"In 1984, when Olympics were held in Los Angeles, most of the Chinese people did not know what is Olympic Games," Joe said.
Six four-year plans later, they know. With the entire world here, their aim is to outdo the United States and win the overall medal count. Their goals are as big as their flag bearer, 7-foot-6 Yao Ming, who led the sprawling Chinese delegation into the Bird's Nest.
They were the final team to march, coming in three hours after the ceremony started and two hours after the other countries began the procession. Despite the dazzling show that began and ended the night, the athlete march truly is the highlight of every Opening Ceremony -- for all of them, this is their gold-medal moment. They made it here, to the world's biggest party. They are Olympians, and this is the payoff before only the best of the best make the medal podiums.
Hopefully TV did the whole thing justice. These productions are hard to describe, always better visually than in the written word. It's why sportswriters tend to fall back on phrases like "moving spectacle."
But this was a moving spectacle.
There are a lot of problems with China and how it handles its people and how it conducts its business. But, beginning with this show, these Games could be the country's real Great Leap Forward.
Pat Forde is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at [email protected]."
china china, yeeeeah, china chichina *insert southpark slow fart here*
you sure did show me that you are a top tier country in the world after that ceremony
This is off topic, but since there's not much interest for the Olympics on this forum I guess this is the best place for this info.
The official olympic website has a very good video feature to access it you need to go to:
http://en.beijing2008.cn/
On the right side of the page there's a little window that says "Olympic video" and below a drop down menu "Select your country". When you do that you will get a list of raw feeds for your region. For us in the EU we get the 12 EBU raw feeds with sound. The quality is very good except a few glitches from time to time. I'm curious if it will function even if the demand increases.
The bad news is that it really only works on Windows XP/Vista and with IE
Last edited by Slomo; 08-09-2008 at 03:20 AM.
Thanks for the info Slomo. I'm interested, I like elite level sports of all kinds and always catch as much of the Olympics as I can.
Absolutely 1, dude you know what?
do you remember last Olympics in Athens? Argentina won both soccer gold and basketball gold, there were 22 players and 1 coach in a soccer team, and there were 12 players and 3 coaches in a basketball team, if it had been counted as 38 golds,(15+23) Argentina were the top nation in last Olympics.
Is it really necessary to have two ing days of ceremony's. Can't they just get down to business? Why does everything have to be such a long drawn out boring production with no ing value whatsoever other than its cool to spend billion of dollars promoting something thats already got an audience.
I tuned in to see some compe ion not a million chinese guys banging drums while the commentators discuss how they were asked to smile more during the practice walkthrus. Who ing cares if they smile more...what a waste.
I thought it was pretty amazing.
So did I. That rolling print block that was all done by human hands was outstanding. And the planet earth with those people walking and dancing around it was awesome. I truly enjoyed and give Kudos the Chinese for a great opening ceremony that I though really captured the spirit of the Olympics.I thought it was pretty amazing.
Well done!!
Why is Nissan sponsoring the US Olympic team?
The ones who put out the most effort was those "cheer leaders" who made the circle around the stadium and danced and cheered throughout the whole, long, long, entrance of the participants. Those young ladies must have collapsed when they got out of the place. I am sorry, but the grand entrance gets really boring after awhile.
Well, Texas was well represented, not by native Texans, but the transplanted Texans, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio.
you bet !The ones who put out the most effort was those "cheer leaders" who made the circle around the stadium and danced and cheered throughout the whole, long, long, entrance of the participants. Those young ladies must have collapsed when they got out of the place. I am sorry, but the grand entrance gets really boring after awhile.
Well, Texas was well represented, not by native Texans, but the transplanted Texans, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio.
here's one of them who fainted
i was only interested in the girls...oh yeh 10000 concubines
that LED screen is in sick!
the USA uniforms were in gay
LOL
on yahoo.com
Thye have a little box to keep track of medals and show top athletes and it shows lebron james(GBR) LOL
Here is a website for medal counts
http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/EN...L0000000.shtml
God damn the NBC site is worthless. I couldn't find the Argentina schedule to save my life. I'm pretty excited to watch the swimming tonight as well as the basketball later tonight and tomorrow.
Bet opening ceremony ever. It was not even close . . .
the Olympics.
America.
Anarchy in the UK.
Seacrest out.
no online/tv coverage for the Argentina-Lithuania and Greece-Spain basketball games?
They should be on USA later on tonight from what I understand. If not you can def stream them online.
BTW Phelps is really ing fast.
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