Olympic Opening Ceremonies: Pretty Good! Let’s Root for Fiji Rugby Sevens and Bosnian

Well, another Olympic Opening Ceremonies have come and gone:

The Rio Committee is to be commended for spending as reported about 8 percent of the budget for the last (London) ceremonies (This includes the Paralympics, too and the closing ceremonies) – still and astounding 55 million dollars!

Creative director Fernando Meirelles said that the original budget for four ceremonies — the Olympics opening ceremony, closing ceremony and those for the Paralympics — was $113.9 million. But before the Games, he said this budget was cut to $55.9 million, 12 times less than the budget for the London ceremonies and 20 times less than Beijing.

And it can be done!

Utilizing video, lighting effects and the stunning beauty of Gisele Bundchen, the show never felt unprofessional or lacking in big moments.

I am glad I missed Gisele or it would probably have been an unholy moment at the Sanders house! 

Of course we could have gone without the global warming alarmism and propaganda but Rio brought us the infamous Rio Conference so it should be expected.

But bring on the nations!

In keeping with the Sanders Olympic Policy – stated for the readers here:

• Root hard for USA in all non-pro sports especially…
• Sports like fencing where we do not traditionally do well!
• Root for the USA [reluctantly] in sports like Golf where there are all pro athletes but a blog blackout on those sports…
• Unless a new nation wins a pro sport and we’ll cheer with flag (I have a small flag of most of the Olympic nations) and national anthem AND
• The Victory Lap Rule goes for any other new nation and we’ll extend that rule to first gold medal too!
• At least for men’s basketball – they’ve on their own.  It takes more than wearing the USA to truly represent the USA.

So let’s start with those new nations:

It is great that NBC explains a bit about each nation and I am sorry they did not hire me to provide anti-sport imperialist color commentary (I could use the money for my next ten missions trips…) but they mentioned these two nations with a genuine medal possibility for their nation:

• Fiji in the rugby sevens are favored to take gold as their first medal.  (The women might medal too!)
• Bosnia and Herzegovina has two medal contenders for that first Olympic medal and all the stardom that goes with it (The NBC team noted that the Cypriot silver medalist ended up with his picture on a postage stamp [forget a cereal box!] among many honors to go with it!):  Amel Tuka in the men’s 800 meters and Larisa Ceric in judo.  This Wikipedia story on Tuka is useful background as we await the men’s 800 (That is also the event Botswana won its first medal in and that athlete, Nigel Amos, was the Batswana (think Botswanian) flag bearer this year!):

At the 2015 World Championships in Athletics, Tuka’s finishing speed against conventional 800 meter runners caused world record holder David Rudisha to try a rarely used strategy of slowing the pace until the final 200 metres of the race. Tuka was perfectly positioned for his normal finish but Rudisha’s exceptionally fast finish and strategic positioning by his Kenyan teammate Ferguson Cheruiyot Rotich took Tuka out of his game. Tuka finished in bronze medal position. He qualified for the 2016 Summer Olympics and is the Bosnian flag bearer.^[12]

• I beg the help of my readers to find new nations winning their first medal and first gold medal.  But follow the non-imperialist sports coverage right here and you won’t find it set to Yanni, as Michael Callahan wrote four years ago, unless you want to listen to Yanni while you read this blog!