Olympic Games 2016, Brazil – A View from outside the Americas

Hello SteemIters/Steemians/Steemers,

The practise of writing blog posts is not usual for me, though I write often elsewhere. Let this begin a try for some regular posting here at Steemit, now that the 31st Olympic Games have started. I’ve been a journalist for 2 previous Olympic Games, currently unaffiliated. So, if you want more here, please signal with a vote. A wave of votes would go much further where I currently live (still considered a low-level ‘highly developed’ nation, that considers itself ‘developing’) than for many others writing here. So, please be generous with your medals!

The Opening Ceremony in Rio de Janeiro was amazing! The fireworks on these new stadiums have for several recent ceremonies been incredible and it was the same here. Even with a much lower budget than Sochi, London or Beijing, the imagery and choreography was astounding. Yet a geo-political message was at the heart of the ceremony as well. According to Fernando Meirelles the creative director, “We need to send a message to the world … the core of our ceremony … how climate change is affecting all of us and how our world is at risk.” All athletes were given seeds from Brazil to be planted in a kind of legacy forest for the games. This is well in keeping with the 3 pillars of the Olympic Movement – Culture, Education, Sports – though its vision is sometimes more fantasy than reality. At the Opening Ceremony, IOC President Thomas Bach, a former gold medalist himself, stated that “In this Olympic world, we are all equal.” One just needs to step outside of the stadiums, race courses and tracks to see that in the real Rio, vast inequalities remain.

Images from NBC coverage:

New features of this Olympics include the Refugee Team, which is already the darling of the games. Several people in my social media networks have mentioned crying and being emotionally touched when their stories were introduced and team entered into the Olympic arena. A new award called ‘Olympic Laurel’ was presented to its first recipient, Kenyan runner Kip Keino. Keino called for support for youth, food, shelter and education. “We came into the world with nothing, we will leave it with nothing” and then broke religious ground in his acceptance speech by further adding: “God is great!” and ending with “May God bless you in this world, thank you.” This was apparently edited out of the delayed NBC & BBC versions.

Kip Keino – 2016 Olympic Laurel:

The city of Rio de Janeiro seems beautiful in many ways. I watched parts of the cycling road race and the views along the coast are spectacular! The sun sculpture and cauldron for the Olympic flame is the best I’ve seen.

Rio Olympics – First 2 day’s Top-5 All-Name Team:
Emese Szasz (Hungary) – Gold
Otgontsetseg Galbadrakh (Kazakhstan) – Bronze
Nijat Shikhalizada (Azerbaijan)
Gulbadam Babamuratova (Turkmenistan)
Mariafe Artacho del Solar (Australia)
Majlinda Kelmendi (Kosovo)

Olympic Flame, Rio 2016
()

If I’ve left anything out that you thought was important from the start of Rio 2016, please be welcome to share it here. Likewise, gotta love the names (and wonder about the nicknames) of some of the world’s greatest athletes who are now competing in Brazil. Send a shout out for the names you like the most, find hardest to pronounce, funniest, most fitting, etc.