Rio Welcomes World, Opens Olympics with Celebration
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Brazil welcomed the world Friday to the first Olympic Games in South America with officially opening the games in a colorful ceremony at Rio's Maracana stadium.
In a video preceding the show, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the games "celebrate the best of humanity" and appealed for an Olympic truce, calling on "all warring parties to lay down their weapons" during the two weeks of sporting achievement, AP reported.
The honor of officially declaring the games open fell to Michel Temer, Brazil's interim president, who was loudly jeered and faced shouts of "out with Temer."
He was standing in for suspended President Dilma Rousseff. Her ouster less than four months ahead of the games for alleged budget violations was one of many spanners in the works of Brazil's Olympic preparations and impacted the opening ceremony itself. Fewer than 25 foreign heads of state were listed as attending, with others seemingly staying away to avoid giving the impression of taking sides amid Brazil's leadership uncertainty.
The cannonball-shaped cauldron was lit by Brazilian marathoner Vanderlei Cordeiro de Lima.
Another cauldron was lit in the city's port area early Saturday that will be displayed for Rio residents to enjoy.
Greece, the historical and spiritual home of the games, led the march by athletes into the stadium. They were joined by a first-ever Refugee Olympic Team of 10 athletes, displaced from Syria, South Sudan, Congo and Ethiopia. Their flag-bearer, Rose Nathike Lokonyen, fled war in South Sudan and ran her first race in a refugee camp in northern Kenya.
The athletes were given tree seeds, plus cartridges of soil. When the seeds sprout, they will be planted in a Rio park.
Iran picked a woman, archer Zahra Nemati, as flag-bearer for its team made up overwhelmingly of men. Another woman pushed Nemati's wheelchair. She was paralyzed in a car accident as a teenager.
Team Iran comprises 63 athletes representing 14 sports federations, including the Athletics, Archery, Boxing, Cycling, Fencing, Judo, Rowing, Shooting, Swimming, Table Tennis, Taekwondo, Volleyball, Weightlifting, and Wrestling federations.
After the grandeur of Beijing's opening ceremony and the high-tech, cheeky inventiveness of London's, Rio's was earthier and less swish but more sobering with its gloomy environmental look at the future and deliberate penny-pinching.
The 2016 Summer Olympic Games will run until August 21.