2/10/2006: Let the games begin
Spectacular opening ceremonies in Torino.
The athletes arrived in elaborate designer winter wear and a very odd assortment of hats, accompanied by a very odd assortment of music that included the Doobie Brothers, Donna Summer, and the Village People. NBC anchor Brian Williams and perennial youth poster boy Bob Costas had a lot of interesting tidbits about some of the countries and athletes, but mostly they commented about the countries' alphabetical order being different in Italian than English.
Oddly, they didn't once mention that outside of Italy, Torino used to be called Turin, as in the famous shroud. The Olympic Committee had asked the town and the media to please refer to it as Torino, apparently to avoid religious conflict. I guess we'll hear a lot about that in the next couple of weeks.
Torino put on a good show tonight. Highlights were the 9-year-old girl who sang the Italian anthem, the many Cirque du Soleil-like production pieces, flaming skaters, waltzing cows, the acrobats/water droplets/spiders on strings that morphed into a dove, and those countries represented by a single intrepid athlete. One of those is the US Virgin Islands, represented by Anne Abernathy aka "Grandma Luge" who will fly down the icy luge track in her sixth Olympic appearance. Anne is 52 - an Olympic record. Go Granny, go!
Sophia Loren & Susan Sarandon carried in the Olympic flag, the speakers spoke, the dancers danced, the flame arrived, and Pavarotti sang. And we're off.
