Bobbing for Medals: Opening Ceremonies Edition

We spend most of the day watching the Olympics, so you don’t have to.

Before we get to the Opening Ceremonies – yes, I know they’re on tonight, but that’s a replay, they were broadcast live this morning and early afternoon on NBC -- the preliminary rounds of certain sports continued overnight (well…overnight in the U.S).  Not necessarily the major sports, but most at least aren’t especially obscure.  So, as the expression goes, attention must be paid.

The USA men’s rugby team played Uruguay.  I’ve never quite figured out the rules, including its strange, undefended drop-kick extra point, which seems to take place from the point where your team crossed the end line.  It’s a bit of an odd sport that clearly was a foundation for football.  But it’s hard to watch a game and not think of the episode of Friends when Ross was trying to impress his girlfriend Emily, and got worked up enough to become “Red Ross” as he rushed in to play…and got pummeled.  In the game last night, the score was somewhat tight, until Perry Baker broke free, raced down the field and put the game away for the USA, winning 33-17.

The Team USA women’s soccer team beat Zambia 3-0.  But what stood out for me was that the final two goals were not only scored by Mallory Swanson…but about 30 seconds apart.  It was an emotional moment for her, since her career had been pummeled by injuries, surgeries and infections that, among other things, has kept her out of returning to the Olympics since she was a teenager eight years ago -- and scored a goal.  But notable for me is that her husband is the shortstop of the Chicago Cubs, Dansby Swanson!  And it’s clear that one of the reasons he signed a contract with the team last year was because Mallory plays for the Chicago team, the Fire.

There was an exciting women’s soccer game between host country France and Colombia.  The score was 3-2 when the game went into extra “stoppage time” for a whopping 10 minutes.  The home crowd was going crazy, with Colombia aggressively pushing to get the one goal they needed to tie.  But with the French crowd screaming them on, France held on to win.

There also was a women’s handball match between host France and Hungary.  While I like to watch most games, team handball is not one of my favorites, and even I have a limit how much I’ll watch of everything.  To be clear, team handball has absolutely nothing to do with the handball most people think of, smacking the ball ricocheting off the walls.  Rather, it is more like soccer, but with players running around and throwing the ball to one another.  I just find it a bit boring to keep watching after a while.

And in interesting news, 2-1/2 years after having been cheated out of the Gold Medal at the 2020 Winter Olympics, the U.S. figure skating team, that had been giving the Silver Medal, will be presented with the Gold in a ceremony at the Paris Games.  The Russian team had gotten the Gold, but one of its stars later tested positive for illegal drugs, and they were disqualified.  That moved the U.S. team up to first place.

And that brings us to the Opening Ceremonies which were broadcast live earlier today, and as I said they will be re-aired this evening.  A few random thoughts about them –

The ceremonies are a truly impressive artistic achievement, taking place across all of Paris outdoors and mostly on the Seine (including having to take place in an ongoing light rain).  There is more usage of film edited in throughout than I prefer, but the footage is well-done and interesting.  The whole production is a bit frou-frou pretentious at times – including an overly-reverential, helmeted, phantom-like character weaving his way throughout, that has a nice, off-beat texture to it, though gets a bit annoying after a while -- but hey, that’s the French.  Also odd is the very first musical performer is Lady Gaga – one would think they’d have found a French artist to kick things off.  Overall, it’s an incredibly ambitious undertaking, successful, and very beautiful. 

I don't get many chances to make a pun in French, but this was a near-perfect example of Mise en Seine.​

(The event does end back in the Trocadéro Stadium for the official parts of the opening.  It’s a much smaller facility than the main Olympic stadium, the Stade de France, but it’s filled only with the athletes and officials)

Beautiful and impressive as it is, I was bothered by a significant part of it as a sports fan.  One of the joys of the Opening Ceremonies is that as teams march in and are spread out across the stadium track, the camera and TV announcers are able to single out athletes from around the world, and tell interesting stories about them, which is one of the important parts of the Games – not just the competition, but the humanity of the world coming together.  But with athletes all crammed together on their team boats, that wasn’t possible, and the “up close and personal” stories were borderline non-existent.

From the TV perspective, I thought the NBC announcing was lousy.  Mike Tirico is an excellent anchor host – but with no stories to tell about the athletes, he was limited in what he could say.  He filled in okay, but he’s so much better than okay.  He had two co-hosts.  Kelly Clarkson is a charming person who, here, was out of her depth, and the bulk of her commentary was “Oooh, that is incredible.  Incredible.  Wow.  Amazing.  That is incredible.  I love the rain.”  Fun Fact:  We can see it’s incredible.  But she was eloquent compared to (for some reason) Peyton Manning.  He’s a witty conversationalist, but as a former football player – not an Olympic sport – he had pretty much nothing to add.  He also has no connection to NBC – he’s on ESPN, owned by ABC – so I’m not sure why he was there.  Nor why Snoop Dog was either, especially since he doesn’t add much.  I assume that maybe, for some reason, he’ll do little features throughout the Games.

Throughout there were cuts to a fashion show going on in Paris.  I don’t want to even try to describe it.  So, I’ll just say it’s very weird and what most people think of the French when they have a nightmare.

There was one small sequence I especially loved.  It has to do with setting off flames and fireworks across what I believe they said was the Concorde Bridge, leading what was perhaps a museum or maybe an official building. 

And there was a long cartoon with the Minions.  Yes, you read that right.  I’m not quite sure what they have to do with France, though apparently Pixar has offices in the country, which is a bit of a stretch.  It was an absolutely silly thing to have during the Opening Ceremonies – and hilarious.

Ending at the Trocadéro Stadium, the Eiffel Tower nearby is decked out for a pretty nice light show.  Also, since the Trocadéro is just a smaller arena without a cauldron, there is a nice twist as an international boat ride of well-known Olympians is needed to take the Olympic Flame and head down the Seine for the lighting ceremony at what was still an undisclosed location.

But that’s not the end, because the organizers came up with a clever and moving way to continue the carrying of the Flame.  As for how the lighting is handled, I’ll leave that undescribed for those who plan to watch later, though I’ll note that, as part of it all, Mike Tirico is correct when he says it’s the most unique cauldron you’ll have seen.  And then that is continued with what I’ll only say is a beautiful and emotional surprise performance of the Edith Piaf song “Chanson d’Amour” – that co-host Kelly Clarkson was left literally in tears.

Let the Games begin, although they already did a couple days ago…