RIO DE JANEIRO: Finding the right gate to enter the venue hosting the Opening Ceremony of the Rio Olympic Games turned out to be a walkathon, almost. Portuguese is Chinese to anyone with no knowledge of the language. In Zen-ish breath, one can say the roads are the same but the paths different. Finally, it was a case of going round and round. The Maracana appeared on the horizon and it stayed there for almost one hour.
The story started with the designated bus dropping everyone to a certain spot, from where entry to the stadium was supposed to be easy and without incident. In the end, what happened was an adventure. No one was there at the drop-off point to guide the bus-load of journalists. Someone would say 'go left' and when everything seemed to be heading towards the right direction, one learned person would come and say, you are heading along the wrong route. Another turn and suddenly you are among the multitude of people who were swinging and jiving towards the stadium. Thankfully, there was enough time for the Ceremony.
And finally when the rushing media, with deadlines in their brains, reached the gate, there was a line of more than a hundred journalists. No one had any clue as to what needed to be done.
No matter what the country does, if there is no Samba, there is no Brazil. The diverse theme of the Ceremony tried to capture the growth of a nation from colonisation to modern-day development. But the narrative that captured the mood of a country in economic turmoil is The Gambiarra — the Brazilian talent of building something out of almost nothing. It succeeded only to an extent.
The romance of the Maracana Stadium is unfathomable. Draped in all its splendour, the enormous structure looked intimidating. Otherwise a football stadium, its iconic stature and history make it a place of pilgrimage for all lovers of sport. It hosted the 2014 football World Cup final. In 1950, in the first ever WC final held here, Uruguay beat Brazil and snatched the World Cup. Then it hosted 199,000 spectators. Now it can only hold 78,000.
The hosting of the Rio Olympic Games Opening Ceremony was simply inevitable. Pyros reverberated through the chilly evening as the Games was declared open. The Ceremony itself was simple and stuck to the theme of transition from being a suppressed colonised state to a vibrant one.
The loudest cheer was reserved for the IOC Refugee Team – louder than when Michael Phelps walked into the stadium. Everyone stood up and cheered the home team. Tennis star Andy Murray had the Great Britain flag. India’s lone gold medallist Abhinav Bindra walked with the flag in hand. Leander Paes, who is in his seventh Olympics, did not give it a miss despite having a doubles match in the morning on Saturday.