Olympic opening ceremony puts athletes (finally) in spotlight

By Jamie Strashin, CBC Sports

You've probably heard from the naysayers: the Rio Olympics are plagued by a stew of impending doom and disaster and are sure to be a terrible mess.

If it's not the Zika-infused mosquitoes, then Rio's notorious traffic and crime will derail these Games. Or surely the toxic water and either overzealous or insufficient security will taint the experience. Perhaps all or one of these elements, or something else, will conspire to prove the naysayers right.

Or maybe, like many troubled host nations before, Brazil will keep its problems under control for the next 17 days.

Either way, the Games won`t fix the country`s well-documented and entrenched social and political problems. Those will remain long after these Games leave town. None of that can be fixed now anyways. Every mosquito can't be killed. The water is as clean as it's going to be. Brazil will stuff its problems into the closet until the world leaves.

For what it's worth, the athletes' first impressions have been good. Even if they may sound a little too rosy.

"It`s so much better than what has been said," Canadian fencer and first-time Olympian Leonara MacKinnon told me. "So far I haven`t had any problems at the venues or inside the village. Everything seems to be up and running and working well."

Fellow Canadian fencer Maxime Brinck-Croteau expressed similar feelings.

"So far everything we have lived at the Olympic Games is just like the Pan Am Games in Toronto [last summer] but just 100 times bigger," he says "Same cafeteria, same kind of food, rooms, the venues, everything is the same quality we had at the Pan Am Games but just huge."

Let's hope these glowing assessments continue.

Fresh start

Tonight, the curtain rises as the world turns its eyes on Rio for the opening ceremony at famed Maracana Stadium. (CBC's live television and digital coverage begins at 6:30 p.m. ET).

The show is a chance for these Games to make a fresh start; a chance for Brazil to push away the gloom and doom that`s overshadowed talk of athletics and achievement for months.

For athletes who won't achieve Olympic glory — and most won`t — marching into the stadium for the opening ceremony is the crowning moment of years of toil and sacrifice.

Brinck-Croteau will be there, taking it all in.

"I'll make sure my cell phone is charged and I take lots of pictures and just to try and make the most of it, be in the moment, sink it all in, the emotion," he says.

"For all of us on the fencing team it is our first Olympics, so this is the first time we are living the ceremony and it's something we have dreamed about since we were 10, 12 years old. It`s hard to prepare for. I just know that I am really excited."

Athletes in the stadium tonight can expect a scaled-down production from years past.

"This is not the most grand show," says Marco Balich, the Italian executive producer of the ceremony. "This is not an opulent show compared to London or compared to Beijing, but it will be a very emotional ceremony, full of heart and very graceful."

'Be in the moment'

Does it really matter?

Few can actually differentiate or remember opening ceremonies of Olympics gone by. Except maybe the glitches. How many recall the sometimes beautiful, often clumsy efforts to depict the host nation`s cultural and historical evolution?

What the athletes do remember is the feeling of entering the stadium with the entire Games at your feet — a feeling that anything is possible.

"Last year at Pan Ams, you walk in the stadium and the people are cheering, it was amazing," Brinck-Croteau says. "Your friends, your family who have been supporting you for years and all the people surrounding you who are in the same situation but in different sports."

He has sought advice for how to best enjoy this ceremony.

"Be in the moment. Just try and absorb all of the energy and the emotion. This is something that you will remember for the rest of your life."

So enough doom and gloom. It's time for the starting gun, the tip off and the tee off. Let the Games begin.