Rio Olympics opens under cloud of budget, security problems
South Korean athletes enter Maracana Stadium during the opening ceremony of the 31st Summer Olympic Games hosted by Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday. / Yonhap
The 31st Summer Olympic Games opened Friday with the host city Rio de Janeiro besieged by a series of persistent problems.
The opening ceremony of the first Olympics in South America took place at the iconic, 78,050-capacity Maracana Stadium, celebrating the country's scenic rainforest and ethnic diversity, along with peace and tolerance.
Under the slogan "New World," the Aug. 5-21 Rio Games will bring together more than 11,000 athletes from 206 countries plus the first team of Refugee Olympic Athletes. They will compete in 28 sports across 42 disciplines, with two new additions of golf and rugby.
There are 306 gold medals up for grabs at 32 venues in Rio. There are also five football co-host cities: Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, Manaus, Salvador and Sao Paulo.
Rio will have to defy steep odds to make this a success, for these Games have long been considered a disaster waiting to happen.
Concerns over the Zika virus, a mosquito-borne disease linked with birth defects, have caused several athletes to stay away from the Olympics. Waters here have been so polluted that sailors who were preparing for the Olympics last month saw their white boats turn brown. Rio has launched a security operation involving 85,000 soldiers, police officers and firefighters to assuage worries about safety.
Then, when the athletes' village opened, Olympians complained about subpar living conditions and more than a few have moved out altogether.
In the hours leading up to the ceremony, thousands took to the Rio streets in protest, claiming the sporting event added an undue burden on the already cash-strapped nation.
The organizers have spent billions on new infrastructure, and it has caused deep resentment among Brazilians who feel the money should have been spent on lessening their plight.
The Olympics will be taking place against the backdrop of political instability. Suspended President Dilma Rousseff, facing an impeachment trial, was conspicuous by her absence from the ceremony, with Interim President Michel Temer joining other heads of state at Maracana.
On Friday night at least Rio seemed determined to forget about these headaches and celebrate the historic occasion. Marco Balich, the ceremony's executive producer, had promised "the coolest party" the athletes will have ever seen.
The event's organizers downplayed concerns about the limited budget -- the result of a recession in the country -- though the show featured decidedly less glitz than ceremonies at previous Olympics.
They spoke of their desire "to change some paradigms of the Olympic ceremonies."
"We replaced the high-tech approach, the dependence on major electronic and mechatronic effects, with an analogue inventiveness, making the most of the low-tech spirit, the richness of Brazilian popular culture and the energy and passion of thousands of volunteers," the show's creators said in a joint statement. "Climate change and the depletion of natural resources need our attention, and the Olympic opening ceremony is a wonderful opportunity to shed light on this subject. Brazil, with the largest forest and the largest reserve of biodiversity on the planet, is the right place for this message to be spread."
The ceremony opened with a video portraying Rio as "an Olympic city by vocation" and showing how sports are an integral part of the city's lifestyle.
The first segment celebrated "gambiarra," the Brazilian talent for improvisation, the beauty of Brazilian art and the search for a new peace.
Ten Brazilian sporting heroes and 50 young athletes carried 60 Brazilian flags, with singer Paulinho da Viola performing the national anthem.
Following a series of solemn segments showcasing the local culture and contemporary Brazil, Maracana turned into a huge jukebox.
The performances of popular Brazilian music celebrated favelas -- Brazilian slums -- as a source of artistic inspiration, and paid tribute to the contributions of people of African descent to Brazilian pop culture.
The focus then moved away from Brazil and shifted to the rest of the world, with the ensuing performances addressing environmental challenges.
The "Parade of Nations" ensued, and South Korea was the 52nd country to march in, based on the Portuguese alphabet. South Korea has sent 204 athletes and 129 officials in 24 out of 28 sports.
Its aim is to win at least 10 gold medals to finish in the top 10 in medal standings for the fourth consecutive Summer Games.
Sabre fencer Gu Bon-gil, a member of the gold medal-winning men's team at the 2012 London Olympics, was the South Korean flag bearer.
Rio at last unveiled its "hybrid" Olympic Cauldron -- a small structure that breaks with the tradition of cauldrons producing a large flame. It was another nod to the host city's effort to stage an eco-friendly Olympics. (Yonhap)