Opening Ceremonies coverage

Opening Ceremonies coverage

Just saw a little 'preview' of the commentators for the Opening Ceremony, and I couldn't help but think that the NZ/Chinese girl (Zhang I think, forgot her first name) was way out of her league.

She was obviously trying to remembering her lines, and what was even more surprising was she didn't answer the question from one of the guys.

And she nods her head every 2.3 seconds (but who's counting? ;-)). 

She does add perspective with little cultural clips, and is pretty easy on the eyes, so gotta give her some credit

Al Sheepa2008-08-08 23:36:49

Damn. Forgot all about the commentators. It's a pretty stunning display.

They must have more dancers than NZ has rugby and football players, on the stage at some point tonight.

And the smog is completely gone.....though all those fireworks might linger around a bit ;-)

Not enough juggling pandas for my liking!

Where's the Kung Fu Panda??

Yeah I'm watching it now. Looks amazing. A couple of my friends are competing and one of my friends is over there in the crowd and managed to get a ticket to the Opening Ceremony. So jealous. Also Herzog & de Meuron's Birds Nest looks sooooo awesome. With regard to commentary though, John McBeth should really just stop talking. He's awful.

what the f**k kind of order are the countries coming out in? 

In the order of the 'alphabet' in the host nation's language with Green first and the host nation second. According to Wikipedia (haha) that's by the number of strokes it takes to write a country's name:

Between the national team of Greece, who traditionally enter first, and the host country, in this case the People's Republic of China, who traditionally march last, the other national teams will enter not in alphabetical order, but by stroke count with the Simplified Chinese characters.[5] For example, this will place Australia (????) in 203rd position, just ahead of Zambia (???) because the character ? is written in 15 strokes and ? is in 16 strokes,[6] while Italy will enter as 191st nation.[7] Stroke count order is a traditional method to order names and other things.

They came out in a Mandarin alphabetical order.

London has some job on to top that.

Totally. That was amazing. I sooo wish I was there. I'm now dreadfully tired after staying up all night watching that.

They'll wheel out Vera Lynne and have some one dressed up in an outfit like this.....

watched most of it, was a little dissapointed he the nZ team got almost zero camera time, when teams like togo and others got followed down the main straight for a few minutes. But nonetheless it was pretty awesome.

Tried to watch it, got bored after 5 mins and went to bed. How old is Keith Quinn? Wouldn't surprise me if he commentated on the opening ceremony of the Games in 360BC along with Plato...


On the upside, our women's basketball team is losing to Mali at the moment. Awesome.

2012 GB uniform will be Sergio Tacchini shellsuits and Burberry baseball caps

Someone on here complained about McBeth, but to me same old Keith Quinn. They guy knows his stuff but if only he would shut the f**k up sometimes, it was continuous verbal diareah. somethings didn't need explaining. The images we saw said it all. (Yes, I watched the until the teams started coming out). Who really wants toy know who's aunty's best friend's uncle's paper-boy's father's brother-in-law once saw John Walker on TV?? Other than a few Anorach Wearers??

it was good, but just think about all the beatings the kids would've got for stuffing up

I reckon that Terry Wogan should have provided the Commentary

Loved the dancing girls and their white cowgirl boots.