By DAVID CRARY
Feb. 13, 2010
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) -- The show went on -- with grief and a closing glitch.
The
Olympics' opening ceremonies unfolded in a mostly jubilant atmosphere,
with an upbeat crowd filling BC Place Stadium only hours after a luger
from the country of Georgia, Nodar Kumaritashvili, was killed in a
horrific training-run crash at Whistler.
After several somber
pauses during the show to pay respects to him, the much-awaited
surprise ending went awry. One huge piece of the set failed to rise
from the stadium floor, and left one of the four final torchbearers,
speedskater Catriona LeMay Doan, unable to use her torch.
The
ceremonies were dedicated to Kumaritashvili, and a moment of silence
was observed in his memory. The seven remaining members of the Georgian
team, who decided to stay and compete, wore black armbands as they
marched behind a black-trimmed flag. Most of the crowd rose to give
respectful applause.
International Olympic Committee president
Jacques Rogge and the top Vancouver organizer, John Furlong, urged the
athletes to compete in Kumaritashvili's honor.
"May you carry his Olympic dream on your shoulders and compete with his spirit in your heart," Furlong said.
More
than 60,000 people packed into the stadium for the evening
extravaganza, the first Olympic opening or closing ceremony ever held
indoors. The loudest ovation came midway through, when the red-clad
Canadian team -- aiming for a first-place finish -- entered the stadium
as the last contingent of the parade of nations.
The climax
called for the cauldron to be lit jointly by four Canadian sports
heroes -- all-time hockey great Wayne Gretzky, skier Nancy Greene,
basketball All-Star Steve Nash and LeMay Doan. But the former
speedskating medalist was left to stand by awkwardly when one of the
four pillars holding the Olympic cauldron failed to rise.
A
second, far larger cauldron was lit by Gretzky in a plaza along the
downtown waterfront -- giving Vancouver a visible symbol for the rest
of the games that the indoor stadium could not provide.
Rain was
forecast through the weekend in Vancouver, with high temperatures near
50 degrees, prompting some to dub these the Spring Olympics. Rain also
has disrupted Alpine skiing events at Whistler.
About 2,500
athletes from a record 82 countries are participating in the games,
vying for medals in 86 events -- including the newly added ski-cross
competition. First-time Winter Olympic participants include the Cayman
Islands, Columbia, Ghana, Montenegro, Pakistan, Peru and Serbia.
The
overall favorites include Germany and the United States -- which
finished first and second four years ago in Turin -- and also Canada, a
best-ever third in 2006 and now brashly proclaiming its intention to
finish atop the medals table on its home turf.
"We're still
going to be nice, but we're going to be nice in winning," said Michael
Chambers, president of the Canadian Olympic Committee.
The
Canadian team marched exultantly behind flagbearer Clara Hughes,
defending gold medalist in the 5,000-meter speedskating race. Prime
Minister Stephen Harper was among the thousands in the stadium rising
to applaud.
Just ahead in the parade were the Americans. Their
flagbearer is Mark Grimmette, 39, of Muskegon, Mich., competing in his
fifth Olympics as a doubles luge competitor. Kumaritashvili would have
been one of his Olympic rivals.
The cultural segment of ceremony
featured many of Canada's best-known musical stars -- including Bryan
Adams, Nelly Furtado, Sarah McLachlan and k.d. lang.
It also
highlighted performers and traditions from Canada's aboriginal
communities. And the highest-ranking official delegation at the
ceremony -- amid dignitaries from around the world -- included the four
chiefs of the First Nations whose traditional native territory overlaps
the Olympic region.
Special effects included a giant, sparkling
polar bear rising from the stadium floor and hovering over some
performers on a simulated ice flow. Later, Celtic fiddlers performed
under a stadium-wide cascade of autumn leaves, and an acrobat on wires
performed an aerial ballet to the strains of Joni Mitchell's "Both
Sides Now."
Several well-known Canadians received the honor of
carrying the Olympic flag at a high-profile moment near the end of the
ceremony. Among them were hockey Hall of Famer Bobby Orr, singer Anne
Murray, race car driver Jacques Villeneuve and Betty Fox, mother of
national hero Terry Fox.
Terry Fox lost a leg to bone cancer as
a youngster, then set off in 1980 on a fundraising trek across Canada.
He had to give up after covering more than 3,000 miles, and died in
1981 at age 22, but remains revered by his compatriots as a symbol of
courage and perseverance.
The flame reached the stadium after a
106-day torch relay across Canada, passing through more than 1,000
communities in every province and territory.
The relay was the occasional target for protesters, and Friday was no exception.
Activists
espousing a variety of causes prompted the relay to change course twice
as it passed near Vancouver's skid-row neighborhood, the Downtown
Eastside.
Later, several thousand protesters marched to the
stadium, where hundreds of police were waiting for them. A standoff
lasted more than two hours -- with some sticks and water bottles thrown
toward the officers.
