Top 10 Olympics Opening Ceremonies of this century

A mosaic in the stands, featuring the flags of the countries competing at the Los Angeles 1984 Olympic Games; double decathlon Olympic medallist Rafer Johnson lighting up the Olympic cauldron; and Bill Suitor arriving at the stadium on a Jet Pack. The opening ceremony of the Los Angeles 1984 Olympic Games, was an unforgettable one indeed. Read More

The Opening Ceremony of the Games of Seoul were massive by any standard. Over 13,000 participants put on an enormous show of eastern pageantry. These games would be the last Summer Olympic ceremonies to occur in daylight. Their mass demonstrations and artistic displays were the most complex in Olympic history and certainly gave way to Barcelona's monumental ceremony, arguably the most important in the history of Olympic ceremonial art. Seoul did provide several lasting negative impacts including the last presentation of the "Antwerp" flag - replaced by the "Seoul" flag, and the ceremony was relegated to the Closing Ceremony; and lastly, the many pigeons burned alive in the lighting of the Olympic cauldron issued the end of the bird release, now ordered in the Olympic Charter not to include live animals but instead the release of birds would become an artistic element. Read More

The Olympics return to the birthplace of both ancient and modern games, and Athens announce the start of the XXVIII Games of the Olympiad with spectacular performances that showcase the traditional Greek culture and history. The assemblage of the past and the present is one of the main themes, to the delight of the 72,000-strong audience performers recall the glory of ancient Greek athletics and the start of the new era, the modern games. Opening Ceremony - Athens 2004 Summer Olympics Read More

The most important Olympic Ceremony in history may ultimately be the one that the future ceremonies would compare themselves to. No ceremony is currently as revered for their innovation and artistic power as the 1992 Barcelona games. This ceremony was enormous in scale, brilliant in artistry and music, and certainly laid the way for the cauldron lighting to become one of the greatest and most anticipated events in the world. Read More

The Olympics bring out the most casual of sports fans, for a variety of reasons. Some of those fans are blatantly enthralled by the storylines that network television will beat into viewers’ heads. (Underdog? History-making? A comeback for the ages? We’re bringing it to you every two years, snow or sunshine!) Others are actually thrilled to see the incredible athletic achievements in sports that rarely earn exposure in an online and 500-channel cable universe. Read More

At the time of the Sydney 2000 Opening Ceremony, it was acknowledged universally as the greatest Opening Ceremony ever. The pageantry and music were present on a most enormous scale. The Olympic Opening Ceremony had established itself as one of the world's leading and most prestigious art forms with this impressive ceremony. In addition, a competitiveness arose in how to "beat" previous ceremonies in the spectacular nature of the event. Sydney astonished the world in a most ingenious cauldron lighting and in a theatrical display that left many to wonder if this ceremony could ever be "beat". Read More

From the nation which brought you the 8,000 buried terracotta warriors of Xian in 210BC and the 7,500-mile Long March in 1934, you would anticipate nothing less than a spectacle. The ceremony that opened the 29th Olympic games last night outdid all of its predecessors in numbers, colour, noise and expense, demonstrating to the world that the new China intends to make its presence felt. Read More

This was about Great Britain; it didn't pretend it was trying to have global appeal. Because Great Britain has self-confidence, it doesn't need a monumental Olympics. But for China that was the only imaginable kind of international event. Beijing's Olympics were very grand – they were trying to throw a party for the world, but the hosts didn't enjoy it. The government didn't care about people's feelings because it was trying to create an image. Read More

Hosting the 1964 Olympic Games was hugely significant for Japan as it returned to the global stage as a peaceful, economically confident nation. It was also a massive undertaking, with some estimates suggesting Tokyo spent the equivalent of its national budget on a major building program that transformed the city’s infrastructure–a far cry from plans for a slimmed-down 2020 summer games. Read More

Seventeen days and just under $2 billion later, many consider the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, which kicked off on Feb. 12, to have been a resounding success. Others, however, remain skeptical about the lasting economic benefits of large sporting events like the Olympic Games.
Ahead of the Winter Games, the cost of building many of the facilities and infrastructure came under scrutiny with their combined price tag running into the billions of dollars. Read More