Opening
The Olympic opening ceremonies represent the official commencement of an Olympic Games. In recent Olympics, athletic competition began prior to the opening ceremonies. For example, the football competitions for both men and women at the 2008 Summer Olympics began two days prior (August 6) to the opening ceremonies. As mandated by the Olympic Charter, various elements frame the Opening Ceremonies of a celebration of the Olympic Games. Most of these rituals were canonized at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium.
Read more about this topic: Olympic Games Ceremony
Famous quotes containing the word opening:
“Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.”
—Bible: Hebrew Proverbs, 6:6.
The words were rendered by Samuel Johnson in the opening lines of The Ant: “Turn on the prudent ant thy heedful eyes, Observe her labours, sluggard, and be wise.”
“She tried to found a salon, and only succeeded in opening a restaurant.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“The Heavens. Once an object of superstition, awe and fear. Now a vast region for growing knowledge. The distance of Venus, the atmosphere of Mars, the size of Jupiter, and the speed of Mercury. All this and more we know. But their greatest mystery the heavens have kept a secret. What sort of life, if any, inhabits these other planets? Human life, like ours? Or life extremely lower in the scale. Or dangerously higher.”
—Richard Blake, and William Cameron Menzies. Narrator, Invaders from Mars, at the opening of the movie (1953)