206 participating countries are now preparing to witness the opening ceremony of 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro Brazil, August 5 evening (August 6 morning, Philippine Time).
There are still no details now with regards to individual performances, but there’s enough leaked information from rehearsals to get a general idea of what Friday’s festivities will look like.
11, 178 athletes are confirmed to participate in 306 events in 42 sport disciplines. It will be held in 37 venues in the host city, Rio de Janeiro.
For now, this is considered the ‘sexiest’ opening ceremony in history of games in the world. Organizers are planning on showcasing Brazil’s love of samba and its annual carnival with costumes that celebrate the human figure. The Samba hails from ancient African beats and customs.
According to some sources, there will be lots of nearly naked women doing the samba. The costumes have been designed to show off as much flesh as possible which means as little material as they can get away with.
Supermodel Gisele Bundchen will be involved the whole program in some way, but it’s not yet clear what role she will have.
Soccer legend Pele has been offered the honour of lighting the Olympic flame and is expected to grace the event.
Other celebrities to be included in the ceremony are actors Judi Dench and Fernanda Montenegro who will read a poem), singers Caetano Veloso, Elza Soares, Gilberto Gil, and transgender model Lea T.
On the other hand, there will be less budget needed for the opening ceremony on Friday because the funds was slashed.
From the original $113.9 million, it became $55.9 million and this will be good for four ceremonies, including the opening and closing for the Olympics and Paralympics.
According to the creative director Fernando Meirelles, there is an estimated 12 times less money spent in Rio de Janeiro games than in London and 20 times less than Beijing.
Few days ago, some competition are already underway, but we’re still awaiting the official start of the Summer Games — the opening ceremony of the 2016 Rio Olympics.
