Review of the opening ceremony and NBC's coverage of the opening ceremony:
NBC's coverage started at 8pm but the opening ceremony didn't start until 8:45pm. NBC decided to do interviews of USA athletes like skier Mikaela Shiffrin and her mother and ran stories on skier Lindsey Vonn and snowboarder Shaun White.
A Korean bell rang to begin the countdown to the opening ceremony. Five South Korean elementary school students guided the narrative for the ceremony. The first theme was ancient Korea vs modern technology in Korea. A white tiger was seen, the tiger represents a soothing influence for Koreans. The tiger protects Koreans against danger.
There was a scene where different landscapes of Korea were shown on the floor of the stage. The main theme were the mountains, animals and humans live in harmony and peace. Next, the South Korean President Moon Jae In and IOC President Thomas Bach were introduced.
The next segment dealt with group dynamics where a group is more important than Individuals. Drummers performed in harmony with light displays that changed into the yin/yang symbol of the South Korean flag.
Next, the South Korean flag was carried into the stadium by eight South Korean athletes. The South Korean national anthem was sung by the Rainbow Children's choir.
The parade of nations followed. There are 91 nations and 2,920 athletes competing. The order of nations was determined by the Korean alphabet. North and South Korea marched together. The United States marched under the letter "M". The United States has 242 athletes, 108 women and 134 men, which is the most athletes ever at a winter Olympics. Luger Erin Hamlin was the USA flag bearer. Canada has 225 athletes, Switzerland has 170 athletes, Olympic Athletes from Russia(OAR) has 169 athletes, Germany has 156 athletes, Korea(North and South Korea) has 143 athletes(121 from South Korea), Japan has 124 athletes, Italy has 123 athletes, Sweden has 110 athletes, Norway has 109 athletes, France has 107 athletes, Austria has 105 athletes and Finland has 102 athletes.
Next, the five young children imagine life from the present to the future. This theme depicts South Korea progressing from the Industrial revolution to the Technological revolution. The future segment was followed by four South Korean singers who sang "Imagine" while dancers formed doves on the floor of the stage.
Next, a taped segment with shooting star drones formed winter Olympic athlete figures in the air, followed skiers and formed the Olympic rings.
Then the Olympic flag was carried into the stadium by South Korean present and future stars, followed by the Olympic hymn. IOC President Bach spoke followed by South Korean President Moon Jae In who declared the games open.
Next, the torch entered the stadium by former South Korean speed skater Chun Lee Kyung. Kyung passed the torch to South Korean golfer Inbee Park who passed the torch to South Korean former soccer player Ahn Jung Hwan who passed the torch to North Korean womens hockey player Chung Su Hyon and South Korean women's hockey player Park Jung Ah. Su Hyon and Jung Ah traveled up the steps to meet final torchbearer women's South Korean figure skater Yuna Kim, who lit the torch.
The last segment NBC televised was about goblins who protected the athletes and games while occasional fireworks went off.
The ceremony depicted several themes that dealt with past and future of the South Korean people, the diversity of the people of South Korea and the technological advances South Korea has made. Peace and prosperity was another theme of this ceremony.
This ceremony was very high tech, very well organized and well done.
NBC's coverage was slightly better than the Rio 2016 Opening Ceremony, which was quite bad. There were commercials every 4-7 minutes, especially during the parade of nations. Looking at twitter complaints of NBC's coverage ranged from talking over the singing to too many commercials, to comments made by Katie Couric that weren't knowledgeable or insightful to spending too much time on Team USA. The coverage started out fine but when NBC started airing the parade of nations, they aired a commercial 4 minutes apart. In summary, NBC should have actually shown this ceremony live this morning at 6am on either NBCSN or NBC and aired it again for tape delay in prime time. NBC showed the opening ceremony 14 hours after it aired livestream. The opening ceremony was heavily edited. Mike Tirico did a fine job in his first Olympics as studio host and on the opening ceremony. I thought Katie Couric did well too.
Now if NBC would take my advice and air the opening ceremony live with limited commercial interruption and a presenting sponsor.
Photos credit: Getty Images, UPI and other media sources. For blog use only.
