Olympics: Beijing opens with a bang

BEIJING — Finally able to realize its dream to host the Olympic Games, the People's Republic of China showed what it could do with one National Stadium, hundreds of aerial wires, 14,000 performers, some 30,000 fireworks shells and seemingly as many LED lights equal to the dollar amount of the Beijing Olympics' estimated $40 billion budget.

Yes, the world's best athletes shared Friday night's global stage and spotlight with China — and China delivered, wowing the crowd of 91,000 and an estimated television audience of 4 billion with nonstop opening ceremonies that began with 2,008 pounding drummers and ended four hours later with a furious fireworks finale.

And that doesn't count the 75-minute pre-ceremony performance that featured nearly 30 different groups of regional and ethnic performers.

As with opening ceremonies for previous Games, Friday night's highlight was the lighting of the cauldron, done by Olympic gold-medal gymnast Li Ning.

After receiving the flame, Li was

carried by cables high above the National Stadium floor for a gravity-defying run at a 90-degree angle, sprinting along the roof's inside edge as a video-projected Chinese scroll unrolled before him en route to the cauldron.

"It shows the dream of Chinese sportsmen for generations and also the common aspirations" of the Chinese people, said Li, winner of three golds, two silvers and a bronze at the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles.

"The success of lighting the flame means the realization of China's 100-year-old dream," he added. "The flame also lights up the hope of (the Olympic motto) 'One World, One Dream."'

The ceremonies opened with drummers each pounding a "fou," a Chinese percussion instrument dating back more than 3,000 years. While drumming, they also chanted a Confucius saying, "Friends have come from afar, how happy are we."

Giant footprints made by fireworks then marched along Beijing's central axis — from the Temple of Heaven, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City and on to the stadium.

The program's first hour underscored China's heritage in pen, ink, paper and movable type, followed by sessions highlighting Chinese opera, the nation's "Silk Road" routes via land and sea, and finally Chinese rites and music.