2014 Winter Olympics opening ceremony

2014 Winter Olympics
opening ceremony

Fisht Olympic Stadium being built
Date	7 February 2014 (2014-02-07)
Time	8:14pm - 11:02pm MSK (UTC+4)
Location	Sochi, Russia
Coordinates	43°24′08″N 39°57′22″E / 43.4022667°N 39.9561111°E / 43.4022667; 39.9561111Coordinates: 43°24′08″N 39°57′22″E / 43.4022667°N 39.9561111°E / 43.4022667; 39.9561111
Filmed by	[One Channel Russia]][citation needed] OBS

Part of a series on

2014 Winter Olympics Bid process (bid details) Development (venues, torch relay) Marketing (mascots) Broadcasters Opening ceremony (flag bearers) Chronological summary Medal table (medallists) World and Olympic records Concerns and controversies (anti-gay laws protests) Closing ceremony (flag bearers) Paralympics IOC ROC SOOC v t e

The opening ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics took place at the Fisht Olympic Stadium in Sochi, Russia, on 7 February 2014. It began at 20:14 Moscow Time (UTC+4) and finished at 23:02 Moscow Time (UTC+4).^[1] This was the first Winter Olympics and first Olympic Games opening ceremony under the IOC presidency of Thomas Bach.^[2][3][4]

The event was officially opened by President Vladimir Putin. An audience of 40,000 were in attendance at the stadium with an estimated 2,000 performers.^[5]

Proceedings

The Russian pop duo t.A.T.u. performed in part of the opening day festivities.^[6]

The Olympic Oath on behalf of all athletes was Ruslan Zakharov (Short-track), Vyacheslav Vedenin took the oath for all judges and Anastasia Popkova took the oath for all coaches. The final six torch bearers in order of entrance were: Maria Sharapova, Yelena Isinbayeva (also the ceremonial mayor of Olympic Village), Alexander Karelin, Alina Kabaeva, Irina Rodnina and Vladislav Tretiak. Tretiak walked with the flame alongside Rodnina, and the two then jointly lit the Olympic cauldron installed at the Sochi Medals Plaza in the Sochi Olympic Park. ^[7] This was followed by a fireworks display across the area around Fisht Olympic Stadium, including the other sporting venues.

Program

Opening section

An on-screen video showed 11-year-old Liza Temnikova playing a character named Lyubov (Russian for 'love') reciting the Russian Alphabet with a reference to Russia with each letter. The scene then imagined Lyubov asleep and dreaming, then grabbing the tail of a kite and being lifted far off the stage. Nine different landscapes floated past her to represent the diversity of Russia. Five large snowflakes descended into the stadium which expanded and joined to form the Olympic rings. However, a malfunction meant that one of the snowflakes failed to open. Finally, three large renditions of the mascots representing the games entered the stadium.^[8][9]

National anthem

A men's choir sang the Russian national anthem with 240 volunteers wearing glowing suits of red, white and blue to represent the Russian flag, they then moved up and down to create a waving flag motion.^[10]

Parade of the Nations

The participating countries marched in, with Greece coming first, then the other nations ending with the host nation, Russia. The teams entered in alphabetic order of their country names in Russian. The names of the nations were announced first in French, followed by English and finally in Russian, representing the official languages of the Olympics and the language of the host nation.^[11]

The floor of the stadium transformed into a large screen portraying a satellite map of the country parading, along with the name of the nation in the three languages. The teams entered the stadium from the ground and walked either left or right in order to speed up the parade.

Dignitaries and other officials in attendance

About 66 leaders from different states and organisations attended the ceremony according to the arrangers.^[12] They include

•  Afghanistan: President Hamid Karzai^[12]
• Azerbaijan: President Ilham Aliyev, First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva^[13]
• Belarus: Alexander Lukashenko^{[citation needed]}
• People's Republic of China: President Xi Jinping^[14]
• Estonia: Prime MinisterAndrus Ansip^[15]
• Greece: President Karolos Papoulias
• Italy: Prime Minister Enrico Letta^[14]
• Japan: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe^[14]
• Latvia: President Andris Bērziņš^[16]
• Lithuania: Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevičius^[16]
• Macedonia: President Gjorge Ivanov^[17]
• Monaco: Prince Albert and Princess Charlene^[18]
• Morocco: President of the Government Abdelilah Benkirane^[19]
• Netherlands: King Willem-Alexander, Queen Máxima, Prime Minister Mark Rutte^[20]
• Romania: Prime Minister Victor Ponta^{[citation needed]}
• Serbia: President Tomislav Nikolić, Minister of Youth and Sports Vanja Udovičić^[21][22]
• Switzerland: President Didier Burkhalter^[23]
• Turkey: Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan^[14]
• Ukraine: President Viktor Yanukovych^[24]
•  United Nations: Secretary General Ban Ki-moon^[14]

Politicians declining to attend the ceremonies

•  Canada: Prime Minister Stephen Harper, citing the fact that Canadian Prime Ministers do not typically attend the Winter Games outside of Canada^[25]
•  France: President François Hollande, not citing any reason.^[26]
•  Germany: President Joachim Gauck, not citing any reason. However the national human rights commissioner Markus Loening said that it a "wonderful gesture."^[27]
•  Lithuania: President Dalia Grybauskaite, citing Russia's "attitude toward Eastern partners and economic sanctions against Lithuania"^[28]
•  United Kingdom: Prime Minster David Cameron, citing a scheduling conflict and the fact that no British Prime Minister has attended the Winter Games^[29]
•  United States: President Barack Obama, citing a desire to not distract from competitions^[30]

Anthems

• Moscow State Chamber Choir conducted by Vladimir Minin - National Anthem of Russia^{[citation needed]}
• Anna Netrebko - Olympic Anthem^{[citation needed]}

References

External Links

• Official Site
• CrowdAlbum of fan photos