Sochi: The 22nd Winter Olympic Games were officially opened by President Vladimir Putin witnessed by more than 40 global leaders. Festive fireworks, drama and music on Friday marked the occasion. The ceremony kicks off over two weeks of sporting action, amid tight security and lingering controversy over Russia’s gay rights laws.
President Barack Obama was not among the guests, which is being seen as a snub to the European nation for its law banning the spread of “gay propaganda†to minors.
The ceremony cost Russia an estimated $50 billion, making it the most expensive Winter Olympics in history.
AFP’s coverage of the Winter Olympics opening ceremony as it happened:
16:15 GMT – Sochi Winter Olympics opening ceremony underway
16:18 GMT -The ceremony gets with a huge, stadium-shaking fireworks display. Stunning snowscape – A magnificent set featuring mountains, islands and a snowy tundra has been revealed in the stadium with a young girl acting as our narrator apparently flying through it all, suspended from wires. She is joined on stage by a huge choir offering a dramatic, theatrical opening.
16:24 GMT – Putin and anthem – President Vladimir Putin is presented to the crowd. Everyone stands for the Russian national anthem.
16:26 GMT – The opening ceremony gets under way
16:28 GMT – Olympic ring glitch – There was a slight malfunction earlier as one of the Olympic rings didn’t open properly during the snowflake presentation.
16:33 GMT – Athletes’ parade – The athletes have started parading into the stadium. Greece then Australia, to loud cheers. It may not make sense in English but they are proceeding according to the Russian alphabet.
16:42 GMT – Festivities begin at Sochi 2014 Olympic Games
16:43 GMT – Huge cheer for the one-man Venezuelan team. Antonio Jose Pardo Andretta, a 43-year-old Alpine skier, dances with his country’s flag through the stadium.
17:05 GMT – USA, USA – Team USA emerges now — 230 members, the largest delegation ever.
The US boycotted the 1980 Moscow Games so this is their first attendance at a Games in Russia.
17:14 GMT – Ukraine cheers – Huge cheer for the Ukrainian athletes as they enter the stadium, AFP’s John Weaver tells us.
17:20 GMT – The US delegation at the opening ceremony
17:21 GMT – The crowd goes crazy as the Russian team arrives.
17:33 GMT – The Russian delegation at the opening ceremony
17:40 GMT – We’ve now moved on from the parade of the athletes to a dramatisation of illustrious parts of Russian history, recalling Peter the Great.
17:47 GMT – Natasha’s dance – Now the ceremony is referencing one of the greatest works of Russian literature, Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”.
Ballet dancers recreate one of the book’s most famous scenes in which the female heroine, Natasha Rostova, joins in a peasant dance.
17:58 GMT – Revolution and war – Back at the opening ceremony, we have moved on to the 1917 revolution.
The stadium is bathed in red light as dancers parade giant wheels and cogs, symbolising the Soviet economy.
18:04 GMT – Historical memories – A perhaps surprisingly light-hearted recollection of the Soviet Union in the mid-20th century now.
Dynamic dance moves combine with the aesthetic of 1950s propaganda posters before a new Russia is symbolically born.
We move on to pictures of the Olympic flame being carried through present-day Russia.
18:16 GMT – “Building bridges” – IOC President Thomas Bach praises Russia’s efforts in staging the Games and the volunteers who are helping to make it happen.
“Olympic Games are a sports festival embracing human diversity in great unity.”
18:25 GMT – A sculpture of a sickle during the opening ceremony
18:30 GMT – Putin opens Olympics – President Vladimir Putin has officially opened the Games.
“I declare the Olympic Games open,” Putin told the crowd.
18:54 GMT – Olympic flame lit – Irina Rodnina, Vladislav Tretyak light Sochi Winter Olympics cauldron
18:57 GMT – Huge fireworks display follows that dramatic lighting of the flame by figure skater Rodnina and ice hockey legend Tretyak.
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(PHOTO COURTESY- AFP)