The "colour, noise and goodwill on show during the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games was punctured when the Belarus team mounted a protest" against the Int'l Paralympic Committee’s decision to ban Russia from Rio 2016, according to Jacob Steinberg of the London GUARDIAN. IPC President Philip Craven had "earlier strongly defended the Russian Paralympic Committee’s total exclusion from the Paralympics." However, Belarus "defied the IPC and risked sanctions by carrying a Russian flag into the Maracanã stadium during the parade of athletes." The flag was "later confiscated and the IPC is understood to be considering how to proceed." At the opening ceremony, a "magnificent display of fireworks were set off on the roof of the stadium, leading in to samba music and groups of singers and musicians in the middle of the arena." Wheelchairs were an "integral part of the evening, with a tribute made in the form of a Samba circle." There "was beauty, too, and it was impossible not to be moved by an immaculate performance of the Brazilian national anthem by João Carlos Martins, a classical pianist who received a huge ovation as the performers on the stage came together to form a Brazilian flag." The mutiny from Belarus was "not a total surprise" given that Belarusian Paralympic Committee Chair Oleg Shepel reportedly said that he "wanted to show solidarity with the 267 banned Russian athletes last month." While the "show of defiance from Belarus took attention away from the spectacle of the opening ceremony," at least the IPC and the Rio 2016 organizing committee could "take encouragement from the way that locals embraced the Paralympic spirit on Brazilian Independence Day, even though the stadium only looked about three quarters full" (GUARDIAN, 9/7). REUTERS' Rogovitskiy & Downie reported a member of the Belarus delegation who carried a Russian flag at the Paralympic opening ceremony to "support his country's near-neighbor has been kicked out of the games." The man, identified by Russian media as Andrei Fomochkin, director of the republican center of Olympic training for athletics in Belarus, was "hailed as a hero by both Russian and Belarusian officials." But his "action fell foul" of the IPC's ban on political gestures. The IPC said, "The IPC will be speaking to NPC Belarus this morning to remind them that political protests are forbidden at the Paralympic Games" (REUTERS, 9/8).
DEFYING EXPECTATIONS: In London, Richard Amofa reported the Paralympic Games in Rio opened with a "feat to defy expectations in a carnival atmosphere" at the Maracanã Stadium. Craven "journeyed from the Paralympic movement's birthplace of Stoke Mandeville in Buckinghamshire in an introductory video." There was an "audible gasp in the 78,000-seat stadium as someone in a wheelchair propelled themselves down a six-storey high ramp and through a hoop." It was not Craven, a former Paralympic swimmer and wheelchair basketball player "who had done his best James Bond impersonation," but extreme wheelchair athlete Aaron Fotheringham (
TELEGRAPH, 9/8). Also in London, Mark Sweney reported Channel 4’s coverage of the opening ceremony "peaked at just over 2 million viewers, a fraction of the number that tuned into the home games in London four years ago." Channel 4 drew an average audience of just 1.3 million viewers "across its entire coverage of the ceremony" from 9pm to 1:30am, a 12.3% share of the total U.K. TV audience. The coverage "had 15-minute peak viewing" of 2.1 million around 10pm and a 5-minute peak of 2.3 million. The London opening ceremony "attracted an average of 7.6 million viewers, and a 15-minute peak of 10.9 million," with an overall 40% share of total TV viewing from 8pm to 12:20am (
GUARDIAN, 9/8).
