[SpaciousBox]

Opening ceremony starts in 30mins, live broadcast from the BBC here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/201 ... ne_2012_hd

Just watched the torch bearer video - surprisingly awesome. Looking forward to a few weeks of some good sport!

[Daktoria]

North Korea best woman's soccer team in the world!

I saw them beat Colombia yesterday.

[Lokakyy]

BBC feed works only in UK, mate.

Most European countries can find a live feed from EBU broadcasts.

[SpaciousBox]

BBC feed works only in UK, mate.

I should have seen that coming, sorry.

This is weird, awesome, and cool so far. A History of Britain we seem to be getting at the moment, I guess that will be the theme for the evening, leading up to the modern day and games.

[Lokakyy]

The industrial part was quite spectacular, I have to admit.

[Stranger]

The hell am I watching? Regardless of political orientation, this is one serious piece of propaganda.

[SpaciousBox]

The hell am I watching? Regardless of political orientation, this is one serious piece of propaganda.

You what? We're gonna need a fair bit more explanation on this. They have kept it as politically neutral as physically possible actually...

[Stranger]

You what? We're gonna need a fair bit more explanation on this. They have kept it as politically neutral as physically possible actually...

Oh no, they didn't. It was a pretty bold advertisement for multiculturalism in my opinion. I can't say I'm surprised though, it's expected from capitalists.

[Lokakyy]

It was a pretty bold advertisement for multiculturalism in my opinion.

I'm not surprised that at least one far-right poster would be all huffed and puffed about that.

[Stranger]

I'm not surprised that at least one far-right poster would be all huffed and puffed about that.

I'm pretty sure that I'm left-wing, but it's obviously getting difficult if one doesn't fit in.

[SpaciousBox]

The authoritarian left and right agree on most everything social, just not the reasons. It's a silly comment Stranger, you know as well as I do that Britain has been a multi-ethnic society for over 50 years. Your just tugging at straws to make a point, which is really not on. This is about sport, and British culture, and it's amazing.

[Prosthetic Conscience]

Multiculturalism at a competition for the entire world? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you ... I thought it would a quick rendition of "The English, the English, the English are best" and then they'd lock out all these foreigners from the stadium, thus allowing the rightful owners of all the medals to win them.

[SpaciousBox]

Well that was freaking amazing. Though, they are now discussing on the BBC if the rest of the world would get half of it.. apparently we are a little hard to interpret at times?

[Dr House]

It was a pretty bold advertisement for multiculturalism in my opinion.

I'm not surprised that at least one far-right poster would be all huffed and puffed about that.

But it was. Did you see all the black people in the opening score? Britain is, like, 3% black.

The crowning moment of funny though: The US delegation had a greater proportion of black or mulatto people than those from: Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Numerically it probably had more black people than them all combined.

[SpaciousBox]

Lets be honest guys, there are hundreds of other topics you can derail into racial debates. Leave this one for sport discussion please.

There is a fairly user friendly schedule page on the official website, catch your fav sport and post here if it was a good one! Most of the footage is being archived for later watching and can be found online quite easily, so none of us need miss a good game or match.

http://www.london2012.com/schedule-and-results/

[Dr House]

This isn't a sports topic. No sports took place today -- just 150-odd countries showing off. Which means that we can talk about one of three things: the quality of the performance, the quirks of the nations involved, or the political implications of the event. And out of those three, two involve race, rather heavily. There's no derailment going on here.

It'll be a sports topic when the games actually start, tomorrow.

[Wolfman]

Jesus Christ, what the fuck was that? Who in the hell let you damn people have a Democracy, because that was the stupidest thing I have ever seen. What the hell did that opening ceremony have to do with the Olympics? Jesus Christ. This is why I don't watch the Olympics.

[Lokakyy]

But it was. Did you see all the black people in the opening score? Britain is, like, 3% black.

It was, I do not deny. It was a spectacle meant to open a multicultural, multinational sports event, perhaps the greatest of them all (I'm still partial with FIFA world cup) - what is to be expected, an accurate historical rendition of the British history as it happened? Of course they could've instead showed the non-white subjects of the British Empire toiling in the colonies back during the 18th century industrialisation, but that might spoil the mood.

I personally liked the opening seremony. It got kinda dull in the music section, bonus for playing clips from God Save The Queen by Sex Pistols. The entire execution was great, well done Brits.

[Prosthetic Conscience]

This isn't a sports topic. No sports took place today -- just 150-odd countries showing off. Which means that we can talk about one of three things: the quality of the performance, the quirks of the nations involved, or the political implications of the event. And out of those three, two involve race, rather heavily. There's no derailment going on here.

It'll be a sports topic when the games actually start, tomorrow.

Actually, there was a little sport today - the men's archery ranking round, in which a South Korean broke a world record - and he's legally blind:

South Korea claimed the first world records of London 2012 on Friday morning with a stunning display in the men's archery ranking round at Lord's.

Im Dong-hyun, who is registered as blind, broke his own 72-arrow mark of 696 by three points and was also part of a record in the team shoot. Im's partial sight means he shoots at the centre of a colourful blur he sees 70 metres before him.

Alongside Kim Bubmin and Oh Jin-hyek he helped register a 216-arrow total of 2,087 – smashing the world record by 18 points.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/ju ... sfeed=true

[Dr House]

Impressive.