VANCOUVER — The snowboarder perched precariously atop the mountain flew down the peak on video, then leaped into the domed stadium to the thunderous applause of a nation.
Canada’s indigenous people danced and sang in native costumes, and special lighting gave the appearance of whales swimming just under the surface of the floor.
Finally, the opening ceremony kicked off a Winter Olympics that needed to feel good about itself again. The walk-up to the Games has ranged from disappointing to tragic, and no day was worse than Friday.
Casting a pall on the ceremony and possibly the entire Olympics, a 21-year-old luger from the republic of Georgia died Friday morning during a horrific crash on a training run. The remaining six-athlete Georgia team considered withdrawing from the Games before marching to thunderous applause later that night.
An hour before the opening ceremony began, a mob of loud, angry Olympics protesters had an ugly faceoff with two rows of police outside BC Place, site of the first indoor opening ceremony in Olympic history. They topped a long day of protests that peppered downtown Vancouver.
Combined with fog that canceled a third straight day of skiing training runs, the kickoff to these Olympics needed to be huge and successful.
It reflected the mood: subtle and respectful.
The inside of the 27-year-old, 60,000-seat stadium was blanketed in what looked like a bed of snow. A white ruffled carpet covered the floor, and each spectator wore a white poncho provided in a spectator kit, producing a near-complete whiteout.
Olympic rings each 23 feet in diameter and weighing 4,409 pounds hung above the snowboarder’s makeshift ski jump.
The ceremony had a heavy Native Canadian theme. Four statues representing the Four Host First Nations, the indigenous people from the Games’ sites, stretched to the stadium’s upper deck.
Surrounding them came Canada’s aboriginal youth, who danced throughout the entire parade of athletes. They only stopped once, when the Georgian team entered.
The opening ceremony was dedicated to Nodar Kumaritashvili, the Georgian luger.
The Georgian delegation wore black stripes on their outfits to honor Kumaritashvili and walked slowly and solemnly to a standing ovation. The Canadian and Olympic flags were lowered to half-staff, and the Georgian flag was raised immediately after all 2,500 parading athletes from 82 countries took their seats.
Vancouver Organizing Committee president John Furlong told the athletes, “May you carry his Olympic dream on your shoulders and carry his Olympic spirit in your hearts.” The ceremony also featured a moment of silence.
Athletes’ outfits were not altered by the Olympics’ first indoor opening ceremony in the warmest Winter Games city in history. Many members of the former Soviet republics wore large, furry Cossack hats, and other teams wore heavy parkas, including the United States, which also donned white turtleneck sweaters and white moose-adorned stocking caps.
The two-member Bermuda team wore its traditional Bermuda shorts.
The biggest cheers, besides the roar for Canada and Georgia, came for the United States, with Jamaica and France filling out the top five.
Carrying the U.S. flag was bobsledder Mark Grimmette, in his fifth Olympics.
Former Colorado Avalanche star Peter Forsberg carried the flag for Sweden.
The rest of the show played on Canada’s natural wonders.
A man who looked like a cross between the devil and the man from “Fiddler on the Roof” played a violin on a blue-illuminated canoe suspended and lifted into the roof.
Canada’s rich music tradition received a big stage, with performances by Bryan Adams, Nelly Furtado, Sarah McLachlan and k.d. lang.
The protests outside turned out to be a noisy backdrop instead of a disruption to the opening ceremony, which wasn’t unexpected. The organizing committee had dedicated a nearby area for organized protests.
But Friday’s mob moved quickly to a corner of Robson and Beatty, near the arch in front of the stadium. Many Canadians are furious over the $3.45 billion being spent on the Games, when the poorest postal code in Canada is five blocks away, in the Downtown Eastside.
No violence was reported, but the mob of a couple hundred chanted, “No Olympics on our native land!”
One of the many signs read, “We’re for sport, not for theft.”
The only hitch seemed to come at the climax of the ceremony, which called for the Olympic cauldron to be lit jointly by four Canadian sports heroes — all-time hockey great Wayne Gretzky, skier Nancy Greene, speedskater Catriona LeMay Doan, and basketball all-star Steve Nash. But one giant component out of four failed to rise from the stadium floor, and LeMay Doan was unable to use her torch.
Later, a second, far-larger cauldron was to be lit by Gretzky in a plaza along the downtown waterfront — giving Vancouver a visible symbol for the rest of the Games that the indoor stadium could not provide.
John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
