2004 Summer Olympics opening ceremony 2004 Summer Olympics opening ceremony The opening ceremony of the 2004 Summer Olympic Games was held on August 13, 2004 at the Olympic Stadium in Maroussi, Greece, a suburb of Athens. 72,000 spectators attended the event, with approximately 15,000 athletes from 202 countries participating in the ceremony as well. It marked the first-ever international broadcast of high definition television, undertaken by the U.S. broadcaster NBC and the Japanese broadcaster NHK. The opening ceremony began with a twenty-eight second countdown—one second per Olympics held since Athens last hosted the first modern games—paced by the sounds of an amplified heartbeat played by
2012 Summer Paralympics opening ceremony Ryan writing for the same paper notes that "it was a seismic beginning for an opening ceremony that seemed smaller than its Olympic counterpart one month ago. It seemed lower key, perhaps, with less fanfare and more poignancy than brash spectacle. But by midnight, wonder was literally flying through the air." Ryan states that the ceremony "was beauty, a thrust of anger, and a spotlight on athletes too often in the shade." Ryan notes that the ceremony was thoughtful and combined emotional and complex ideas with the mystical. Concluding Ryan notes that Miranda smashing the ceiling was fiction but "in