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High technology drove epic Games opening

— Photo: Xinhua

Hi-tech assistance: Visually-handicapped people listen to the live broadcast of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony via the computer at a network training centre in Yichang City, in Hubei Province. The centre, with all computers installed with special software, offers free services for the visually-handicapped people during the Olympic Games.

BEIJING: Gymnast Li Ning’s lighting of the Olympic cauldron, after “space walking” around the inner wall at the top of the National Stadium, was a perfect finishing touch to the dazzling opening epic of the Beijing Games.

Mr. Li was suspended by wire and lifted in the air for the “space walk.” Images of worldwide torch relay were projected on the screen before he used his torch to light a wick that led to the cauldron. Directors of opening ceremony employed high technologies to conjure a magic, dream-like start of the Olympics on Friday.

Five thousand years of Chinese history flowed on a huge scroll that unrolled to chapters of China’s 5,000-year civilisation. “We combined creativity with the most complicated technologies in Olympic history to maximise the visual and sensory impact on the audience,” said Yu Jianping, technical team leader for the opening. Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) were installed across the 20,000-square-metre Bird’s Nest to create an ideal multimedia environment, with storage cells backing up electricity supplies.

Four years ago, Athens opened the Games with a dreamlike Aegean Sea. On Friday, Beijing opened a scroll to present China’s history.

The scroll and a “globe” made of aluminium alloy rose from elevating platforms, and performers walked and did all stunts on nine tracks of the “globe.” Throughout the performances, high technology went hand in glove with traditional Chinese culture: performance of the movable type printing, one of the four great inventions of ancient China, took an image of both ancient Chinese character case and modern computer keyboard; fairies fell from the sky, costumes glowing with light, to represent “Apsaras,” an image in the mural paintings of Mogao Grottoes of Dunhuang in Gansu Province.

For the first time ever in Olympic openings, Beijing used a technical monitoring system for programme control of more than 18,000 performers through their identification codes. “The Beijing Olympics opening features dozens of new technologies developed in many areas,” said Yu Jianping. Cellular materials designed for the space sector, for example, were used to make paper in the painting scroll, he said. The control centre of the opening ceremony was equipped with the “Shenzhou 4000” control system that was used during space missions.

Fireworks were a highlight of the Beijing Olympics opening, with a “waterfall of stars” flowing down the interior walls of the Bird’s Nest, the Olympics’ 29 colossal burning footsteps toward Beijing and the five Olympic rings in the sky. Behind the dazzling show were sophisticated new technologies — compressive air launches, chamber pressure launches and computerised ignition technologies. — Xinhua

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