Live-Blogging the Closing Ceremony

Fireworks at the National Stadium near the end of the closing ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. (Reuters/Wolfgang Rattay)
John Branch is at the Bird’s Nest stadium in Beijing, sending live updates of the closing ceremony of the 2008 Olympics. NBC will not be showing the ceremony until tonight, and Americans who are unable to pick up the Canadian telecast from CBC will not see any of it until roughly 12 hours after it happens. So, to follow the festivities live and as they happen, click “read more” and refresh often.
None of the Web sites Americans found on Aug. 8 that enabled them to watch live streams of the opening ceremony appear to be operating today. However, China state broadcaster CCTV does have a Web page that presents photos and a synopsis of each phase of the closing ceremony.
BEIJING –
Beijing goes out with a bang. See you in 2012. (Reuters/Joe Chan)
1000am ET Here comes the big finish — or, as the media guide calls it, “the grandest carnival of mankind.” There are fireworks, dancers and memory tower acrobatics. The stage is filled with performers representing 56 ethnic groups singing, “Please Stay, Guests From Afar,” a song obviously intended to limit the craziness at the Beijing airport on Monday. Add hand-held confetti cannons and — bang! — the ceremony is over. Is that right? The Olympics ended with confetti cannons? As the athletes and the fans in the stands head for the exits, there is no rest for the hundreds of dancers around the perimeter. They are waving goodbye. Still waving, still waving, still waving…
The Olympic flame is finally extinguished. (Reuters/Dylan Martinez)
937am ET They are singing a song called, “Beijing, Beijing, I love Beijing,” to the tune of “New York, New York.” (O.K., it’s a different tune.) For those singing at home, here are our favorite lyrics: “The radiance of science and technology lights up the love.” The tower is emptying, with some of the performers zip-lining down wires from the top. And another song, this one called, “The Moon Is Bright Tonight.” It is a Chinese traditional folk song, being sung by seven women in long dresses. Tell your friends tonight that they are actually animatronic. They might believe you.
Ribbons flow skyward from the “memory tower.” (Reuters/Phil Noble)
933am ET The tower is like a cylindrical stage, the performers attached by wires. And here come the “lucky cloud yarns,” 16 of them to represent the 16 days of the Olympics. They aren’t actually yarn, but giant orange and yellow ribbons that cover the tower vertically and then get pulled skyward from their bottom edge, so that they point to the sky. It is supposed to be a “lucky cloud tree symbolizing friendship and joy.” Then, “fireworks burst passionately.” Sure enough, passionate fireworks. Are there any other kind?
Wait a second — when did the flame go out?
The “memory tower,” clung to by 396 performers. (Reuters/Phil Noble)
922am ET Pictures of a Beijing 2008 airplane taxi around the upper rim of the stadium, which is like a 360-degree white screen for effects. Three athletes climb up a giant staircase (maybe Jimmy Page should have played “Stairway to Heaven”) as if to board a flight to London. The upper rim is now being used to play highlights, as the aforementioned “memory tower” ascends on the center stage. Two people in all white, like marble statues, are frozen on top, 23 meters high. And don’t look now — actually, do — but 396 “memory tower performers” have climbed the side of the tower. This looks like it might be spectacular.
Beckham does what he does best, accompanied by a string quartet dressed in skimpy running togs. (EPA/Kay Nietfeld)
920am ET The biggest cheer of the ceremony goes through the crowd. IT’S DAVID BECKHAM!! AAAAH! He has a soccer ball and kicks it into the crowd on the field, where it hits a dancer in the back of the head.
Leona Lewis and Jimmy Page. (AP/Greg Baker)
915am ET A red double-decker bus is circling the field as part of the “handover performance,” during which the Games are symbolically transferred from Beijing in 2008 to London in 2012. But this is no ordinary bus. The top is peeling back to reveal … uh … let us refer to the media guide. Oh, here come some performers. There’s Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page on the guitar playing “Whole Lotta Love.” But the woman singing is definitely not Robert Plant. It’s Leona Lewis.
A Dr. Seuss-like contraption symbolizing, what — rhythm? sportsmanship? Whoville? enters the stadium. (EPA/Nic Bothma)
The London bus at the Bird’s Nest. (Clive Rose/Getty Images)
903am ET The Olympic flag is being lowered slowly by the Guard of Honor. A chorus of 226 children, Chinese and foreign, is singing the Olympic Hymn. Come on, everyone! “Ancient immortal spirit, pure father of beauty, of greatness and of truth. Descend, reveal yourself as lightning here within the glory of your own earth and sky…” Actually, they sing it in Greek. And the best line, translated to English, is this: “At running and wrestling and at throwing, illuminate in the noble Games’ momentum, and crown with the unfading branch and make the body worthy and iron-like.” Wait. That doesn’t even rhyme. Maybe it does in Greek.
I.O.C. president Jacques Rogge, left, and Chinese president Hu Jintao. (AP/David J. Phillip)
858am ET International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge is talking, and no one can hear what he is saying in English. We’ve finally figured out the one flaw to the magnificent Bird’s Nest — it has poor acoustics for speakers. But Rogge’s words appear on one big screen in Chinese, and everyone seems really happy. And on the other big screen, the translation is in French. We’re no linguists, but we’re pretty sure the word exceptionnelle means “exceptional.”
Performers suspended in midair, perhaps representing an enraptured box lacrosse team, at the closing ceremony. (Reuters/Alfred Cheng Jin)
Marathon winner Samuel Wanjiru of Kenya after receiving his gold medal at the closing ceremony. (AP/David Phillip)
844am ET The final medal ceremony of the Olympics — alas, not for the zany pants, but for the men’s marathon. How great is that? Most medal ceremonies occur in one of the far-flung venues in front of a few thousand fans generally waiting to go home. But there is a bit of indignity for men’s marathon winner Samuel Wanjiru of Kenya. His name was spelled incorrectly, or at least differently than usual, on the big screen and on the television broadcast: Wansiru. Still, he was feted in front of a packed and attentive stadium, including all the other athletes, and however many millions of viewers around the world, with the medal presentation, the national anthem and the raising of the Kenyan flag. It does not get bigger than that. How many of the roughly 11,000 athletes were in attendance when Michael Phelps received one of his golds?
Two “heavenly drums” float above the stadium floor as some kind of human bongo cart rolls beneath. (EPA/Marcus Brandt)
Actual fireworks over the Bird’s Nest, not a digital representation. (Reuters/Christina Hu)
834am ET The flag bearers from each country enter the stadium in a pack. Unlike the Opening Ceremony, where each country is announced and the entire delegation enters, the flag bearers congregate in the middle, and athletes file in somewhat haphazardly. If nothing else, it’s a time saver, scheduled to take about 15 minutes. Canada received the gold medal in the zany-pants competition. A wave — called the “Mexican wave” in China as it is throughout most of the world, and still a relatively new phenomenon here — begins to circle the upper deck of the stadium. And the poor dancers charged with bouncing and waving colorful flags are showing signs of fatigue.
The Canadians and their zany pants. (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
815am ET Among the hundreds of performers on the field during the “Reunion, Greeting the Guests” (whatever happened to a simple: “Welcome. Can we take your coat?”) were 60 “light wheels.” They are more than six feet in diameter and have a web of light surrounding a person riding it, like a unicycle. One guy just wiped out. Doubt he’ll ever work a Closing Ceremony again.
A “light wheel” makes its entrance. (Jeff Gross/Getty Images)
Fireworks during the closing ceremony.(EPA/Michael Reynolds)
805am ET It was hard to tell if there were more fireworks in the sky or more flash bulbs popping in the stands when the ceremony began. The Chinese national anthem was sung, and China President Hu Jintao was introduced on the large screen. He has to be a happy man — these Olympics went as smoothly as anyone dared to imagine they would. China not only won the gold-medal count, with a record 51, but also pulled off what had to be the most efficiently run Games in history. And now there is drumming. And men hanging from giant drums over the field. And fireworks. And hundreds of lit-up dancers shaking rattles on their bodies. Oh, the percussion…
At the closing ceremony in Beijing. (Clive Rose/Getty Images)
PRE-CEREMONY SCENE-SETTER People are filing into the 91,000-seat National Stadium, better known as the Bird’s Nest. To pass the time, organizers brought some chaos to the field in the form of dancers, bicyclists, plate spinners and acrobats. Now the audience is practicing how to cheer and wave the colorful fans each spectator was given. It’s kind of like the warm-up act to the Closing Ceremony.
Until the real thing begins, let’s toss out some fun facts about what we’re about to see, thanks to the handy, 54-page “Closing Ceremony Media Guide.” (Yes, there is such a thing, which is how everyone reporting on the event will sound so well-informed when talking about the meaning of the “lucky cloud yarn strips” that will rise along the “memory tower.” Don’t get excited; we’re not going to spoil the secret just yet.)
There will be 4,010 costumes in 18 styles.
The creative team had 232 members. Nine of them were not Chinese.
Rehearsals began in September 2007.
And our favorite: Nineteen composers created 30 hours of music for the Closing Ceremony. (And you thought the Opening Ceremony was long.)
Stay tuned for when the real ceremony begins…
Fireworks over Tiananmen Square to mark the closing of the Olympics. (REUTERS/Carlos Barria)