BEIJING – A spectacle to savor, and greater than only a visible feast, a surprising opening ceremony laden with Hangzhou traits wowed the world on Saturday, as President Xi Jinping declared the nineteenth Asian Games open.

With town’s profound historical past, tradition and its trendy picture offered in an attention-grabbing and high-tech style, the opening present on the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Centre Stadium helped to specific the host’s heat hospitality and its want to unite the world by means of sports activities.

Following a gap efficiency depicting the autumn equinox, considered one of China’s 24 photo voltaic phrases that celebrates the harvest season, over 50,000 spectators burst into cheers as Xi introduced the opening of the Hangzhou Games, making the Zhejiang provincial capital the third Chinese metropolis to host the continental sporting gala, following Beijing in 1990 and Guangzhou in 2010.

With the enormous flooring display lighting the way in which, the athletes’ parade proceeded to the melody of Our Asia, performed to the pounding beat of drums constructed within the form of osmanthus, town flower of Hangzhou, fervently extending town’s invitation to Asia’s greatest.

During the parade, pictures of iconic scenic spots at Hangzhou’s well-known West Lake had been projected onto the oval-shaped flooring display, with the scent of osmanthus sprayed out throughout the stadium, permitting marching athletes and spectators to benefit from the metropolis’s picturesque surroundings in an immersive manner.

Wang Hao, president of the nineteenth Asian Games Hangzhou Organizing Committee, stated Hangzhou is honored to play host to such a grand occasion, the place friendship and mutual respect are strengthened.

Wave of glory
By SUN XIAOCHEN | China Daily | Updated: 2023-09-24 09:13

President Xi Jinping greets spectators on the opening ceremony of the Hangzhou Asian Games on Saturday. [Photo/Xinhua]
Technology and custom mix for Hangzhou’s opening extravaganza

A spectacle to savor, and greater than only a visible feast, a surprising opening ceremony laden with Hangzhou traits wowed the world on Saturday, as President Xi Jinping declared the nineteenth Asian Games open.

With town’s profound historical past, tradition and its trendy picture offered in an attention-grabbing and high-tech style, the opening present on the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Centre Stadium helped to specific the host’s heat hospitality and its want to unite the world by means of sports activities.

Following a gap efficiency depicting the autumn equinox, considered one of China’s 24 photo voltaic phrases that celebrates the harvest season, over 50,000 spectators burst into cheers as Xi introduced the opening of the Hangzhou Games, making the Zhejiang provincial capital the third Chinese metropolis to host the continental sporting gala, following Beijing in 1990 and Guangzhou in 2010.

With the enormous flooring display lighting the way in which, the athletes’ parade proceeded to the melody of Our Asia, performed to the pounding beat of drums constructed within the form of osmanthus, town flower of Hangzhou, fervently extending town’s invitation to Asia’s greatest.

During the parade, pictures of iconic scenic spots at Hangzhou’s well-known West Lake had been projected onto the oval-shaped flooring display, with the scent of osmanthus sprayed out throughout the stadium, permitting marching athletes and spectators to benefit from the metropolis’s picturesque surroundings in an immersive manner.

Wang Hao, president of the nineteenth Asian Games Hangzhou Organizing Committee, stated Hangzhou is honored to play host to such a grand occasion, the place friendship and mutual respect are strengthened.

The digital torchbearer and Olympic swimming champion Wang Shun collectively gentle the cauldron in the course of the opening ceremony of the Hangzhou Asian Games on the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Centre Stadium on Saturday. [Photo/Xinhua]
“In this season of harvest, we give our best wishes to all the athletes and hope that they will compete with passion, challenge personal limits, strive for excellence and realize their dreams,” stated Wang, additionally governor of Zhejiang province.

“We hope that all participants will engage in closer communication, appreciate the culture of one another, build stronger friendships and find happiness during the Games.”

Raja Randhir Singh, the appearing president of the Olympic Council of Asia, confirmed appreciation for the Chinese host’s meticulous group in his speech.
“You have done a fantastic job in preparing for the Asian Games. The one-year postponement due to the pandemic was unprecedented in OCA history, but your diligence and determination will bear fruit over the next 16 days and you will be rewarded with the most magnificent and successful Asian Games ever,” stated Singh.

“The OCA salutes you! Xie Xie. Thank you.”

Supported by new applied sciences, the Hangzhou ceremony boasted many historic firsts and highlighted the sustainable and digitally enhanced way forward for such gala occasions, based on the inventive group.

For the primary time in China, organizers switched from a standard fireworks present to a digital show, projected onto an enormous curtain display the scale of 9 IMAX screens.

An inventive efficiency, themed as “Tide Surging in Asia”, captured the gang’s creativeness with breathtaking projections depicting Hangzhou’s previous and current, with glasses-free 3D animations accompanying conventional dance performances.

The design of the costumes worn by the performers was impressed by the area’s wealthy historical past and timeless grace, courting again to the Song Dynasty (960-1279), with Hangzhou’s historical arts of music, poetry and calligraphy vividly mirrored within the texture and magnificence of the clothes designed by Chu Yan, a professor at Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology.

For the finale, a whole lot of thousands and thousands of digital sparks, every representing a participant of the web torch relay, shaped the form of a human torchbearer, who bumped into the stadium to gentle the principle cauldron along with the bodily relay’s last bearer — Zhejiang native and Olympic champion swimmer, Wang Shun.

To adhere to the precept of delivering the greenest doable Games, zero-emission methanol was used to gas all the torches and the principle cauldron.