Rio Olympics off with a bang in rifle event

Against a backdrop of economic and political turmoil in Brazil, the 2016 Olympic Games opened in Rio Janeiro yesterday with International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach appealing for unity in a troubled world.

Watched by an estimated global audience of close to three billion, Rio organisers produced a stunning spectacle at fabled Maracana Stadium that attacked senses right from the start with digital imagery previously unseen on such a grand scale.

It may have paled in comparison to the outrageous sums spent on Beijing’s opening ceremony in 2008 (US$100 million) and London (US$41.5 million) in 2012, but Brazil knows how to party – if you were invited.

In the city’s thousands of favelas, life was the just the same – trying to stay alive in the face of gang violence, hunger, disease and pollution.

The Hong Kong and China teams are immune to the “real” Rio, confined to the Athletes’ Village and concentrating on the task at hand – winning medals over the next two weeks.

And China started the Games with a bang, even though it wasn’t gold, in the women’s air rifle by winning two medals.

Nineteen-year-old Virginia Thrasher of the United States claimed the first Rio gold medal with her final shot in the women’s 10m air rifle event, holding her nerve to see off China’s Du Li.