1988
Opening Ceremony of the 1988 Olympics in Seoul with the Olympic Cauldron
Olympic Ceremony Recordsitalics indicate records at the time
- Last Opening Ceremony Held Entirely in Daylight
- First Parade of Ships
- First Cauldron Lit Using Hydraulic Lift
- First Parachute Stunt
- First Cauldron Lit by Three Torchbearers
- Most Performers (13,625)
- Most Nations Participating (160) - previous Los Angeles 1984 (140)
- Most Olympic Events (263) - previous Los Angeles 1984 (221)
- Most Athletes Participating (8,391) - previous Munich 1972 (7,170)
September 17, 1988
Video (viewer's guide below in Ceremony Highlights)
Official Report
(Hundreds of photos; click the black arrow for larger view)
Opening Ceremony Highlights
The Opening Ceremony of the Games of Seoul were massive by any standard. Over 13,000 participants put on an enormous show of eastern pageantry. These games would be the last Summer Olympic ceremonies to occur in daylight. Their mass demonstrations and artistic displays were the most complex in Olympic history and certainly gave way to Barcelona's monumental ceremony, arguably the most important in the history of Olympic ceremonial art. Seoul did provide several lasting negative impacts including the last presentation of the "Antwerp" flag - replaced by the "Seoul" flag, and the ceremony was relegated to the Closing Ceremony; and lastly, the many pigeons burned alive in the lighting of the Olympic cauldron issued the end of the bird release, now ordered in the Olympic Charter not to include live animals but instead the release of birds would become an artistic element.
VIEWER'S GUIDE (moment of event in film above)
- Han River Parade - parade of ships (0:33)
- "Greeting the Sun" artistic program
- "Dawn Road" - modern interpretation of cleaning the ground for the ceremony (6:34)
- "Dragon Drum Procession" (14:30)
- "Heaven, Earth, and Man" - dance of Korean nymphs and Greek maidens around the World Tree (19:23)
- "Finale" - Modern dance forming "88" and "Welcome" (23:55)
- Olympic Fanfare by Kim Chung-gill
- President of Korea and dignitaries arrive
- "Welcome" performance forming the word
- Parade of Nations (34:14)
- President of Korea declares the games open (37:00)
- Olympic Flag enters the stadium and is raised to the Olympic Hymn; pigeons released; Olympic Rings formed by skywriting airplanes (39:00)
- Torch enters to "Prometheus" by Kang Suk-hee and is lit by Chung Sunman, Kim Wontak, and Sohn Kee-chung (47:50)
- Athlete's and Official's Oaths
- National Anthem (53:00)
- Athletes exit; "Great Day" artistic program
- Tent Dance and Parachute Stunt (54:20)
- Flower Dance - dance for peace (1:03:12)
- Chaos - Mask dance; giant balloons, mask poles with traditional Korean masks (1:09:40)
- Beyond All Barriers - Taekwondo demonstration (1:14:30)
- Silence - Child rolling a hoop runs to the torch stand (1:21:00)
- New Sprouts - Children play together (1:21:50)
- Confrontation - Konori rope battle (1:26:30)
- "One World" (1:35:00)
- Modern dance
- Parade of national flowers of countries that have hosted the Olympics
- Parade of Olympic Mascots
- Float Parade of the 1988 Mascots
- Folk dance performance of 12 countries
- "Hand in Hand" sing-a-long
- "Spring in Hometown" sung by children's chorus
Gold Medal from the 1988 Olympics in Seoul
Olympic Torch from the 1988 Olympics in Seoul
Official Poster of the 1988 Olympics in Seoul
Artistic Portion of the Olympic Opening Ceremony in Seoul 1988
Artistic Portion of the 1988 Olympic Opening Ceremonies in Seoul
OLYMPIC CEREMONY DATABASE 1896 - 1900 - 1904 - 1906 - 1908 - 1912 - 1916 - 1920 - 1924 - 1928 - 1932 - 1936 - 1940 - 1944 - 1948 - 1952 - 1956 Equestrian - 1956 - 1960 - 1964 - 1968 - 1972 - 1976 - 1980 - 1984 - 1988
