05 August,2016 12:38 PM IST | | Agencies
Due to her Rio ceremony duties, Bundchen (36) celebrated National Football League (NFL) star husband Tom Brady's 39th birthday apart. But she made it up by sending a sweet message him
Gisele Bundchen. Pic/AFP
Rio de Janeiro: Supermodel Gisele Bundchen, transgender beauty Lea T, samba dancers and possibly football great Pele in a star role will embody Brazil's multicolor glory at the Olympic opening ceremony today.
Due to her Rio ceremony duties, Bundchen (36) celebrated National Football League (NFL) star husband Tom Brady's 39th birthday apart. But she made it up by sending a sweet message him.
While Brady is at a training camp with the New England Patriots in Foxborough, a town in Massachusetts, America, Bundchen is with the couple's two kids Vivian (3) and Benjamin (6) in Rio.
"Happy birthday my love! We miss you and wish we could be with you today. Sending you all our love. May this year bring you so much joy and fulfillment. We love you!!," she captioned the picture she posted on Instagram of the two kissing at sunset.
Rio openeing ceremony meanwhile, has a hard act to follow after London 2012's alternately humorous and jaw-droppingly sophisticated version.
Gisele Bundchen. Pic/AFP
This opening ceremony, held in a country suffering its deepest recession in almost a century, will be more modest. Co-artistic chief Fernando Meirelles, who directed the hit movies "City of God" and "The Constant Gardener," has said his budget is a fraction of the London splurge.
Large audience to cater
But organisers promise to keep the more than 70,000-strong crowd in Rio's legendary Maracana stadium and the estimated three billion people watching it on television at the edge of their seats.
If Beijing 2008 was ostentatiously lavish and London quirky, Rio will try to capture Brazil's amazing diversity, love of music - and talent for fun. "We want to have the biggest party there has ever been in this country," co-artistic director Daniela Thomas says.
No one does big outdoor parties better than Rio - think of the annual Carnival - and music is at the heart of that.
Along with thousands of athletes parading behind their national flags, as well as a contingent of refugees, there'll be hundreds of performers from a dozen local samba schools singing and dancing in wild costumes.
Two icons of Brazilian popular music, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, will feature. On the more contemporary side, there'll be rappers and baile funk star Anitta.
Leaks from a closed-doors dress rehearsal on Sunday promise a run through the transformation of Brazil, including a light show to recreate the Atlantic Ocean crossed by Portuguese colonizers, depictions of slavery, a recreation of aviator Santos Dumont's flight in the plane 14 Bis, and the founding of cities.
