OTRA! OTRA!
Rafael Nadal, Spain's flag-bearer for a second time, was grinning behind the scenes before walking into Maracana.

He is pleased to return to the Olympic Games after missing out of London 2012 because of injury.

"Very happy to be here, really glad," he said before exiting with the flat aloft. "It's something for every sportsman to be proud of, and of course, especially for me after not being in London." 

JUST ONE WILL DO IT
Rosie MacLennan claimed Canada's only gold medal at London 2012. The trampoline gynmast was selected as Canada's flag-bearer. 

Incredibly, Canada won a medal in men's football at the first Olympic Games they attended. No, not hockey. Football. It was at St. Louis 1904 and Canada also won gold in men's lacrosse.

LIFETIME HONOUR
Germany flag-bearer Timo Boll said he is feeling the emotion of this tremendous moment. He was voted flag-bearer by his team-mates.

"It was a great feeling already to be on the list and then to be elected was even better. I did not expect that. It was speechless.

"This moment alone was a highlight for me in my career."

Boll, a table tennis player, is an athlete with one of the founding nations of the Olympic Games. Germany competed at the first Games in 1896 in Athens. 

HAPPY HATTERS
The ambulantes (on-foot salesman) that peddle their wares on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro are such a vital part of carioca culture that they were officially designated part of the city's cultural heritage in 2012. During the parade of nations, they are handing out souvenirs - such as hats, cangas (beach towells), sunglasses and even bikinis to the athletes. (Photo: Rio 2016/Alex Ferro)

MESSAGE FOR MUM
Canoe slalom athlete Ella Nicolas was selected as the flag-bearer for the Cook Islands. She got the news from her mother, Sue, who made a last-minute trip to Brazil to see her daughter compete.

"I'm pretty excited," said Nicolas. "It was my mum who rung me and told me.

"She's been sick for a while but the doctors gave her permission to come to Brazil and she is somewhere in Rio with my sister watching on a big screen. That makes it extra special."

ARGENTINA DRAWS A CHEER AT MARACANA
Basketball star and Argentina flag-bearer Luis Scola said he took great pride in carrying his country's flag tonight, particulary because of several key audience members. 

"I was a bit fortunate to be the flagbearer in Brazil," he said. "So close to home, so my family could be here.

"The fact that I'm a flagbearer is very important. It's a great accomplishment. It's one of the highlights of my career "

DOING IT FOR THE GIRLS
For the first time in Australian Olympic history, the delegation is sending more women than men to the Olympic Games. There are 215 women and 206 men at Rio 2016.

FROM A TO ZED... EM PORTUGUÊS
The athletes enter Maracana in alphabetical order, but there's a hitch. We use the host country's language, which is Portuguese. 

SEEDS OF HOPE
We're about to welcome somewhere in the region of 10,000 athletes into the stadium, but if you thought they were just going to wave some flags about and smile a lot, you thought wrong.

For the first time, the opening ceremony athletes are being given an extra job. They will each be handed seeds and a small cartridge to plant a tree. 

The towers which moments ago symbolised urban claustrophobia will house the seeds, which will grow into the Athletes’ Forest in the area of Deodoro. This will be Rio 2016's legacy. 

DO YOU WANT THE GOOD NEWS OR THE BAD NEWS?

The bad news is beamed around the stadium via NASA satellite images showing the melting polar ice caps, increasing global temperatures, rising sea levels and their effect on coastal cities. The message at the heart of this ceremony is being soberly hammered home.

The good news is that it's not too late. We're shown images of great reforestation projects around the world. It is a message not of doom, but of hope.

And now: poetry. 

"A flower has sprouted in the street!" exclaims the famous poem 'Flower and Nausea' by Carlos Drummond de Andrade. 

Oscar nominee Fernanda Montenegro narrates, while the English translation is recited in the unmistakable voice of Dame Judi Dench. You know, from the James Bond films?

LEGACY FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS
The athletes will leave behind their best efforts on the field of play and a growing forest in Rio de Janeiro.

AFTER-PARTY
And now, the comedown. 

Remember the tree from earlier? There was a reason that was there.

There are a lot of trees in Brazil - more than 300 billion, at the latest count - and they are rather important to the world's health. 

Inside the Maracana, we see a solitary boy lost in a maze of towers and we're delivered some "bad news" about the state of our planet.

It turns out Daniela Thomas has bigger plans for this evening than a bit of singing and dancing. 

She told Rio 2016: “These hard towers with their reflective surfaces are very much like the buildings in the centre of cities all over the planet, a symbol of capitalism. And we’re going to break it. We want a rupture, a transformation.” 
 

PARTY O'CLOCK
The evening is becoming increasingly raucous and psychedelic. There are 1,500 dancers having a party on the stage and thousands more joining them in the stands. It's bedlam, in a good way.

It's all happening over in Box City too. The dismembered fingers and thumbs of an oversized hand sprout up from three of the stages.

And... is that a massive inflatable chicken? Yes. Yes it is.

Anyone who has seen the classic favela movie City of God might remember there was a heroic chicken in that too. (And it's safe to say the ceremony's creative director Fernando Meirelles has - he directed it.)

The party ends with a flurry of spectacular fireworks. The performers leave the stage, but the crowd are still singing a capella. Goosebumps time.

NORTHERN SOUL
The stage has been invaded by two groups of fantastical figures. One group wears waistcoats made exclusively from ringpulls, while the other resembles a gang of angry Ewoks. 

The “ewoks” are known as the Bate-Bolas and they hail from the suburbs of Rio, while the others are doing a rival 'Maracatu' dance, from the state of Pernambuco. Traditionally, these groups don't like each other very much, and they're dancing around aggressively to make this point.

Next up, the band Gang do Eletro from Belem, Para state, take the stage to thunderous acclaim.

Director Fernando Meirelles told Rio2016.com: “We thought it better not to just have big stars at the ceremony; we want popular culture as well. Belem is incredible, there’s a great cultural effervescence. That’s why we decided to bring a little of the north to Rio de Janeiro.”

If you like their costumes, you may be interested to know they were made with hand-painted tuile fabric, and with a glue "that takes a month to dry", according to Claudia Kopke.
 

WHAT’S THAT SONG?
“País Tropical” by Jorge Ben Jor

Is your spirit soaring? Can you feel the love of thousands of cariocas in Maracana and Brazilians around the country?

Musician Jorge Ben Jor’s “País Tropical” is a love song for this “Tropical Country,” that celebrates a land “blessed by God, naturally beautiful and what a beauty it is…” The lyrics you hear repeating are “Em fevereiro, em fevereiro / Tem carnaval, tem carnaval,” which rejoice in the month of February, the time of Brazil’s renowned carnival.