Special: The opening ceremony of the 29th Olympic Games

    WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- The opening ceremony of Beijing Summer Olympics continued to receive attention and commendations from U.S. media, which say the Beijing Games demonstrates the Olympic spirit.

    "The opening ceremonies for the 2008 Summer Olympics masterfully blended the historic richness of the Silk Road and the modern vibrancy of the hi-tech world," the USA Today reported Saturday.

    The performance at the opening ceremony "took my breath away," wrote Melinda Liu of Newsweek.

    "Beijing Olympic organizers dazzled an audience of 91,000 at the Bird's Nest stadium and another estimated 4 billion watching on television Friday with a colorful, imaginative opening ceremony that bridged ancient and modern Chinese history," the McClatchy newspapers reported Saturday.

    The ceremony has "a spectacle so grand and details so small, that it would have been shame to watch them in streaming video on a laptop," the Boston Globe reported Sunday.

    In an article titled as "Let China's Games Begin", the Time magazine said that in the ceremony, "for 60 minutes, more than 15,000 Chinese performers marched and twirled and beamed with flawless precision."

    "China's athletic ascent, like its economic growth, can only be described with superlatives," it said.

    Moreover, the article noted that the fact that more than 200 countries and regions participated the Beijing Olympic, including three first-timers, demonstrates the Olympic spirit.

    In comparison, when the first modern Olympics was held in 1896, only 14 nations participated and none of Asian countries was invited.

    It also observed that the Chinese audience gave warm and polite welcome to every delegation at the opening ceremony and four athletes from Iraq were given one of the biggest cheers of the night.

    "The Olympics may be composed of nations, but its spirit transcends nationalism," wrote the article.