The World Comes To Vancouver

The 2010 Winter Olympics has kicked off today in Vancouver, Canada. Here's a playlist of some of the best trailers and commercials from various countries. (Total running time approx. 10.5 minutes.)

The Canadians themselves are going heavily for the patriotic approach. As a bilingual country I've also included the compare-and-contrast English and French versions of the official launch video. The Americans like to champion the human achievement angle whereas China (being the last Olympic country) revels in the beauty and spectacle of it all. The British and Germans are going for a more artistic approach. (Apparently the British trailer is also being used on Russian TV.) For Australia, of course, it's the middle of summer. There's a beautiful animation from the Olympic movement itself as well as the official opening titles from Olympic Broadcasting Services Vancover.

Oh and little kids + ice = adorably funny.

Also, the Olympics wouldn't be the Olympics without a cute mascot or 4, with these guys inspired by native Canadian legends.

These are the last Olympics before London 2012 so I wonder what we'll be coming up with? I'm off to scribble down my ideas for Percy the Trafalgar Square Pigeon!