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Brandon Veale column: Doing it for the kids
Unaccompanied child performers have been featured in Olympic ceremonies for decades, symbolizing youth and tradition, with four minors lighting the cauldron, organizers said.
- Olympic opening ceremonies regularly feature unaccompanied child performers, a recurring fixture among ceremony staples and a common trigger in opening‑ceremony 'bingo' lists.
- Producers say they seek youthful theatrical impact, tracing the trend back to Sydney 2000, and can quickly find stand‑ins when slots open, organizers said.
- Eleonora Benetti, who was 9 at the 2006 Olympics, performed before 35,000 spectators and is now a professional soprano at 29.
- At Beijing, organizers faced criticism after a lip‑synch involving a recorded 9‑year‑old singer judged unsuitable to appear was revealed, prompting reputational questions.
- Such early visibility has appeared repeatedly across editions, with unaccompanied minors entrusted with roles like lighting the Olympic cauldron, including recent Games.
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Brandon Veale column: Doing it for the kids
There are many fixtures in any Olympic opening ceremony. The Olympic Flame will be carried into the stadium, oaths taken, and people will dance around in unusual costumes. But whenever I get together with you to lay out the ground rules for Opening Ceremony Bingo, one trigger is a fixture: Unaccompanied child singing or acting Youth is a popular theme for these things, and nothing gets the television audience’s attention like a theater kid. If …
·Cherokee County, United States
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Total News Sources16
Leaning Left0Leaning Right8Center3Last UpdatedBias Distribution73% Right
Bias Distribution
- 73% of the sources lean Right
73% Right
C 27%
R 73%
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