SPECTACLE – AND TRAGEDY – OPEN BEIJING OLYMPICS

As the world was still catching its breath from Friday's spectacular Olympic ceremony opening, news surfaced from Beijing that on the first day of the competition Saturday, a knife-wielding Chinese man stabbed two relatives of a coach for the U.S. Olympic men's volleyball team at one of the city's tourist sites.
One was killed and the other injured, according to team officials and state media. The assailant then killed himself by jumping from the second story of the site, a 13th century Drum Tower, the Associated Press reports.
The midday incident was all the more shocking due to increased security for the games as well as the infrequency of violent crime against foreigners in tightly controlled China. "They are deeply saddened and shocked," Darryl Seibel, a spokesman for the U.S. Olympic Committee, said of the volleyball team.
The tragedy stood in marked contrast to Friday's ceremony, in which some 5,000 years' worth of Chinese culture, history and technology dazzled an estimated worldwide audience of 4 billion people, as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad officially were launched.
During the elaborate spectacle, a giant globe rose from the floor of the National Stadium (an architectural wonder simply called the Bird's Nest), and a glittering fireworks' display extended as far over the city to the ancient Great Wall, as if to illuminate the entire country.
Fireworks explode over the National Stadium, also known as the Bird's Nest, during the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Photo by: Goff / INF

People