Stunning ceremony welcomes Games

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Many of the world's heads of state were in the Bird's Nest stadium for a visual spectacular that was staggering in its sheer scale and imagination.

A total of 14,000 performers took part in front of 91,000 spectators and a potential TV audience of billions, and it must have been a hugely daunting sight for the observers from the London 2012 organising committee.

It was the biggest and mostly costly opening ceremony in the history of the Games, and is unlikely to ever be matched. London 2012 officials have already admitted they will not be able to commit anything like the same resources to the event in 2012.

The official opening was carried out by Hu Jintao, president of the People's Republic of China, at the end of a ceremony that lasted three and a half hours.

A blast of fireworks began the ceremony, followed by 2,008 drummers playing a fou - a Chinese percussion instrument - in perfect unison.

The spectacular continued with 29 giant firework 'footprints' - representing the number of modern Olympic Games - from the centre of Beijing to the stadium.

A fantastic light-show followed, with giant illuminated Olympic rings being raised up from the floor of the stadium and then a series of visually stunning acrobatic, artistic and aerobatic displays.

The climax was a three-minute long display involving 30,000 fireworks that almost defied imagination.