U.S. OLYMPIC FESTIVAL : There’s Ignition at the Alamodome : Opening ceremony: Scaffold catches spark from fireworks before sellout crowd in new San Antonio building.

The new Alamodome was the site of a Texas-sized comeback Friday, when the United States Olympic Festival held its opening ceremony before a sellout crowd of 62,702.

If the opening ceremony is any indication, the festival will play much better here than it did in its last try, in Los Angeles in 1991, when it suffered the worst attendance in 10 years.

The crowd at the Alamodome was twice that at the opening ceremony at Dodger Stadium.

Many of the 3,000 athletes who will compete in 37 sports over the next nine days raised their arms in appreciation as they marched into the Alamodome.

Kristi Yamaguchi, the 1992 Olympic gold medalist in figure skating, was at the ceremony, but will not compete this week.

“It’s wonderful to be back,” said Yamaguchi, who competed in the festival in 1989. “I had always loved coming to the Olympic Festival. There’s an energy in the air.”

Yamaguchi took the festival torch after swimmer Pablo Morales, the 1992 Olympic gold medalist in the 100-meter butterfly, carried it into the building. Yamaguchi handed it to Sean O’Neill, a table tennis player from McLean, Va., and Sharon Cain, a team handball player from San Antonio. They lit the festival caldron, signaling the opening of competition.

The torch lighting sparked an indoor fireworks finale, which ignited part of a scaffold. No one appeared injured before the fire was put out.

The developmental nature of the festival was exemplified just before the caldron was lit, when Yamaguchi sat next to up-and-coming figure skater Michelle Kwan, answering questions from reporters.

Kwan, 13, was visibly in awe of Yamaguchi.

Kwan, from Torrance and the youngest skater in the women’s senior division, admitted that she was nervous about the competition.

“It’s really exciting coming to (the Alamodome) and seeing this huge rink,” Kwan said.

The Alamodome contains two side-by-side ice rinks that will hold figure skating competition today and Sunday; speedskating, Monday and Tuesday; and hockey, Tuesday through Aug. 1.

Figure skating is one of the hottest tickets at the festival. More than 21,000 have been sold for Sunday’s afternoon session, eclipsing by more than 100 the festival’s previous record for an event, set at the 1987 gold medal men’s basketball game in North Carolina.

Track and field is the most star-studded event at the festival, with 16 Olympians scheduled.

In other sports, the caliber of athletes is not as great.

“The competition wasn’t exactly what I thought it would be,” said cyclist Linda Brenneman, who won the first medal of the competition when she helped her team win a time trial Friday.

Brenneman, who trains in Mission Viejo, said the athletes here seem to be more serious than at previous festivals.

They come from all walks of life.

Badminton player Traci Britton is a 40-year-old mother of three who works as an administrator for a property management company at Manhattan Beach.

Britton said that the mixture of young and old has a purpose.

“Part of the reason the older players are there is for their experience and their ability to give information to the younger players,” she said.

Moreover, thousands of athletes will exchange information in the days ahead. Some will emerge as successors to Morales and Yamaguchi. And for some, this will last a lifetime.

“It’s a good feeling,” Britton said. “I look at it as the closest to the Olympics that I’m going to get, and it’s a thrill.”