When organisers first revealed plans to carry the opening ceremony alongside the river within the coronary heart of the town, slightly than in a stadium as is common, there have been some raised eyebrows and questions over how they might handle such an enormous safety operation.
The Seine itself had been beneath scrutiny for water cleanliness, whereas merely the logistics of transporting 1000’s of athletes alongside a six-kilometre stretch of river and not using a gown rehearsal appeared bold.
However on Friday night, backed by a safety operation involving tens of 1000’s of police, Paris pulled it off its plan in dazzling trend.
At instances it was weird – one second Woman Gaga surrounded by pink and black feathers was singing in French, the following Bangladesh’s athletes had been being launched on their boat.
A number of the time it was brilliantly frenetic and at others, emotional.
There was ballet, cancan, opera, well-known paintings coming to life and even Minions – and occasionally a masked torchbearer was proven operating throughout rooftops and even zip-lining, whereas the flotilla made its manner from Austerlitz Bridge to Pont d’Iena.
The boats with flag-waving athletes handed well-known landmarks just like the Louvre museum, Eiffel Tower, Grand Palais and Arc de Triomphe and had been handled to 12 creative segments.
One phase targeted on rebuilding Notre Dame, which was broken in a hearth in 2019. A big troupe of dancers had been accompanied by music composed utilizing sounds captured from the enduring cathedral’s reconstruction.
One other explored French historical past, with costumed singers performing music from Les Miserables and a choir of headless Marie Antoinettes accompanying French heavy metallic band Gojira.
French-Malian R&B star Aya Nakamura – the world’s most-streamed French-language artist – was among the many musical acts.
The ceremony ended within the Trocadero, the place the close by Eiffel Tower lit up, with the flame – which had been on an elaborate journey with a masked torchbearer and a mechanical horse – being handed to sporting greats Zinedine Zidane, Rafael Nadal, Nadia Comaneci and Serena Williams.
The quartet carried the flame on a ship in the direction of the Louvre, the place a sequence of French athletes and para-athletes previous and current – together with 100-year-old gold-medal bicycle owner Charles Coste – carried it and finally handed it to Riner and Perec.
And simply while you thought the ceremony couldn’t get any extra beguiling, the pair lit the 30-metre excessive sizzling air balloon that now seems like it’s floating above the town.
However there was yet one more magical second to return, with Dion thrilling the crowds on the Eiffel Tower with a robust rendition of Edith Piaf’s L’Hymne a l’amour in her first efficiency since revealing a critical neurological situation in December 2022.
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