Fleet of 85 boats carrying athletes along river Seine marked beginning of Games of the 33rd Olympiad
The 2024 Olympics have kicked off in Paris with a spectacular night of music, performance and pyrotechnics in the French capital.
Sat Jul 27 2024 - 08:15
French president Emmanuel Macron declared the Paris 2024Olympic Games open on Friday after a soaking wet ceremony in which athletes were cheered by the crowd along the Seine, dancers took to the roofs of Paris and Lady Gaga sang a French cabaret song.
The city-centre location for the ceremony prompted the biggest peace-time security operation in France’s history, involving 45,000 police and several army units. The day began with arson attacks on France’s rail network, and streets adjacent to the route being sealed off from mid-morning, but it ended with a joyous romp in the mid-summer rain.
After five years of planning and two years of secret rehearsals, the first Olympic opening ceremony not staged in a stadium was executed with native panache.
France’s three-time Olympic gold medallists Marie-Jose Perec and Teddy Riner then lit the Olympic cauldron, suspended on a hot-air balloon, before Canada’s Celine Dion sang Edith Piaf’s Hymn to Love, in her first public performance in years, drawing huge cheers from the crowd.
Paris 2024 Olympic Games:: Eiffel Tower and lasers lighting up the sky, Photograph: Cheng Min/AFP/Getty Images
