It’s a cliche, but the rain wasn’t able to dampen the spirits of the crowds who gathered in the middle of Paris for the opening ceremony of the Olympics.
Some had tickets giving them a spot to watch the spectacle from the banks of the river Seine, and those who did not gathered in the surrounding streets, bars and cafes.
Jang Jeong Eun, a 29-year-old architect from Korea, had been planning her trip to the 2024 Olympics with a group of friends for two years. “Paris is so beautiful, I’m happy to be here, it’s amazing, we’re so excited right now,” she says.
The opening ceremony, which brought the centre of the French capital to a near standstill in recent days in preparation, was marked by thousands of athletes travelling up the Seine in scores of boats and floats.
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Juan Felipe Quintero (24), who is from Colombia but has been living in Paris for six years, was among one large crowd trying to catch a glimpse from a nearby side street. During the last four weeks it had been impossible to escape the build-up to the Games, he says. It had felt like there had been construction works “on every street”, even if it was just to fix a pothole, he says.
People hung out of balconies that looked out along the river, and others came together in front of huge screens televising the ceremony that were dotted across the city centre.
Originally from New Zealand, Theresa McGregor and Russel Cyne have been living in London for several years, so the trip to Paris was a Eurostar train journey rather than a “30 hour flight,” she says. “It’s cool, we’ve been over here for a couple of different sporting events and it’s always a good place to come for a good buzz,” she says. The pair had tickets to the final of the Rugby Sevens, so were gutted when New Zealand were knocked out earlier this week.
“We didn’t really prepare,” says João Paulo Fontoura Nogueira, a Brazilian studying in Paris. As a result he was playing host to his uncle, Geraldo Nogueira, who had travelled over for the duration of the games. “He’s going to stay for the whole Olympics, even if he doesn’t see much we can still walk around Paris and all that”, he says. The pair have tickets to watch Brazil play Japan in the women’s football, but were on the look-out for last minute ones for other events.
Some in the centre of Paris, like Nadia Guetni from Spain, were just in town for an ordinary holiday. It had been difficult to visit some of the city’s main attractions as they were cordoned off for the opening ceremony, but she says she was enjoying the great party atmosphere in the city.
In advance of the expected deluge of millions of spectators and tourists, many Parisians have fled the city for the week, while several offices closed on Friday and advised staff to work from home.
“A friend we have here in Paris said it’s only tourists and athletes here,” says Anna Muller. From northern Germany, she arrived for the Games with her friend, Louisa Schmidt, on Friday. The two had tickets to watch the trampolining, which she stressed had been an Olympic sport since 2000.
Tom and Brigid O’Sullivan had made the trip to Paris from Mallow, Co Cork. They had grabbed what tickets they could get their hands on, so were going to see the hockey and the archery. “It’s heaving, there’s great excitement,” she says.
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