2024 Paris J0 tournament officially opens

Opening of the Paris Olympics: After the parade on the Seine, with unprecedented and sometimes crazy rain, the opening ceremony was presided over by Emmanuel Macron in front of the Eiffel Tower on Friday evening.

“I declare open the Olympic Games in Paris and celebrate the 33rd Olympic Games of the modern era”The French president made the announcement in a ceremony on the Trocadero Esplanade, together with Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), in front of 85 heads of state and government who have strongly supported the flood relief effort.

By announcing for the first time the parade of athletes and the stadium opening, organizers hope to break with tradition and reinvent a seemingly dusty sporting genre while respecting the ceremonial nature of the Olympics until the final lights-on ceremony in the Tuileries Gardens at the end of the evening.

In a mixture of images recorded along the banks of the Seine and in twelve paintings, he evokes the history of France, sometimes violent, as recalled by Marie Antoinette holding her bloody head, its writers like Victor Hugo, its artists, Serge Gainsbourg, Jacques Tati or Georges Bizet, its athletes like Zinedine Zidane.

LGBT+ community in the spotlight

But he also wanted to celebrate modernity, diversity, respect for difference and inclusion.

The LGBT+ community featured highlights such as a kiss between two men or The Last Supper performed by drag queens in 12 scenes by 2,000 artists.

Accompanied by the Republican Guard, the voices of the American Lady Gaga and the French-Maria Aya Nakamura, the notes of the pianist Sofiane Pamart, a favorite of French rappers and who this time accompanies the singer Juliette Armanet, are heard from time to time, and the brutal guitars of the French metal band Gojira.

Philippe Katerine, an alien in the French song world, accustomed to eccentricity and provocation, did not go unnoticed and appeared as Dionysus, the god of wine, painted blue and covered in gold sequins, singing his composition “Nu”.

Statues on the streets of Paris are expected to remain as women whose contributions to history are often overlooked take center stage: abortion rights heroines Simone Weil and Giselle Halimi, guillotined revolutionary Olympe de Gouges, exiled communard Louise Michel, and even Alice Milliard, a pioneer of women’s sports despised by Pierre de Coubertin, the father of modern Olympism.

“The show was breathtaking, I just wish it hadn’t rained”said Pauline Brett, 69, who traveled from Chicago with her husband and daughter. “The show was great. It was just a little hot and humid because of the weather…”Mike Smith, 57, a consultant. “But we are British and we are used to it. »

A downpour is coming

Many had no such phlegm. The high bank, reserved for the 220,000 guests (100,000 paying guests), often looked sparse before the end, many empty. When the last French boat of the 205 delegations passed, spectators often threw in the towel, as did 19-year-old Brahim: ” I will try to get there in time to watch the finale on TV. »

According to the organizers, 6,800 athletes are planned to be accommodated on 85 boats. Those who come remain enthusiastic, usually protected by capes, to greet the riverbank and enjoy six kilometers of slow tracking shots at the foot of the most representative monuments of Paris: Notre Dame and its spire restored after the fire in 2019, the Louvre, the Tuileries, the Place de la Concorde, the Grand Palais and then the Eiffel Tower.

In these Olympics, which pride themselves on equality for the first time in history, some will try to win gold medals on Saturday: events such as archery, beach volleyball or fencing will be organized on these postcard sites.

In the two weeks until August 11, world sports legends Simone Biles, Sha’Carri Richardson, Eliud Kipchoge and Léon Marchand will write Olympic history in a city that has been waiting to host the Olympics since 1924, when Johnny Weissmuller was crowned king of swimming there.

The venture was carried out without authorization by a separate group of thirty Russians and Belarusians, who flew a neutral flag but were denied the right to parade because of the Ukrainian invasion.

Security Challenges

Unusually, the art challenge was also safe and well-thought-out, four years in the making. Never before has France mobilized so many law enforcement forces, deploying 45,000 police and gendarmes and 10,000 soldiers.

For days, central Paris has been cordoned off, with only those with a pass, certification or QR code allowed in. Before the ceremony began, some people had to be patient at checkpoints, waiting in long lines and sometimes showing annoyance.

In addition to the rain, French authorities have had to deal with organized sabotage of their rail network: in some areas, SNCF infrastructure has been the target of vandalism, especially arson.

National Red Cross condemns “Massive attack paralyzes the network”The perpetrators and sponsors of the attack are still unknown.

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Source: Yahoo News