A flash of red, white and blue of the French tricolour flag and the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris was underway, heralded by traditional accordion music.
Out of the smoke from under Austerlitz Bridge sailed the boat carrying Greece’s delegation for the Games, as tradition dictates, with the Refugee team close behind receiving the biggest cheers of the night, giving reason to the words of IOC President Thomas Bach, when he said “sport is respect. Sport is empowerment. Sport is solidarity. Sport is peace.”
Lady Gaga, surrounded by feathers, sang “Mon truc en plumes”, a homage to the Moulin Rouge on steps at the banks of the River Seine and the great experiment, the never-before-tried attempt to hold the opening ceremony to the Olympics along six kilometres of river, was underway.
The opening ceremony aimed to show Paris to the world and it certainly did that.
There were Can-Can girls, a homage to the reconstruction of Notre Dame and of course the French Revolution, with fireworks, heavy metal and singers who appeared to have lost a battle with the guillotine.
Aya Nakamura, the most-streamed French-speaking artist in the world, gave a stomping performance along with 60 musicians of the Republican Guard and 36 choristers of the French Army.
There were dancers on rooftops, homages to French fashion, references to the writer Victor Hugo and the mysterious torch holder making their way through the Louvre art gallery to the music of Claude Debussy, while British flagbearers Tom Daley and Helen Glover, on the prow of their boat, recreated Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet’s famous scene from Titanic.
The entertainment and spectacle were mixed with images of the teams making their way sedately down the river and clearly mixed with the video interventions.
If there was a downside to the opening ceremony, it is that any event performed over such a long distance has to struggle with continuity, and the big difference between this ceremony and others is that the parade of athletes was mixed in with the performances.
Other opening ceremonies have been able to tell a more continuous narrative, flowing seamlessly from one theme to another and telling their story before the athletes took centre stage.
The fact artists such as Lady Gaga and Nakamura could only perform at one place on the river meant only a handful of people actually saw them in the flesh, with everyone else watching on screens.
Does that mean it was the first multimedia ceremony or was it just too ambitious to completely succeed?
Maybe, but the emotional torch relay with sporting heroes which ended with 100-year-old cyclist Charles Coste taking the flame shortly before the cauldron attached to a Montgolfier balloon into the Paris sky was impressive.
The Eiffel Tour also provided late beauty and drama and any ceremony that ends with Celine Dion singing the Edith Piaf song L’Hymne à l’amour deserves credit for its courage and willingness to embrace both past and present.
Whatever one’s opinion, one thing is clear: everyone who stood at the side of the River Seine and cheered the contestants from start to finish also deserves a medal for their Olympic efforts.
