The opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics began on Friday, an unprecedented and ambitious show with up to 7,000 competitors parading down the River Seine past the historic monuments of the French capital.
For the first time in Olympic history, the opening ceremony is taking place outside the main stadium, with some 300,000 people watching in person from specially built stands, on the river banks, and another 200,000 from overlooking balconies and apartments.
During the athletes’ waterborne adventure, Paris’ splendors will unfurl before them. They’ll pass historic landmarks that have been temporarily transformed into arenas for Olympic sports.
Organisers said they expect 6,800 of the 10,500 athletes will attend before they embark on the next 16 days of competition.
“Of course when you organize an outdoor spectacle, you prefer good weather,” the Paris Games’ chief organizer, Tony Estanguet, said on France Inter radio.
Long waits
But the ceremony “was thought out so it can be held in the rain,” he said.
“It will perhaps be a bit different,” he added. “We’ll adapt.”
Some spectators who followed organizers’ advice to arrive well ahead of time along the ceremony route fumed over long waits to get to their seats.
Up to 45,000 police and gendarmes, plus 10,000 soldiers, will safeguard the ceremony and its VIP guests, with IOC President Thomas Bach and President Emmanuel Macron presiding.
Paris’ aim, said Estanguet, is “to show to the whole world and to all of the French that in this country, we’re capable of exceptional things.”
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