Opening ceremony lights up Paris in unique style

The 2024 Olympics opened in Paris in spectacular style with thousands of athletes sailing along the River Seine past lively performers on bridges, banks and rooftops in an ambitious take on an opening ceremony.

Swapping a stadium for a waterway for the first time to open the ‘greatest show on earth’, the near four-hour spectacle culminated in French judo great Teddy Riner and sprinter Marie-Jose Perec lighting a cauldron shaped like a hot air balloon that rose high above the Parisian sky.

Red, white and blue fireworks had raised the Tricolore above Austerlitz Bridge before 6,800 athletes from 205 delegations travelled on 85 boats and barges past some of the French capital’s most famous landmarks.

There were surprise performances through the ceremony, including a cabaret number from American singer-songwriter Lady Gaga, as well as an emotional return of Canadian icon Celine Dion.

The day had started with major disruption when the French train network was hit by arson attacks and heavy rain in the evening put paid to the original plan by artistic director Thomas Jolly to use the Parisian sun to “make the water sparkle”.

The lashing rain may have forced athletes to add rain ponchos and umbrellas to their planned outfits but it did not detract from the lively journey through French history, art and sport told by some 2,000 musicians, dancers and other artists.

The last two boats to parade – first the United States as the next hosts for Los Angeles 2028 and then France – had the largest numbers of athletes on board, while other barges carried several delegations together.

Rower Helen Glover and diver Tom Daley were Great Britain’s flagbearers in Paris, which is hosting the summer Games for a third time and the first time in 100 years.

In opening the 33rd summer Olympics, which are taking part against a difficult international and domestic political backdrop, International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach told athletes they were now “part of an event that unites the world in peace”.

More than 10,500 athletes will compete across 32 sports at the Games, which will close on 11 August.

When organisers first revealed plans to hold the opening ceremony along the river in the heart of the city, rather than in a stadium as is usual, there were some raised eyebrows and questions over how they would manage such a huge security operation.

The Seine itself had been under scrutiny for water cleanliness, while simply the logistics of transporting thousands of athletes along a six-kilometre stretch of river without a dress rehearsal seemed ambitious.

But on Friday evening, backed by a security operation involving tens of thousands of police, Paris pulled it off its plan in dazzling fashion.

At times it was bizarre – one moment Lady Gaga surrounded by pink and black feathers was singing in French, the next Bangladesh’s athletes were being introduced on their boat.

A lot of the time it was brilliantly frenetic and at others, emotional.

Given the miserable weather after what had been a sunny week in Paris until now, it seemed fitting that the storyline at the start of the ceremony was about the arrival of the Olympic flame in Paris not going according to plan.

The torchbearer did not get the memo about it not being in the Stade de France, and then Zinedine Zidane’s metro train broke down while he was transporting the torch.

There followed ballet, cancan, opera, famous artwork coming to life and even Minions – and every so often a masked torchbearer was shown running across rooftops and even zip-lining, while the flotilla made its way from Austerlitz Bridge to Pont d’Iena.

The boats with flag-waving athletes passed well-known landmarks like the Louvre museum, Eiffel Tower, Grand Palais and Arc de Triomphe and were treated to 12 artistic segments.

One segment focused on rebuilding Notre Dame, which was damaged in a fire in 2019. A large troupe of dancers were accompanied by music composed using sounds captured from the iconic cathedral’s reconstruction.

Another explored French history, with costumed singers performing music from Les Miserables and a choir of headless Marie Antoinettes accompanying French heavy metal band Gojira.

French-Malian R&B star Aya Nakamura – the world’s most-streamed French-language artist – was among the musical acts.

The ceremony ended in the Trocadero, where the nearby Eiffel Tower lit up, with the flame – which had been on an elaborate journey with a masked torchbearer and a mechanical horse – being passed back to Zidane, who handed it to Rafael Nadal, Nadia Comaneci, Serena Williams and Carl Lewis.

The quartet carried the flame on a boat towards the Louvre, where a series of French athletes and para-athletes past and present – including 100-year-old gold-medal cyclist Charles Coste – carried it and eventually handed it to Riner and Perec.

And just when you thought the ceremony could not get any more beguiling, the pair lit the 30-metre high hot air balloon that now looks like it is floating above the city.

But there was one more magical moment to come, with Dion thrilling the crowds at the Eiffel Tower with a powerful rendition of Edith Piaf’s L’Hymne a l’amour in her first performance since revealing a serious neurological condition in December 2022.

Since the last Olympics – the Beijing 2022 Winter Games – wars have started in Ukraine and Gaza.

In his speech, IOC president Bach told athletes that “in a world torn apart by wars and conflicts, it is thanks to this solidarity that we can all come together tonight, uniting the athletes from the territories of all 206 National Olympic Committees and the IOC Refugee Olympic Team”.

Earlier in the ceremony Paris had been plunged into darkness as the first notes of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Imagine – sung by Juliette Armanet on a drifting raft – rang out.

The peace anthem, part of all Olympic opening ceremonies, is aligned with the message of unity and tolerance conveyed by the Games.

The impact of conflicts is being felt at these Olympics, with Russians and Belarusians banned following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Just 15 Russian and 17 Belarusian athletes will be competing as Individual Neutral Athletes (AIN) in Paris and they were not part of the parade at the opening ceremony.

Some of the loudest cheers of the evening were for the athletes of the Refugee Olympic Team and the Palestine Olympic Committee.

More than 100 heads of state and government were in attendance, including Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron.

There are 14 gold medals to be won on Saturday, with the first one most likely to come in shooting’s mixed team air rifle. You can follow BBC coverage of day one from 06:30 BST.

Great Britain’s best chance of an opening-day medal could come in diving, with Yasmin Harper and Scarlett Mew Jensen in the women’s 3m synchro (from 10:00 BST), or the road cycling time trials (women’s event from 13:30 BST, with the men’s at 15:34 BST).

Other highlights include a first glimpse of swimmer Adam Peaty in 100m breaststroke heats (from 10:00 BST), Max Whitlock and the rest of GB’s men’s gymnasts in qualification (from 10:00 BST) and the men’s rugby sevens where French fans will hope Antoine Dupont can inspire the hosts to gold (final at 18:45).

There are four swimming finals on the opening day in the pool, with the highlight likely to be the women’s 400m freestyle (19:55 BST) where US legend Katie Ledecky, Australian defending champion Ariarne Titmus and Canadian world record holder Summer McIntosh are expected to battle it out.

The eventing gets under way at Versailles (from 08:30 BST) with Great Britain defending their team crown days after equestrian was rocked by Charlotte Dujardin’s withdrawal from the Games, and subsequent provisional suspension, after footage emerged of her “excessively” whipping a horse.

The tennis also starts at Roland Garros, with Novak Djokovic in action as well as the men’s doubles pairing of Carlos Alcaraz and Rafael Nadal, while Great Britain’s men start their hockey campaign against Spain.

Find full details of the schedule in our day-by-day guide.