Paris Olympics opening ceremony: Five memorable moments

A photograph taken from an helicopter on July 26, 2024, shows an aerial view of the Eiffel Tower and the Olympics Rings lightened up during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. (Photo by Lionel BONAVENTURE / POOL / Agence France-Presse)

PARIS, France — Boundary-breaking, genre-defying, and unprecedented: the opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics got the 2024 Summer Games underway with a pulsating energy and unique show that will never be forgotten.

Here are five memorable moments:

The uninvited rain

Opening ceremony mastermind Thomas Jolly, a renowned French theater director, had carefully choreographed every minute of the festival along the banks of the River Seine.

But there was one factor he could not plan for – the weather. The opening ceremony had the misfortune to take place as heavy summer downpours descended on Paris even as forecasts showed days of hot sunny weather ahead.

As the national teams paraded down the Seine on boats, they sought to make the best of the situation, likely hoping the damp would have no impact on health before events.

Renowned French classical pianist Alexandre Kantorow was drenched as he performed on a Paris bridge without any cover, while social media users expressed concern for his equally unprotected instrument.

Ironically, the piece he played was “Jeux d’eau” (“Water Game”) by Maurice Ravel.

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An image of Britain’s new Prime Minister Keir Starmer, meanwhile, went viral showing him refusing to wear the standard plastic poncho to stay dry – showing classic British defiance in the face of poor weather.

The great comeback

Canadian singer Celine Dion, who had been battling a rare illness, made a spectacular comeback by singing from the Eiffel Tower at the climax of the ceremony with a rousing version of the “Hymn to Love” by Edith Piaf.

Showing pitch-perfect intonation and hitting the notes with ease, she serenaded a captive Paris as the cauldron lit by France’s most-decorated track athlete Marie-Jose Perec and three-time Olympic gold medal-winning judoka Teddy Riner soared into the Paris sky in a balloon.

Last month she vowed she would fight her way back from the debilitating rare neurological condition that has kept her off stage.

Dion first disclosed in December 2022 that she had been diagnosed with Stiff Person Syndrome, an incurable autoimmune disorder.

A French classic

Some 80 artists from the celebrated Moulin Rouge cabaret performed the iconic cancan dance that dates back to the 1820s, in pink costumes specially designed for the occasion.

The famous music, however, was given a new electronic touch that set the tone for an evening that sought to put a new twist on classic French culture.

As the teams began their parade down the Seine they were serenaded by an accordion player – dressed in the obligatory French outfit of beret and blue-striped T-shirt – precariously perched on a bridge.

Smoke clouds in the tricolors of the France flag are seen at Pont d’Austerlitz during the Paris Olympics opening ceremony on July 26, 2024. (Photo by Ann Wang / POOL / Agence France-Presse)

Defying discrimination

There had been a racist backlash on social media and criticism from the extreme right when it emerged that French Malian singer Aya Nakamura was to perform at the opening ceremony.

But with President Emmanuel Macron himself backing her involvement, she and her dance troupe swung their way into a medley of her hits and a song by the great Charles Aznavour.

In an eloquent symbol, she received backing from the musicians of France’s Republican Guard and performed against the backdrop of the Academie Francaise, the austere guardians of the French language.

A sequence of dancing promoting tolerance of sexual and gender identities ended with the actor Philippe Katerine appearing as the Greek God Dionysus naked and painted pink, with strategically placed flowers covering his modesty.

In possibly Jolly’s greatest coup de theatre of the entire ceremony, 10 statues of pioneering French women surged up from the waters of the Seine in a bid to inscribe their achievements in minds forever.

They included the French writer and activist Olympe de Gouges who was guillotined in 1793, Simone Veil, a Holocaust survivor who spearheaded the legalization of abortion in France, and feminist activist Gisele Halimi.

Eclectic music

No-one could accuse the opening ceremony of being rigid in its choice of music with the city pulsating to all styles from classical, to opera, to pop to electro.

The ceremony did not stint on star power with Lady Gaga appearing to perform a French music hall classic and homegrown stars like the rapper Rim’K also performing at the ceremony.

But perhaps the biggest cheer came for the French metal band Gojira who appeared on platforms high on the Conciergerie, an iconic building in the French Revolution, the first time a metal band has appeared at an Olympic opening ceremony.