The Parisian rain showed there is a good reason why Olympic opening ceremonies are held in stadiums
vant: le deluge. There was a moment, about an hour into Paris 2024’s Grand Opening Spectacular, as the rain soaked through shoes, trousers, socks and eventually skin, hair and bone; as yet more boats of waving people chugged down the Seine, like watching an endless series of weirdly nationalistic office parties; as some men did some dancing in a place, for reasons that frankly seemed quite remote at that point, where a thought occurred.
“By starting the ceremony at 7.30pm, we are counting on the sun and its flashes of gold to illuminate the stone and make the water sparkle.” The words, there, of Thomas Jolly, artistic director of the Paris 2024 opening ceremony, as recorded in his relentlessly upbeat manifesto.Hmm. About that.
So we got a dude rocking out on a guitar on a building . We got a Jeanne d’Arc figure on a flaming warship singing Bizet, which was actually really good . We got people in wet rubber heads doing a cabaret. Happily there were still lovely moments. The rain had stopped half an hour before the start, the skies still bruised and grey, as Macron and Thomas Bach appeared on their plinth, Bach waving like a dentist at his own birthday party, Macron stately and cool.
And yes, in the end it is just an opening ceremony. These things never have any bearing on the sport to follow. This one only came into focus because it made so much noise in advance. But what happened here was significant in its own way. By holding it in the back garden, making the city the star, Paris was trying to get maximum bang for its buck.
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