Marie-Jose Perec and Teddy Riner light the Paris 2024 Olympic cauldron (© AFP / Getty Images)
Legendary figures from the sport of athletics played a central part in the opening ceremony for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on Friday (26).
For the first time in Olympic history, the opening ceremony took place outside its traditional stadium setting. Instead it was held along the river Seine as a procession of 85 boats carried 6,800 athletes towards the sparkling Eiffel Tower.
Discus thrower Melina Robert-Michon, who’ll be competing at her seventh Olympics – equalling the record number of appearances for a woman in track and field – was the flag bearer for the host nation’s boat.
“I hope that it's going to give the French team a great boost from the start and that we're going to bring back lots of medals and, above all, most of the athletes are going to be marked, are going to have memories for life,” said Robert-Michon, the Olympic silver medallist in 2016.
“Also all the people who are there, the volunteers, the supporters, the children who are going to watch this, I hope that the whole country is going to have stars in their eyes and will say, 'Yes, I was lucky enough to take part in this'.”
The parade of nations, which was prefaced by a performance from Lady Gaga, was interspersed with artistic performances along the banks of the Seine as the flotilla made its six-kilometre journey towards the Trocadero.
Dozens of track and field athletes were chosen to be their country’s flag bearers, including Canada’s Andre De Grasse, Steven Gardiner and Devynne Charlton of The Bahamas, Hugues Fabrice Zango of Burkina Faso, Italian high jumper Gianmarco Tamberi, Polish hammer legend Anita Wlodarczyk, and Qatari high jumper Mutaz Barshim.
As images on big screens showed montages of iconic sporting moments from the past 100 years, when Paris last hosted the Games, a horsewoman in a silver suit carried the flag of the International Olympic Committee as if floating along the Seine.
After the athletes’ boats had floated down the Seine and the IOC flag had arrived at the Trocadero, it left just one significant journey to be made: that of the Olympic flame.
Football legend Zinedine Zidane started the flame’s journey and it was passed on to international icons from a range of sports. Former pole vault world record-holder Renaud Lavillenie and nine-time Olympic gold medallist Carl Lewis were among them.
France’s 1996 Olympic 200m and 400m champion Marie-Jose Perec and French judoka Teddy Riner carried the flame for the walk up to the cauldron, which was a ring of flame attached to a hot air balloon.
With the flame lit, Celine Dion performed Edith Piaf’s ‘L’hymne a l’amour’ from the balcony of the Eiffel Tower.
“Some may say, we in the Olympic world, we are dreamers. But we are not the only ones,” said International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach. "And our dream is coming true tonight: a reality for everyone to see. Olympians from all around the globe, showing us what greatness we humans are capable of.
"So I invite everybody: dream with us. Like the Olympic athletes, be inspired with the joy that only sport can give us. Let us celebrate this Olympic spirit of living life in peace, as the one and only humankind, united in all our diversity.”
The athletics programme at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games begins on 1 August.
