Plans for the opening ceremony at the Paris Olympics — the first time a Summer Games will start outside a stadium — have been a closely guarded secret.
Here is what we know about the concept, the artists and music!
– WHEN IS IT? –
The opening ceremony begins on Saturday morning (27 July) at 3:30am AEST. It is expected to last until 7:15 or 7.30am AEST.
Australia will be the third-last nation in the parade, due to hosting the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane. 2028 hosts the USA are second-last, before 2024 hosts France.
– WHO ARE AUSTRALIA’S FLAG BEARERS? –
Kayaker Jessica Fox and hockey player Eddie Ockenden will lead the Aussie team in the ceremony.
Fox is competing in her fourth Olympics – and is hotly tipped to add to her tally that already includes gold, silver and bronze medals.
Eddie Ockenden is the first Aussie hockey player to compete in five Olympics – and he’s set to play his 450th game for Australia during the Olympics. He’s played the third-most games of men’s international hockey for any country, and is hoping to add to his previous silver and bronze Olympic medals.
FULL SCHEDULE: Every sport and race with Australian start times and medal chances
EVERY AUSSIE: Who is representing us in each sport and our medal hopes
– WHAT’S THE CONCEPT? –
Instead of using the main athletics stadium for the opening parade, as is customary, organisers have moved the event outside and into the heart of the capital — in keeping with their motto “Games Wide Open”.
Around 6,000-7,000 athletes are set to sail down a six-kilometre stretch of the river Seine from the Austerlitz bridge in the east to the Eiffel Tower, on 85 barges and boats.
Up to 500,000 people are set to watch in person from specially built stands, where tickets have sold for up to 2,700 euros, on the river banks for free, and from the overlooking balconies and apartments.
“Organising a ceremony on the Seine is not easier than doing it in a stadium … but it has more punch,” chief organiser Tony Estanguet told AFP earlier this month.
Because of the size and complexity of the parade, it has never been rehearsed in full.
– WHAT ABOUT THE ENTERTAINMENT? –
The show has been designed by theatre director Thomas Jolly, a 42-year-old prodigy known for hit rock-opera musical “Starmania”.
He brought on board a creative team that includes the writer of French TV series “Call My Agent”, Fanny Herrero, as well as best-selling author Leila Slimani and renowned historian Patrick Boucheron.
The show has been split into 12 different sections, with around 3,000 dancers, singers and entertainers set to be positioned on both banks of the river, the bridges and atop nearby monuments.
A tribute to Notre-Dame cathedral, in the process of being renovated after a devastating fire in 2019, is guaranteed, possibly with dancers on its scaffolding.
Starting at 07:30pm local time, two thirds of the ceremony will take place in daylight — the weather forecast shows cloudy skies and moderate temperatures — and will end with a light show.
The music will be a mix of classical, traditional ‘chanson francaise’, as well as rap and electro.
Franco-Malian R&B star Aya Nakamura is set to be one of the star performers despite criticism from far-right politicians, including Marine Le Pen, who suggested in March that an appearance by her would “humiliate” France.
Nakamura, 29, is the most listened to French-speaking singer in the world, with seven billion streams online. Far-right politicians and conservatives have accused her of “vulgarity” and disrespecting the French language in her lyrics.
Lady Gaga and Celine Dion have both been spotted in Paris, fuelling rumours they will appear. If she performs it will be the 56-year-old Dion’s second time at the Games, after the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
French electro superstars Daft Punk have turned down an invitation to play, while globetrotting French DJ David Guetta has been overlooked — much to his irritation.
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– WHAT’S THE MESSAGE? –
Asked to sum up his message last week, Jolly said it was “love.” Despite the risk of irking conservatives, he said his work would be a celebration of cultural, linguistic, religious and sexual diversity in France and around the world.
“I think the people who want to live together in this diversity, this otherness, are much more numerous, but we make less noise,” he told AFP.
It is fair to assume it will be nothing like the widely panned retro-styled opening ceremony of last year’s rugby World Cup, which featured a succession of French cliches from baguettes to berets and the Eiffel Tower.
And don’t expect a three-hour tribute to French greatness to rival the nationalistic pageantry seen at the Beijing Games in 2008.
“The opening ceremony in Beijing in 2008 was exactly what we did not want to do,” Boucheron told Le Monde newspaper.
– WHAT WILL BE THE BIG MOMENTS? –
With so much still under wraps, it’s hard to predict.
The performance by Nakamura, after so much controversy about her role, will be a major moment so soon after parliamentary elections that saw the anti-immigration far-right gain a historic 143 seats in the national parliament.
Jolly has strongly hinted that a submersible or submarine will emerge from the waters of the Seine at some point.
The identity of the final torch holder who will light the Olympic cauldron in the gardens in front of the Louvre museum also remains unknown, although triple gold medal-winning sprinter Marie-Jose Perec is among the leading contenders.
The biggest moment of all might simply be the end if everyone gets home safely. The ceremony has given French police cold sweats ever since it was unveiled in 2021 because of the difficulty of securing so many people over such a vast urban area.
The centre of Paris is set to be locked down by 45,000 police and gendarmes, 10,000 soldiers, and around 22,000 private security guards on Friday evening.
Most of the bridges and the river banks have been out of bounds for a week and more than 40,000 metal barriers erected along the sailing route have left some residents feeling like they are living behind bars in a zoo.
In a TV interview this week, President Emmanuel Macron urged Parisians to stay upbeat.
“All of us will see from Friday why it was worth the bother,” he promised.
Source Agencies
