The bold imagery and soaring optimism — the sense that we can match French creativity and reimagine our world — the rain lashed it all, a persistent foil indicative of an inflamed society. Every Olympics attempts to create an idyllic, if temporary, world. There’s no better place to dream than this wondrous metropolis. But as the rain illustrated, it is a challenge to get cooperation, whether from the skies or the rest of the world.
Paris wanted to unlock a closed world. It wanted to open its doors and open all minds with an Opening Ceremonies that boasted the city’s architectural character, shocked with a beheaded, singing Marie Antoinette character and incorporated a drag performance. During a sprawling and sometimes disjointed presentation, nations of Olympic athletes glided down the Seine on boats, sending us all on a journey that combined French history with art, culture and sport.
It could have been bewitching if it weren’t so soggy.
Paris 2024 organizers made the impossible seem effortless, at least during the show. There was plenty of reason to worry beforehand. In this world climate, with so many countries feuding and so little human decency, staging a novel open-air event on a river that runs through the middle of a city is an extreme security nuisance. It took tens of thousands of police, military personnel and private security, not to mention the intelligence expertise of multiple nations, to ensure safety.
It’s much easier to secure a stadium of 90,000 spectators as people enter the confined space. But that wouldn’t have fit the “Games Wide Open” theme for these Olympics. Paris wanted a massive crowd of more than 300,000, in the streets and along the bank of the river. In these times, it amounted to an incredible statement about how powerful it is when people unite around sports.
It is unfortunate it takes an entire town’s worth of gun-toting people to ensure such a good feeling, but hey, let’s not nitpick a serene night. After the boat parade, Tony Estanguet, the head of the Paris 2024 organizing committee and a former French canoeist, spoke about unity to the athletes who braved the rain and stayed in the Trocadero area for the remainder of the ceremony. The Eiffel Tower sparkled in the background as Estanguet made an inspiring argument for unity.
“Even though the Games cannot solve every problem, even though discrimination and conflicts are not about to disappear, tonight you have reminded us how beautiful humanity is when we come together,” Estanguet said. “And when you return to the Olympic Village, you will be sending a message of hope to the whole world: that there is a place where people of every nationality, every culture and every religion can live together. You’ll be reminding us of what’s possible.”
You want his words to linger in the air. You worry they drifted as easily as the rain fell.
Despite the majesty of this curtain-raiser, these Games already are burdened by the spying sins of the Canada women’s soccer team, a dressage abuse scandal and a petty feud between two anti-doping agencies, the USADA and WADA. The next 16 days will be both exasperating and thrilling, but perhaps the tension is a gift. Two weeks of incessant conflict resolution provide a greater lesson than the convenience of hope.
“When you love the Games, first of all, don’t let a few drops of rain bother you,” Estanguet said. “Thank you to all those lovers of the Games who are with us, a little soggy, tonight.”
He continued: “When you love the Games, you are ready to court the Games for 100 years for the chance to bring them back to Paris. And loving the Games passionately has meant we wanted to share everything that is most precious to us.”
Paris succeeded in making the ancient Olympic tradition more accessible. Some will like the inclusivity. Some will hate it. The culture wars will rage, in America and beyond. But the Games are officially wide open, and for a few scattered moments, the graying Olympics shined along with the Eiffel Tower. Old turned dignified. Old turned classic. There is a simple elegance to fashioning timelessness, and Paris wears it well.
During the French broadcast, a color commentator was so moved by the event that she cried. The camera stayed with her as the show went to a commercial break.
It wasn’t a perfect night, but Paris didn’t need to be perfect. It just needed to be Paris. Maybe only Paris could have pulled off such a show: a roving Opening Ceremonies progressing through a city for the first time in Olympic history, an event that felt similar to a championship parade, mixed with a telethon-length concert and an interactive movie that broke the wall between cinema and live performance.
I’ll admit to feeling grumpy while watching portions in the rain and defeated when forced to retreat inside. But the show continued. By the end, it seemed appropriate that the Olympic cauldron went floating into the sky on a hot-air balloon.
It seemed destined that Paris would make a grand gesture by lighting the top of the Eiffel Tower, its most iconic structure. True to form, the organizers went for something different. As that cauldron soared higher and higher, it looked like it was going after the rain. Maybe we should consider that symbolism, too.
In the right light, glowing against the night sky, a timeless treasure flaunted its appeal.
