PARIS — The opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics can often feel a little stilted, even deliberately polished, with every movement and camera angle perfectly choreographed.
Maybe the Paris 2024 opening ceremony looked like that on TV, too, but in reality it felt more like a wild international music festival, or a disco rave in the rain.
Along the south bank of the Seine, near where the national parades began and ended at the Trocadero, USA Today Sports reporters found a festive din of fans and athletes from around the world waving flags, cheering and chanting. They danced to pop, metal and electronic music blaring from speakers dotting the 3.7-mile stretch of the river.
Sure, some of it was visible on NBC's telecast of the opening ceremony, but a lot of it wasn't.
The party atmosphere began hours before the ceremony began, as spectators streamed through security checkpoints and into restricted areas along the Seine, trying to find the perfect view of both the river itself and the giant screens set up on the opposite bank.
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A lucky few spectators had reserved seats, but the vast majority did not, with some finding standing room wherever they could, others later climbing over the fence and at least one climbing a tree branch.
About 30 minutes before the ceremony was to begin, water began to spray under the arches of the Pont d'Austerlitz, the first clue that the river was about to begin flowing. People lined the rooftops and balconies along the river. Helicopters hovered too high to be heard by people below. Police boats waited on the edge of the Seine, close by but out of view of the television cameras.
As the nations' parades began, spectators on the east end of the river got to see each country's contingent long before they were announced over loudspeakers or broadcast on television — and also got to catch some hidden moments, like when a U.S. player appeared to drop his rain gear overboard.
Although international broadcasts portrayed the parades as if they were taking place on separate stages, the actual shows ran back-to-back with little interruption — a bit of TV magic, if you like.
The same could be said for some of the opening ceremony's more striking visual elements, like the mysterious torchbearer galloping down the Seine on a metal horse. On TV, some of these scenes looked relatively short, wedged between interviews and commercial breaks, but in person they were marathon shots lasting perhaps 15 to 20 minutes.
The extended dance sequence, titled “Celebrating Diversity,” was meant to last nine minutes and could have gone on for much longer, but was only shown briefly on NBC.
By that point in the evening, the athletes' boats had already reached the Trocadero and the light rain had turned into a downpour.
Wearing ponchos and carrying umbrellas, Olympians gathered with their respective delegations around the Eiffel Tower-shaped stage, but some appeared to opt not to stay – although it was unclear whether they had left the area, or the ceremony itself, for fear of catching pneumonia or another pre-Olympic illness.
As for Team USA, outfitted in Ralph Lauren, it appeared that not everyone on the boat made it to the stage, which is understandable given the bad weather.
Instead of leaving the stadium, spectators gathered in droves under umbrellas to watch the rest of the ceremony on a big screen, many of them having given up hope of staying dry, including the players, who jumped up and down and danced to songs like “Disco” by French pop duo Ottawan.
The remaining players mostly partied away, some cold, drenched and a little miserable, but many dancing to the ceremonial music and taking selfies with the nearby glittering Eiffel Tower as a backdrop — no one likely noticed that the Olympic flag was flying upside down.
The French delegation in particular erupted in cheers when soccer legend Zinedine Zidane took to the stage and handed the Olympic torch to Roland Garros champion Rafael Nadal, who returned to the boat on the Seine to continue the torch relay that had finished at the Tuileries Gardens.
As the torch, carried by Nadal, Serena Williams, Carl Lewis and Nadia Comaneci, made its way down the Seine, crowds near the Trocadero enjoyed a spectacular light show from the Eiffel Tower. It was a Hollywood scene, with vibrant red, green and turquoise lights dancing in the air like an EDM rave, illuminating the iconic landmark in quintessential City of Light fashion.
It all led up to the grand finale of the show, which lasted about four hours.
After French athletes carried the torch to the cauldron, all eyes turned again to the Eiffel Tower as a tiny Celine Dion made a triumphant return to the microphone from afar.
For her first performance since 2020 (when she revealed she had a rare diagnosis of stiff-person syndrome in 2022), the French-Canadian singer stood high in the tower beneath the glittering Olympic rings and stunned as if she'd never left the stage. The Trocadero crowd erupted as she began to sing, some singing along to her magical rendition of “Hymne amore.”
Rumor had it that Dion's performance was the moment fans had been waiting for, and she lived up to the expectations, performing the theme song to Les Miserables, “Can You Hear the People Sing?”, an ode to French literature, and concluding with a decapitated Marie Antoinette, to close out the truly French opening ceremony. Despite the rain, it was a pretty wild and fun party.
