Tony Estanguet, the president of the Organizing Committee for the Paris Olympics, announced Monday that the opening ceremony would take place on the Seine.
Getting the start of the Games out of a stadium and thus allowing nearly 600,000 spectators to attend is an unprecedented challenge.
This spectacular ceremony was a long-standing desire of Parisian leaders to leave an imprint in the history of the Olympics.
The opening ceremony (almost) as if we were there. This Monday evening at the port of Javel, in Paris, Tony Estanguet, president of the Organizing Committee for the 2024 Olympic Games, unveiled the main lines of the traditional parade of athletes which will open the Paris Games. A moment that will have nothing classic about it. As he had dreamed aloud, the former canoe champion won a hard fight to be able to organize this ceremony in the heart of the city, with the Seine as the central theater. A first in the history of the Olympics.
On July 24, 2024, the athletes will leave by boat from the Pont d'Austerlitz, just after the National Library of France. They will travel along the river for six kilometers, passing Notre-Dame, the Musée d'Orsay, the Louvre or the Palais Bourbon, before disembarking at the Pont d'Iéna to finish the ceremony on the Trocadéro esplanade. “We wanted to make our contribution, to make the Olympics grow. This ceremony will be the marker of spectacular, creative, innovative and open Games ”, welcomed Estanguet, who was already thinking about it even before obtaining the organization, in 2017.
Some 160 boats will be mobilized for the athletes, who will parade in front of an unprecedented audience.
Between the spectators who will have bought their ticket to sit at the level of the low platforms and those who will be able to wander freely on the high platforms, the ceremony will be open to nearly 600,000 people.
It was a strong will of the Cojo, and it announces an extraordinary celebration.
But it was necessary to face up to thorny security questions, which moreover made this idea uncertain for a long time.
A protocol between Paris 2024, the city of Paris and the State for security
Finally, the Organizing Committee, helped by the interministerial delegate Michel Cadot, obtained the agreement of all the parties, the Ministry of the Interior, the army, the municipal police, private service providers ... "We will establish a protocol between Paris 2024, the city of Paris and the State so that there is a real sharing of responsibilities and competences. Everyone has declared the feasibility of an opening ceremony on the Seine, ”said Estanguet, without giving figures for the moment on the forces mobilized.
Alongside the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, the Minister for Sports Roxana Maracineau and the President of the CNOSF Brigitte Henriques, the double Olympic champion was proud to present the first computer-generated images of what could look like this kick-off followed by a billion viewers. Between a wall of water in hologram in front of the Quai d'Orsay, dancers on the roofs, circus artists hanging on catwalks and an aerial show with hot air balloons, the team in charge of artistic creation never met nothing refused. "The Seine opens up unlimited potential to express our creative potential", salivates the boss of the Games.
For Anne Hidalgo, who hopes to occupy other functions at the time of this ceremony, this moment "will mark the world by the beauty of the show and the messages sent". In short, the big cities which are reclaiming their river, Games as much for the athletes as for the people and the defense of living together. Vast program, which will be refined in the coming months, with the objective that everything will be fixed at the end of the year 2022. In particular the budget.
Because this great celebration will obviously be more expensive than a confined ceremony.
"We want to finalize as quickly as possible the cost of the four ceremonies [opening and closing of the Olympic and Paralympic Games] to integrate them into the Cojo's budget and to know whether we need to adjust certain other items," said Tony Estanguet, who promises not to give up another promise: cost containment.
To admire the finished product, meet on July 26, 2024. “We can't wait to be there,” said Florent Manaudou, in duplex from Tignes with a nice parterre of Olympic athletes.
We would like it to be in six months, but we will have to wait a bit.
»956 days, to be precise.
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