The Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony ran for four hours and in that duration it paid tribute to everything about the country’s rich legacy. There were hat-tips to Paris’ reputation as the city of love, the city of lights and the city of high fashion. Some of the city’s most famous buildings like the Louvre Museum and the Notre-Dame Cathedral became part of the Paris 2024 Opening Ceremony.
There were also references to parkour, ménage à trois, cabaret and the French revolution. The Minions and the Mona Lisa also made appearances.
In case you missed the four-hour-long Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony, we have you covered. These were the most viral moments that stood out from the Paris 2024 ceremony and why they stood out:
Why Algerian athletes threw red roses in the Seine
At the Athletes Parade, held in the Seine River, Algeria reminded France of a dark chapter of its colonial past by tossing red roses into the river. Why? The Algerians, who only won their independence from France in 1962 after a long war, were honouring victims of an infamous 1961 police crackdown on Algerian protesters in Paris. The Associated Press cited historians saying that 120 protesters had died while 12,000 people were arrested as they demonstrated in support of independence from France, then Algeria’s colonial ruler. Some protestors were also allegedly thrown in the Seine River.
The Palestine flagbearer also took a political stand
Waseem Abusal, who was the male flagbearer for Palestine, reportedly wore a shirt for the Opening Ceremony that showed fighter jets dropping bombs from the sky as a child plays.
The Israel-Hamas war, which has reportedly claimed more than 39,000 Palestinian lives, began after Hamas launched deadly attacks on Israel on October 7, prompting brutal retaliation from Israel.
There are eight athletes on the Palestinian team at Paris 2024.
An X handle of Palestine called @Palestine_UN tweeted a photo of the Palestine contingent at the Paris Olympics Athletes Parade with the caption: “Out of the ashes, we always rise. Team Palestine.”
Blue body painted Gods
Early on Saturday morning, social media showed images of a man in blue body paint performing at the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony.
That man is French singer and actor Philippe Katerine. He was performing a song at the Ceremony while being almost naked with his body painted in blue to represent Dyonisus, the god of wine.
Organisers said that Katerine’s performance was to “make us aware, through a new humoristic and poetic song, of the absurdity of violence between human beings.
Dionysus (in Greek, Bacchus in Latin) was the god of the vine, wine, theatre, festivities and excess, and was also associated with fertility, productivity, ecstasy and self-denial. Son of a god and a mortal princess, father of Sequana, goddess of the Seine, Dionysus established a crucial link between the human and the divine.
Aged 55, Katerine became popular in France in the 2000s with his dance beat “Louxor, j’adore,”.
Great Britain recreated the Titanic scene
Great Britain’s Tom Daley and Helen Glover — the flagbearers for Britain — took advantage of the Opening Ceremony being held in boats to recreate the iconic Titanic scene when the nation’s float passed from the front of the cameras.
Daley and Glover put their own little twist on the blockbuster 1997 movie while floating on their country’s boat on the River Seine.
Tom Daley 🤝 Being iconic at the Olympics. pic.twitter.com/WF52QfEY75
— The Olympic Games (@Olympics) July 26, 2024
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Daley, a diver, held his arms out as he stood near a railing, and Glover, a rower, had her arms wrapped around his waist while holding the British flag.
Britain’s team account posted a picture of the scene. The caption read: “Near, far, wherever you are..”
The French beheaded Marie Antoinette… again
The Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony included a headless Marie Antoinette, the last queen prior to the French Revolution who was married to Louis XVI, singing a song.
Lo mejor de la ceremonia de inauguración en #Paris2024 sin duda alguna fue la presentación de Gojira #Gojira #OpeningCeremony pic.twitter.com/eBtaBchrGu
— Theslayer360 (@Theslayer360) July 26, 2024
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After being found guilty in a trial in 1793, Marie Antoinette was sentenced to death at the guillotine. On Friday, the headless Antoinette sang right before a performance by the French rock band, Gojira.
Céline Dion makes a comeback!
Canadian Singer Celine Dion performing at the Eiffel Tower during the opening ceremony for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Olympic Broadcasting Services via AP)
A year and a half after legendary songstress Céline Dion withdrew from public engagements due to Stiff Person Syndrome, a neurological condition which causes muscle spasms, the Canadian singer makes a comeback at Paris.
She performs Édith Piaf’s famous work, Hymne à l’amour (the Hymn to Love), written to the love of her life, boxer Marcel Cerdan, who died in a plane crash barely a month after it was first performed.
Lady Gaga performed an iconic song
Not just Celine Dion, Lady Gaga was also a performer at the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony. She belted out the iconic song from the French revue, Mon truc en plumes by Zizi Jeanmaire. The song translates to “My thing with feathers.”
Gaga herself wore a giant white plume while performing. She also played an interlude of “La Vie en Rose” on piano during the performance. It must be remembered that cabarets, music halls and revues were born in France.
A floating Olympic Cauldron
Teddy Riner and Marie-Jose Perec watch as the cauldron rises in a balloon in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo)
The idea to host the Athletes Parade on a river in the heart of the city was not the only novel idea that the Paris Olympics organisers employed. They had a few surprises like athletes like Zinedine Zidane, Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams participating in the torch relay. The group of torchbearers, which eventually grew to 18 and made up of various Olympians and Paralympians, finally handed the torch off to the final torchbearers: Teddy Riner and Marie-José Pérec.
Once lit, the Cauldron is located in the Jardin des Tuileries, aligned with the Louvre, Place de la Concorde, the Champs-Élysées, and the Arc de Triomphe. There’s a hot air balloon attached to the cauldron, which takes it 30 metres high! This was a nod to the first hydrogen-powered flight of a balloon, which took place in the Tuileries in 1783.
Mysterious torchbearer and horse rider
At the entire Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony, there was a mysteriously masked person carrying the Olympic torch ziplining from building across the Seine and doing parkour on rooftops.
There was also an anonymous horse rider, who galloped on a metal horse and rode down the Seine. She was draped in a cape emblazoned with the Olympic rings. As she passed under the Parisian bridges, the rider unfurled dove wings, a symbolic reminder of the dove release that used to take place to represent the ideal of peace between nations during the Olympic Truce.
The rider concluded her ride at the Trocadéro, giving the Olympic flag a majestic entrance before it was hoisted. Alongside it, the flags of the 205 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) were carried by Games Volunteers.
(With inputs from The Associated Press)
