Paris aims to reinvent the Olympics with bold goals and a spectacular opening
Paris, a city renowned for its bold visions, is set to host its first Olympics in a century, starting this Friday. The grand opening ceremony on the River Seine promises to be the most ambitious ever, transforming the city into a vast stage for the Games. Even President Emmanuel Macron initially considered the idea "crazy." Over the next 16 days, nearly every part of Paris will be involved in this groundbreaking event, showcasing the city's audacity and spirit.
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00:00And so this is it. We're just a few hours away now from the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games.
00:07There are many things about this opening show that we don't know.
00:10It's the big surprise that Paris is going to be springing on the world.
00:13But there are some things that we do know.
00:15We know, for example, that these are going to be an opening ceremony like the world has never seen.
00:20Paris is doing things differently.
00:22It's taking a ceremony that is usually held in a stadium and it's putting it into the heart of Paris,
00:28essentially turning France's capital into a giant open-air stage.
00:33The athletes, thousands of athletes, there are 10,500 of them taking part in the Games,
00:38are going to be embarking on boats and they'll be going down the River Seine
00:42on a long parade that will take them through some of Paris' iconic sites.
00:47Imagine the Eiffel Tower, for example, or the Louvre Museum.
00:51There'll be hundreds of thousands of spectators lining both sides of the river
00:56and then the athletes will disembark and they'll take the oaths as athletes
00:59and there will be speeches and then, of course, fireworks
01:02and that's how the ceremony is expected to end.
01:07It's a huge security challenge for the French authorities
01:11by taking it out of a stadium into a much more complex and urban environment.
01:16There are tens of thousands of police officers that are going to be securing the show.
01:21We've got the airspace over Paris will be closed for the duration of the ceremony.
01:26And then, of course, there are the big surprises that we're all expecting.
01:30Who is going to be singing, for example? Who's going to be performing?
01:33The French press is already saying that Lady Gaga, perhaps, is on that list.
01:37Celine Dion has apparently flown in on a private jet.
01:40Might she be one of the stars of the show?
01:43And then the most tightly kept secret,
01:46which is who will be given the honour of lighting the cauldron.
01:50That's one of the signature moments of the Games.
01:54The director of the show is an award-winning theatre director, Thomas Joly,
01:58and it's Paris' way of showing that these Games, they hope,
02:03are going to be Games that will leave an indelible mark
02:05both on the Olympics and on the Olympic audience.
02:20.