Paris—Thousands of athletes are set to sail through central Paris on Friday (Saturday, Manila time) during an unprecedented and high-risk Olympics opening ceremony that will showcase the country’s hugely ambitious vision for the Games.
The parade on Friday evening will see up to 7,500 competitors travel down a six-kilometer (four-mile) stretch of the river Seine on a flotilla of 85 boats.
There is, however, a 70-80 percent chance of “moderate to heavy” rain at the Paris Olympic Games opening ceremony, French weather channel La Chaine Meteo said.
“There is still uncertainty about the trajectory and exact position” of the rainstorm, meteorologist Cyrille Duchesne said in a post on the channel’s website.
“Some models (have) Paris on the edge of this heavy rain, while others… see rainfall of 15-20 millimeters (1.5 to 2 centimeters), or 10 days of rain in two or three hours.”
Compared to the COVID-blighted 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which were delayed by a year and opened in an empty stadium, the Paris show will take place in front of 300,000 cheering spectators and an audience of VIPs and celebrities from around the world.
“Tomorrow you will have one of the most incredible opening ceremonies,” French President Emmanuel Macron promised at a pre-Games dinner for heads of state and government at the Louvre museum on Thursday evening.
The line-up of performers is a closely guarded secret but US pop star Lady Gaga and French-Malian singer Aya Nakamura –the most listened-to French-speaking singer in the world –are rumored to be among them.
It will be the first time a Summer Olympics has opened outside the main athletics stadium, a decision fraught with danger at a time when France is on its highest alert for terrorism.
For months, organizers have been dogged by questions about whether they would need to scale back or move the procession, but they had insisted throughout that there was no plan B.
A huge security perimeter has been erected along both banks of the Seine, guarded round-the-clock by some of the 45,000 police and paramilitary officers who will be on duty on Friday evening.
Another 10,000 soldiers are set to add to the security blanket along with 22,000 private security guards.
“Without any doubt, it is much more difficult to secure half of Paris than to secure a stadium, where you have 80,000 people and you can frisk them and send them through turnstiles,” Frederic Pechenard, an ex-director general of the French police, told Agence France Presse (AFP).
Police snipers are set to be positioned on every high point along the route of the river convoy, which is overlooked by hundreds of buildings.
An assassination attempt on US presidential candidate Donald Trump on July 13 has focused minds.
Armed officers will also be on the boats, a security source told AFP.
The Israeli and Palestinian teams will be given extra protection, with the tensions caused by Israel’s offensive in Gaza, where nearly 40,000 people are estimated to have died, already spilling into the Games.
Organizers will be on guard against fresh protests on Friday evening after the Israeli football team’s first match on Wednesday was marked by the waving of Palestinian flags and the booing of the Israeli anthem.
The opening ceremony is likely to define the mood for the rest of the July 26-August 11 Games, which organizers have pledged will be “iconic.”
Around 3,000 dancers are set to perform from the banks of the river and nearby monuments, including Notre-Dame cathedral, in a show that will promote diversity, gender equality and French history.
The landmarks and architecture of the City of Light, one of the world’s best-loved destinations, is set to feature as a backdrop both to Friday night’s show and much of the sport afterwards.
“The opening ceremony is a huge event and one that, arguably, sets the tone for the next 17 days,” Hugh Robertson, the minister charged with delivering the 2012 London Olympics, told AFP recently.
Paris’s vision is for a more cost-effective and less polluting Olympics than previous editions, with competitions set to take place at historic locations around the capital. AFP
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