Olympics
What you need to know about the Paris 2024 Olympics opening ceremony
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Paris will begin its Olympics extravaganza with an unprecedented opening ceremony on the river Seine on July 26th.
Here is what you need to know about the ceremony:
WHAT WILL WE SEE?
Organisers have promised a show like no other.
Unlike for previous Olympics, the Paris 2024 opening ceremony will not take place in a stadium.
Instead, dozens of boats will carry thousands of athletes and performers on a 6km route along the Seine.
Departing from the Austerlitz bridge, the parade will sail by Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral and arrive near the Eiffel Tower, after passing under bridges and gateways, including the Pont des Arts and Pont Neuf, and near many of the French capital’s landmarks.
Organisers have said they will take advantage of the historic monuments, the riverbanks, the sky and water “and there won’t be a single riverbank or bridge that won’t be filled with music, dance, or performance.” The show will have twelve parts, some of which will play on clichés about France.
Athletes and artists will take part in the parade together.
“Everything will be woven together, including the protocol (the speeches, the opening by the head of state, the anthems, etc.),” organisers Thomas Jolly et Damien Gabriac told Le Monde newspaper.
The ceremony is due to start at 7.30 p.m. (1730 GMT) and last about four hours. Organisers said it would reach a climax at around 9.35 pm when the sun sets.
WHO WILL BE THERE?
The show will be attended by over 100 heads of state and government and over 300,000 spectators will watch from the river’s banks, organisers said, adding that there will be some 80 giant screens along the way.
The Paris 2024 committee said there would be about 10,500 athletes and some 222,000 people will get free invites, while 104,000 will have to buy a ticket.
Boats carrying the athletes will be equipped with cameras to allow those watching on TV or their phone to get a close-up view, the committee said.
There have been training sessions, and boats will be stored in a warehouse for a week before the opening ceremony for security reasons.
WHAT ABOUT SECURITY?
Organising the ceremony in the heart of an iconic city like Paris may make for great pictures, but it’s also a major security challenge.
Some 45,000 police will be dispatched to ensure the ceremony’s security, including special intervention forces. Snipers will be deployed on the top of buildings along the route. An anti-drone system will be in place.
Spectators and local residents alike will need to carry permits on a QR code to get anywhere near the riverbanks from July 18th. Cars won’t be allowed into the area, with few exceptions. Nearby metro stations will be closed, as will many of the bridges. No planes will be allowed to fly over Paris – unless they are part of the ceremony.
With wars in Gaza and Ukraine, and security concerns at home, France already has its security alert at its highest level.
Officials have said there were no specific terror threats to the July 26 ceremony.
But should specific concerns arise, there are backup plans, that would either see the ceremony limited to the Trocadero square near the Eiffel tower, or the Stade de France stadium.
The main potential risk would be from a lone attacker, officials have said over the past months, while also flagging potential petty crime and possible protests, from environmental activists, the far right and far left, the pro-Palestinian movement or others.
A man was arrested in May in Saint-Etienne, suspected of planning an attack in the name of Islamic State at the city’s soccer stadium during the Olympics. A right-wing sympathiser was arrested in eastern France in July on suspicion of plotting attacks to take place during the Olympics.
PAST SUMMER OLYMPICS’ OPENING CEREMONIES
Tokyo 2020: The opening ceremony was overshadowed by the Covid pandemic. Postponed by a year due to the coronavirus, the Games were held largely without spectators.
Rio 2016: A financially constrained Brazil had little choice but to put on a more low-key show, with minimal technology and a heavy dependence on the vast talent of Brazil and its Carnival party traditions.
London 2012: The 86-year-old Queen Elizabeth put aside royal reserve in a video where she stepped onto a helicopter with James Bond actor Daniel Craig to be carried aloft from Buckingham Palace as part of a dizzying ceremony designed to highlight the grandeur and eccentricities of the nation.
Beijing 2008: About one billion people, or 15 percent of the world’s population, watched the opening ceremony, which involved 10,000 performers, 2008 drummers and a dramatic sky-walking finale.
-Reuters
Olympics
Paris to name sports venue after dead Ugandan Olympian Cheptegei
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The French capital will pay tribute to Ugandan Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei, who was set on fire by her boyfriend, by naming a sports facility in her honour, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced on Friday.
The marathon runner, who competed in the Paris Games last month died on Thursday, four days after she was doused in petrol and ignited by her boyfriend in Kenya, in the latest attack on a female athlete in the country.
The 33-year-old, who finished 44th in her Olympic Games debut, suffered burns to more than 75% of her body in Sunday’s attack, Kenyan and Ugandan media reported.
“She dazzled us here in Paris. We saw her. Her beauty, her strength, her freedom, and it was in all likelihood her beauty, strength and freedom which were intolerable for the person who committed this murder,” Hidalgo told reporters.
“Paris will not forget her. We’ll dedicate a sports venue to her so that her memory and her story remains among us and helps carry the message of equality, which is a message carried by the Olympic and Paralympic Games.”
Cheptegei is the third prominent sportswoman to be killed in Kenya since October 2021. Kenyan Sports Minister Kipchumba Murkomen described Cheptegei’s death as a loss “to the entire region”.
“This is a critical moment— not just to mourn the loss of a remarkable Olympian, but to commit ourselves to creating a society that respects and protects the dignity of every individual,” Uganda’s Athletes commission Chair Ganzi Semu Mugula said on Friday.
-Reuters
Olympics
Row over plan to keep Olympic rings on Eiffel Tower
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Engineer’s descendants say French capital landmark ‘not intended as advertising platform’
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has triggered a heated debate by saying she wants to keep the Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower after the summer Games are over.
“The decision is up to me, and I have the agreement of the IOC [International Olympic Committee],” she told the Ouest-France newspaper over the weekend.
“So yes, they [the rings] will stay on the Eiffel Tower,” she added.
Some Parisians backed the move, but others – including heritage campaigners – said it was a bad idea and would “defile” the French capital’s iconic monument.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has triggered a heated debate by saying she wants to keep the Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower after the summer Games are over.
“The decision is up to me, and I have the agreement of the IOC [International Olympic Committee],” she told the Ouest-France newspaper over the weekend.
“So yes, they [the rings] will stay on the Eiffel Tower,” she added.
Some Parisians backed the move, but others – including heritage campaigners – said it was a bad idea and would “defile” the French capital’s iconic monument.
The five rings – 29m (95ft) wide, 15m high and weighing 30 tonnes – were installed on the Eiffel Tower before the Paris Olympics opened on 26 July, and were expected to be taken down after the Paralympics’ closing ceremony on 8 September.
But Ms Hidalgo said she wanted to keep the interlaced rings of blue, yellow, black, green and red, symbolising the five continents.
She added that the current rings – each one measuring 9m in diameter – were too heavy and would be replaced by a lighter version at some point.
The Socialist mayor also claimed that “the French have fallen in love with Paris again” during the Games, and she wanted “this festive spirit to remain”.
Some Parisians as well as visitors to the French capital supported the mayor.
“The Eiffel Tower is very beautiful, the rings add colour. It’s very nice to see it like this,” a young woman, who identified herself as Solène, told the France Bleu website.
But Manon, a local resident, said this was “a really bad idea”.
“It’s a historic monument, why defile it with rings? It was good for the Olympics but now it’s over, we can move on, maybe we should remove them and return the Eiffel Tower to how it was before,” he told France Bleu.
Social media user Christophe Robin said Ms Hidalgo should have consulted Parisians before going ahead with her plan.
In a post on X, he reminded that the Eiffel Tower featured a Citroën advert in 1925-36.
The Eiffel Tower was built in1889 for the World’s Fair. The wrought-iron lattice tower was initially heavily criticised by Parisian artists and intellectuals – but is now seen by many as the symbol of the “City of Light”.
Ms Hidalgo, who has been running Paris since 2014, is known for her bold – and sometimes controversial – reforms.
Under her tenure, many city streets, including the banks of the river Seine, have been pedestrianised.
Last year, she won convincingly a city referendum to ban rental electric scooters. However, fewer than 8% of those eligible turned out to vote.
But both drivers’ groups and opposition figures attacked the scheme, saying the SUV classification was misleading as many family-size cars would be affected.
France’s Environment Minister Christophe Béchu said at the time that the surcharge amounted to “punitive environmentalism”.
And just before the Paris Olympics, Ms Hidalgo and other officials went into the Seine to prove the river was safe to swim.
-BBC
Olympics
AIU files appeal with CAS against America’s Olympic sprinter, Knighton
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The Athletics Integrity Unit said on Wednesday it has filed an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport in the case that cleared American sprinter Erriyon Knighton of a doping offence, thus allowing him to compete at the Paris Olympics.
Knighton, 20, tested positive for a banned substance in March but avoided a ban as the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency said an independent arbitrator ruled it was likely caused by contaminated meat and that he was not at fault and had not acted with negligence.
The finding cleared the 200 metres world silver medallist to run at the U.S. Olympic trials in June and he went on to compete in Paris where he finished fourth in the men’s 200m final.
The AIU, an independent body created in 2017 by World Athletics to manage integrity issues for the sport of athletics, said it has challenged the first instance decision that Knighton had established no fault or negligence.
“This appeal is against the decision of an arbitration tribunal in the United States that the athlete established no fault or negligence after USADA brought charges against the athlete for the presence of epitrenbolone and use of trenbolone,” the AIU said on X.
USADA Chief Executive Travis Tygart said in a statement on Wednesday he understood the AIU’s reasons for appealing the case, which he called an example of the system at work, before pointing a finger at the World Anti-Doping Agency.
“The real issue in this case is WADA’s bad rule. Trenbolone, the substance in Knighton’s case, is a known livestock enhancer and known to be found in the meat supply,” Tygart said.
“We have advocated for the rules around contamination to formally change for years, and WADA has refused to act swiftly.”
U.S. and global anti-doping authorities have been at loggerheads since the case involving 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive for a banned substance before the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 but were allowed to compete.
-Reuters
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