Ready or not, the 2024 Paris Olympic Games have begun. As with any quadrennial, there will be stories of glorious triumph, heartbreaking defeat, feel-good underdogs, and maybe even a villain or two. But headed into Paris this year, one of the main storylines was whether or not the city could properly host the Games — and whether Parisians even wanted this in the first place.
This will be the first “normal” Olympics since the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, after the global pandemic completely altered Tokyo 2020 (so much so that those Games were actually held in 2021) and the attendance-limited 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. There were big questions about what the 2024 Games would look like. With some of the events taking place in major hubs of the city — overlooks the Eiffel Tower — will Paris be able to handle the crush of visitors coming to see the Games? Are the security restrictions going to make being in the city a hassle? Who’s going to perform at the opening ceremonies? What is everyone going to wear? Is the Seine River clean enough to swim in? Why is Parisian Mayor Anne Hidalgo so eager to swim in it? Today, we started to get a few answers.
For these first truly post-pandemic Games, Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of the Opening Ceremony, pursued a hugely ambitious performance. Not only did he intermingle the parade of athletes with the show — typically two separate portions — but he also took both portions out of a stadium into the city its.