NO NO, LE déluge is meant to come In his pre-ceremony address to the media, Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of Paris’ opening ceremony, explained the kick-off time. “We have deliberately chosen the most beautiful of lighting: by starting the ceremony at 7.30pm, we are counting on the sun and its flashes of gold to illuminate the stone and make the water sparkle.
” The rain fell in staccato showers throughout the day and then poured with ignorant consistency once the first Olympic opening ceremony to be held outside of a stadium got underway. For a long time, this ceremony fit snugly with much of French high art as something better envisioned than experienced. The plan was mildly daft.
Eighty-five boats would take 6,800 athletes more than 6km from the Pont d’Austerlitz and west to the Trocadéro at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, and the of the ceremony meant a lockdown of the surrounding area and the city’s biggest security operation since the second world war. It was eerie to snap a picture of the Arc de Triomphe free of traffic, only to then spot the snipers on its roof. While 200,000 people could line the Seine for free and feel part of the ceremony, it nonetheless made the athletes feel oddly distant and apart.
They were also separated from one another, aside from those with whom they shared a boat. (This was done on alphabetical order, with Ireland in with Iraq, curiously, rather than Israel.) Everything initially felt so sprawled and disjointed that the be.
