The Paris 2024 Olympic Games will officially commence with the opening ceremony next Friday, though some events will start as early as two days prior. The French capital is already alive with Olympic fervor as this premier global multidisciplinary event begins this week. Delegations from various countries have arrived, eager to compete for medals.
While the grand opening ceremony is set for next Friday on the River Seine, certain competitions, including football and rugby sevens featuring Argentina’s strong teams, will start on Wednesday. The first medals will be awarded on Saturday in disciplines such as judo, fencing, skateboarding, road cycling, swimming, diving, shooting, and rugby sevens.
Most of the 30 sports will be held in Paris, while 15 will take place in the metropolitan area of the French capital. As with all Olympic events, some activities will also be spread across other cities. For instance, equestrian sports, modern pentathlon, cycling, BMX freestyle, and golf will be hosted in Versailles. Sailing competitions will occur in Marseille, shooting in Chateauroux, and basketball and handball in Lille.
Surfing will also take place on French territory, but more than 15,000 kilometers from Paris, in Teahupo’o, a commune in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France. Football will be played across the country, with matches held in seven stadiums: Matmut Atlantique in Bordeaux, Parc OL in Lyon, Stade Velodrome in Marseille, Stade de la Beaujoire in Nantes, Allianz Riviera in Nice, Parc des Princes in Paris, and Geoffroy-Guichard in Saint-Étienne.
The opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, scheduled for Friday, July 26 on the River Seine, is expected to have the largest live television coverage ever undertaken by the International Olympic Committee (IOC)’s audiovisual arm. The ceremony will last 3 hours and 45 minutes and, for the first time in history, will not take place in a stadium.
As usual, all the athlete delegations will parade, but this time along a 6-kilometer route on 85 boats. According to the Olympic Broadcasting Service (OBS), it will be the largest production ever in terms of equipment and broadcast resources.
On the banks of the Seine and at major points in Paris, around 3,000 dancers and actors will form 12 different groups to honor the athletes, aiming to tell the story of France as a country of diversity and to celebrate the unity of the world. This ambitious opening ceremony is directed by Thomas Jolly, a French artistic director, and is considered the most ambitious in Olympic history.
The event, open to the general public (standing room only), will extend from the Pont d’Austerlitz to the Trocadero along the River Seine. Activities will also be held at key monuments in the vicinity (Notre-Dame, the Louvre and Orsay museums, the Eiffel Tower, etc.), all of which will be broadcast to the world by more than a hundred camera systems.
On the ships carrying the delegations, over 200 smartphones will be installed to offer a “unique” perspective of the ceremony. This event is expected to attract more than a billion viewers globally, providing a view from the 6,000 to 7,000 athletes participating in the protocol parade.
“To give you an idea of the scale of the project, this involves three times the number of cameras used during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Ceremony (held in 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic). Additionally, there will be eight drones, three helicopters, and four stabilized boats equipped with special camera systems,” the OBS explained.
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