Headline : Paris Olympics emerges from darkness with unique opening ceremony

Read more from the original article on here at www.telegraph.co.uk.

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After the mayhem, the majesty. Paris conjured a truly indelible spectacle to launch the Games of the 33rd Olympiad, with a blazing hot-air balloon soaring high into the night sky offering a breathtaking showcase for the City of Lights. The four-hour opening ceremony was unlike any conceived in the 128 years of the modern Olympics, transplanting the host nation’s story from a stadium setting to a dozen complex tableaux on water, all while ferrying 6,800 athletes in a 3½-mile flotilla of 85 barges. Even Emmanuel Macron conceded the idea was “crazy”. The fact that it somehow succeeded was little short of miraculous.

A day that had dawned with a vast and co-ordinated attack on France’s high-speed rail network culminated in the sight of that glorious balloon, an airborne cauldron visible from every corner of the metropolis. Just when the teeming summer rain threatened to douse the fervour, the organisers summoned a magnificent coup de théâtre. Charles Coste, at the age of 100 the oldest living French Olympic gold medallist, rolled forward in his wheelchair with the Olympic torch, one unforgettable figure in the chain of champions who would set the balloon on its stately ascent.

It fell to Céline Dion to close the show with a rendition of Édith Piaf’s L’Hymne à l’amour. The moment marked the French-Canadian superstar’s first concert appearance since her diagnosis in 2022 with stiff-person syndrome. She proved a fitting choice. Earlier in the evening, diving’s Tom Daley and rower Helen Glover evoked the memory of her best-known song, My Heart Will Go On, recreating the iconic Titanic scene for which it is known at the front of the British boat.

Under sopping downpours, the sheer ambition of this ceremony was dazzling. Yes, the security situation hovered between tension and outright panic in the wake of the railway sabotage, paralysing all routes into Paris’s grandest soirée. And yes, the relentless rain was enough to challenge even an eternal optimist. But the balloon saved the day, an iconic flourish that rendered these Games instantly unforgettable. 

Read more from the original article on here at www.telegraph.co.uk.

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