The Eiffel Tower hypnotizes the rain

The Olympic Games. of Paris’2024 have had their baptism in fire, and also in water, and are officially underway. Expectations are high for the first ceremony in history outside a stadium, especially because of the expectations raised by the organizers themselves.

Two hours before the start of the opening ceremony, on screens dotted around the gardens of the Trocadero, a French TV promotional spot used, in chronological order, images of the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games. from Paris’1924, 100 years ago, to Tokyo’2020. At the end of them is a sign that says: “You haven’t seen anything yet. Paris 2024”. No thunder followed, but it was premonitory.

Rain first spoils and then threatens the start of the Olympics. of Paris 2024, which kicked off with a ceremony that was more pompous than flamboyant and played with the weather. But every city has a superhero who comes to the rescue when needed. In Gotham he is Batman. In Metropolis he is Superman. And in Paris it is the Eiffel Tower.

The quintessential Parisian symbol takes center stage in the final moments, with the fire already in the Trocadero, at the end of the route, with a spectacular play of lights, as if it were an alien antenna, worth four time waiting.

Just before the tower hypnotized the world with its dance of light, the former footballer Zinedine Zidane collected the Olympic fire at the Trocadero, gave it to Rafael Nadal, whose love affair with Paris lasted 14 titles. And the tennis player literally started with three other legends, Serena WilliamsThe athlete Carl Lewis and the gymnast Nadia Comanecito cross the Seine again and give it to Amèlie Mauresmo, former tennis player and Roland Garros tournament director. Then it happened in the former NBA Tony Parker. All are trained to light the cauldron. But nothing was chosen.

More, more, until we reach the final couple, the former athlete Marie Jose Perec and the gigantic judoka Teddy Riner, which will herald this Olympic Games. Together they lit a balloon cauldron in the Tuileries that remained suspended in the air.

True, the French capital made a very risky bet by taking the inauguration outside the stadiums and spreading it along the adjacent streets for a 6 kilometer stretch. of the River Seine passing through the most popular areas of the city. The organization itself described it a few days ago as “the biggest show of the 21st century.” But sometimes it’s better to keep quiet because Versailles can always be Waterloo.

The delegations paraded by boat, something never seen before. This presented an enormous organizational and security challenge, especially after sabotage occurred on various lines of the country’s high-speed train system that same morning. And both, with greater or lesser success and with the help of 50,000 agents including police, army and private security, the organization solved them. But no one can control the rain. If all day he was just flirtatious, once the ceremony was an hour it turned into a downpour that was even more intense than it seemed on TV.

The handicap of the climate weakened the party and could not have been better said, something that was especially visible in a box of authority with an awning that was too narrow to shelter them all, a very obvious error of the organization. But Paris also missed the mark with his innovative proposal. The show is unique in many ways. Live and recorded images are mixed to try to weave a plot through a mysterious hooded character, like the Phantom of the Opera, who will carry the Olympic flame almost from the beginning to the end of the journey this. Soon, an interruption to start the parade and, after the passing of several boats, a new interruption to continue the show designed by the actor and theater director. Thomas Jolly. Etc. Some countries, up to 4 or 5, shared a boat; others, no. The popularity of the flag bearers is obscured in this seeming chaos and the athletes seem like mere extras in a very expensive advertising spot for the city and France. There are almost no short shots and details of what the stars will be like in the next 16 days, they are general and short pictures, probably because they are far away, in the middle of the river, and moving. Or maybe because ‘Don’t bother, it’s Paris’ time now.’

At a speed that is sometimes incomprehensible, although the appropriate labels are reported to the various gestures – freedom, equality, darkness, unity… – the French references appear one after another: the Montgolfier brothers, Marie Antoinette and the Revolution, Victor Hugo, the Lumière brothers, the Louvre, Notre Dame, the fashion catwalks, Louis Vuitton, the Minions as surprising intruders in the French village, parkour, love without borders of sex, the cancan, the opera… Too much information and too scattered to be unable to digest, that’s not the point, but enjoy it. And, above all, the inevitable performance of music – long live shameless playback – here and there, with Lady Gaga either It’s Nakamura.

Beyond certain details – the tricolor dust that forms the French flag on the bridge of Austerlitz, which signals the ceremony, the heavy metal in Marie Antoinette’s castle or the horse that rides over the water – and the fact that the river is the real cohesive element of the event, in general it does not dissolve, without approaching the perfection of Beijing’2008 or the partying casualness and self-parody of London’2012.

But when everything falls, the Eiffel Tower always remains standing.

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