ARSON ATTACKS PARALYZE RAIL NETWORK

After a glittering steel horse galloped all the plot in which during the Seine, a woman wearing silver armor rode an actual horse while carrying the unswerving Olympic flag (which damage up being raised the opposite plot up).

Who used to be the woman on horseback? Her title is Floriane Issert, a Gendarmerie noncommissioned officer. She used to be intended to be “the representation of the Olympic spirit and of Sequana,” the goddess of the Seine River.

Organizers for the Los Angeles Games in 2028 can hold a arduous time matching the size of what Paris performed alongside the Seine.

LA’s enlighten included plans to interrupt up its opening ceremony between Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum — moreover a host in 1932 and 1984 — and SoFi Stadium. These plans may moreover switch in the following four years, though.

Talking on French television, Paris 2024 director of have and costume for ceremonies Daphné Bürki spoke of how enthusiastic Dion and Girl Gaga hold been to perceive piece.

“After we referred to as Celine Dion one Twelve months ago, she said yes straight,” Bürki said. “So did Girl Gaga. She trained for 2 months to attain this.”

Now the games delivery in earnest all all the plot in which through France.

There are an extraordinarily good deal of gold medals at stake Saturday, the first stout day of the Olympic slate. There’s swimming and tennis all day long. And quite so much of other stars can be in action, alongside with U.S. Originate tennis champion Coco Gauff, NBA phenom Victor Wembanyama and Greece’s Giannis Antetokounmpo.

▶ Right here’s what to respect sometime of Day 1 of the Paris Olympics

No. Her English songs are grand appreciated and French is her first language but she is Canadian.

Born in Quebec, the French-talking province of Canada, the singer would now not hold French nationality.

A little confusingly, Dion represented Switzerland in the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest and won the total element. Eurovision doesn’t require singers to be residents of the worldwide locations they’re representing.

She obtained a standing ovation at this Twelve months’s Grammys when she made a shock look to account for the final award. That used to be the starting of a comeback, performed tonight.

Celine Dion’s Olympics performance marks her return to performing after years. She used to be diagnosed with stiff person syndrome in unhurried 2022, inflicting her to postpone a tour.

The uncommon neurological dysfunction causes inflexible muscle groups and painful muscle spasms, which hold been affecting Dion’s means to toddle and inform. In June, at the premiere of the documentary “I Am: Celine Dion” she suggested The Connected Press that returning required therapy, “physically, mentally, emotionally, vocally.”

“So that’s why it takes some time. However fully why we’re doing this as a consequence of I’m already moderately bit assist,” she said.

The identification of the one who would mild the Olympic cauldron (spoiler alert: Marie-José Pérec and Teddy Riner) used to be up in the air … and so, it looks, used to be the cauldron itself: a hoop of fire carried by a scorching-air balloon.

The ring is 7 meters in diameter (about 23 feet), and the balloon is 30 meters (about 100 feet) big and 22 meters (about 72 feet) extensive.

In its keep of the unparalleled ground-lumber cauldron ragged at most Summer and Winter Games, the special model for the Paris Olympics is supposed as a tribute to the first lope taken in a hydrogen-stuffed gasoline balloon — made in 1783 by two of that balloon’s French inventors. They departed assist then from the Tuileries Garden, which is advance the Louvre Museum in the center of Paris and the keep the Olympic cauldron used to be lit earlier than floating into the sky.

Created by French designer Mathieu Lehanneur, the cauldron is supposed as a image of liberty – a element in the national slogan of “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.”

Charles Coste, the oldest French Olympic champion at 100, took the Olympic flame from his wheelchair, then passed it on to French judo big Teddy Riner and sprinter Marie-José Pérec. They lit a cauldron hooked up to a big balloon, which then floated into the Paris night.

Mauresmo and Parker handed off to a trio of French para-athletes, alongside with Nantenin Keïta, who is the daughter of infamous Mali musician Salif Keita. A group of handoffs followed to extra than a dozen French athletes.

When the boat reached land, Nadal ragged the torch his community needed to mild one held by venerable tennis player Amelie Mauresmo. She won two Sizable Slam titles, reached No. 1 in the rankings and coached Andy Murray; she is now the match director for the French Originate.

Mauresmo handed her torch to venerable NBA player Tony Parker, and so they started jogging together under a falling rain advance the Louvre.

Other folks quiet lining the Alexander III Bridge cheered with pleasure as the Olympic torch passed by on the boat.

The final torch relay unhurried in the ceremony fervent retired soccer superstar Zinedine Zidane, who led France to the 1998 World Cup title, and several non-French stars.

Zidane handed off to Rafael Nadal, a Spaniard who won 14 of his 22 Sizable Slam tennis titles at the French Originate. Then, on a boat alongside the Seine, Nadal gave the torch to Serena Williams, an American who restful three of her 23 main singles championships in Paris.

After staring in scare at the Eiffel Tower mild existing, crowds as soon as but one more time leaping up and down and bopping to electronic track.

Lights from the monument may moreover moreover be seen as rays during the rain over the Seine, leaving the cloudy sky glowing.

French President Emmanuel Macron has said the words that make it unswerving: He has declared the Paris Games open.

Macron did so perfect earlier than French flag bearers Florent Manaudou and Mélina Robert-Michon took the Olympic Oath on behalf of your total athletes taking piece in the Olympic Games. The oath represents how athletes brand they have to respect the principles of trendy play.

The 5-ring Olympic flag used to be raised the opposite plot up at Trocadero all the plot in which during the technique from the Eiffel Tower.

The gaffe came about about three hours into the outlet ceremony. Four officers of the Republican Guard hold been handed the flag, unfurled it and then moved it to the head of a pole. However the yellow and inexperienced rings that are presupposed to be at the bottom hold been at the head; the blue, murky and red rings that are presupposed to be on prime hold been under.

The flag used to be designed in 1914 by Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the up-to-the-minute Olympics. The 5 rings signify continents: blue for Europe, murky for Africa, red for The US, yellow for Asia, inexperienced for Australia.

Tony Estanguet, the president of Paris 2024 and a three-time canoe slalom gold medalist, equipped the Olympic athletes a message of hope at the outlet ceremony Friday night.

And he thanked them for being in Paris.

“Dear athletes, we are able to’t wait to are living it all with you,” he said. “The pleasure. The tears. And the esteem that you just may well build in every second. Thank you so grand for being here. You made it. Bravo. I know what it technique. I know what it took. I know the paths you’ve got followed to be here. Paris will give assist to you. It’s the metropolis of esteem. And for the following 16 days, it is a long way your metropolis.”

Algeria reminded France of a awful chapter of its colonial previous sometime of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony.

Algerian athletes introduced red roses on their boat as they paraded for the occasion, and then tossed them into the river to honor victims of an harmful 1961 police crackdown on Algerian protesters in Paris.
Historians narrate some 120 protesters died and 12,000 hold been arrested as they demonstrated in toughen of independence from France, then Algeria’s colonial ruler. Some hold been thrown in the Seine River.

Algeria won its independence in 1962 after an extended warfare.

In Friday’s Olympics parade, some athletes chanted ‘’Long are living Algeria!’’ in Arabic after throwing the flowers.

Though organizers said 6,800 athletes would assist the parade, a long way fewer than that appear to hold stayed after boats docked for the final piece of the ceremony, held in a transient enviornment facing the Eiffel Tower.

The crowd of athletes there, many wearing optimistic plastic ponchos, had thinned to a pair of thousand at most.

Four delegations hold perfect one athlete competing at the Games. They are Belize, Liechtenstein, Nauru and Somalia.

None of them had their procure boat for the outlet ceremony on the Seine. Being the lone athlete has its perks, though: It’s most likely you’ll well moreover be a undeniable element to be the flag bearer. Mountain bike racer Romano Puentener of Liechtenstein is the youngest of the four — he’s 20.

Three hours in, and the Paris Olympics opening ceremony has been a delicate — if soggy — success. It’s nearly arduous to procure after the day started with arsonists attacking the French high-race rail system.

The 90 boats carrying 6,800 athletes hold performed the roughly 90-minute Seine River parade route. It’s been an remarkable display of Olympic spirit, individual that looks to hold long previous with out a hitch.

There hold been memorable musical performances from Girl Gagasteel band Gojira and others. Gorgeous inventive displays utilized Paris’ many ancient landmarks. And seriously, no acknowledged interruptions despite considerations over security and security all the plot in which during the sprawling Olympic stage — and no one’s fallen into the uneven Seine.

A horsewoman galloped on her glittering steel horse on the waters of the Seine River, draped in a cape emblazoned with the Olympic rings. As she passed under Paris successive bridges, dove’s wings unfurled to indicate a message of peace.

The tableau used to be then transformed into the horsewoman riding an actual horse, accompanied by the Republican Guard, to bring the Olympic flag to the Trocadero stage, advance the Eiffel Tower.

Sofia Cohen, 20, and her father Michael Cohen, 62, hold been among packs of of us grinning and leaping up and down, pumping their fist to track after boats had already passed.

Calling the outlet ceremony “electrical,” the Nicaraguan-American citizens chatted about their licensed moments, agreeing that the utter of applause the Ukrainian crew obtained as it drifted by on boat used to be their licensed piece.

“Every Olympics is diversified, and this one used to be very French. The ceremony started off very magestic and regal. And as the rain started pouring down and time went on, the total lot obtained moderately extra irritating and fun,” Sofia said. “Everyone used to be perfect going crazy.

French singer and actor Philippe Katerine, singing a track named “Bare,” is acknowledged for his irreverent humorousness.

Identical old 55, he grew to changed into licensed in France in the 2000s with his dance beat “Louxor, j’like,” which he performed Friday nearly bare with his physique painted in blue to indicate Dyonisus, the god of wine.

Up conclude, the waters of the Seine River regarded uneven certainly. As boats approached the Alexander III Bridge, all of them seemed to veer off to the facet. And the smaller boats hold been clearly having a bumpy lope.

One of the most ideals of the Oly mpics is peace, which makes John Lennon’s “Take into accounts” a natural match for the outlet ceremony.

It has changed into a convention, individual that persisted Friday at the outlet of the Paris Games, for Lennon’s peace anthem to be piece of the outlet.

“The Olympic Games have to continuously map bridges. The Olympic Games have to never erect walls. Take into accounts. It’s most likely you’ll well moreover merely narrate we are dreamers. We’re no longer essentially the most productive ones,” IOC president Thomas Bach said precisely one Twelve months ago Friday, borrowing from the track.

Olympic surfers competing in Tahiti, French Polynesia, obtained their procure probability to shine about 10,000 miles (15,000 kilometers) a long way off from Paris, when TV confirmed them gathering on a sea jog for a ceremony centered on Polynesian culture.

The 12-hour time incompatibility from Paris technique it used to be moderately earlier than 10 a.m. on Friday in Tahiti when the surfing athletes hold been rapid on displays spherical the field. Some held flags or scarfs showing their worldwide locations’ names.

It’s an ancestral custom in Polynesian culture ragged as a prelude to essential events to real the peace and union of those in competitors in opposition to every other.

Surfing is anticipated to delivery Saturday, depending on when swales strategy and
the perspective and dimension of the waves.

Even LeBron James used to be moved by his experience at the outlet ceremony.

By his firm, too.

The four-time NBA MVP and tennis superstar Coco Gauff hold been the flag bearers for the U.S.

“For myself and Coco, for us to be able to indicate our nation,” James said, “us being Dark young of us in addition, signify our culture and signify the keep we attain from, it gives all people so grand hope the keep we attain from, and that’s all we are able to seek data from for. We take hold of it with the utmost accountability and the utmost honor.”

James joined a big contingent of American athletes on a boat on the Seine River on a moist night in Paris. With Gauff by his facet — each and each clad in optimistic ponchos — James bobbed his head as he held the flag at the entrance of the boat.

“The rain can’t conclude us,” James said.

Pins are forex at any Olympics: of us alternate them, of us want them, of us attach them and it’s all been a convention for decades.

And U.S. flag bearer and tennis superstar Coco Gauff is evidently a big player on the pin circuit since her choice to steer the American delegation into the outlet ceremony alongside LeBron James.

“I will narrate it’s upped her pin sport drastically,” U.S. tennis coach Kathy Rinaldi said. “Moral inserting spherical Coco, we’re getting the truly elegant pins.”

“The rain made it extra funny to be right,” said Austrian marathon swimmer Jan Hercog, who’ll compete in the Seine, whether it is a long way trim passable.

“There hold been of us standing on the roofs and on eminent structures that I hold perfect seen in books and on TV. … I was love, ‘Woah, that’s crazy.’ They hold been cheering. I was nearly crying.”

He said he used to be “truly fearful” about the aptitude that the moist night may moreover impact his performance. He said he’d take hold of vitamin C and some supplements to pep him up after the ceremony.

Tom Daley and Helen Glover inserted a scene from “Tremendous” into the outlet ceremony.

Luckily for Daley and Glover, there used to be no iceberg in peek.

Daley and Glover — the flag bearers for Britain — build their procure little twist on the blockbuster 1997 film while floating on their nation’s boat on the River Seine.

Daley, a diver, held his palms out as he stood advance a railing, and Glover, a rower, had her palms wrapped spherical his waist while conserving the British flag.

Britain’s crew story posted an image of the scene. The caption learn: “Map, a long way, wherever you are..”

At 6-foot-9, U.S. flag bearer and NBA icon LeBron James is sublime easy to keep of abode. And there are no shortage of Olympians making an are attempting to catch him at the Paris Games.

“I have to take hold of an image with about a guys from tennis and from NBA — LeBron James and Steph Curry,” Angola handball player and flag bearer Azenaide Carlos said.

Added Italian tennis player Sara Errani, when asked which athlete she wishes to most meet: “LeBron James. Why? I don’t think there’s any have to add a motive, but for certain as a consequence of I am a big basketball fan.”

James used to be chosen in a vote among Personnel USA’s captains. A variety of worldwide locations use diversified methods for selecting flag bearers; Australia chef de mission Anna Meares published her nation’s picks — canoe-kayak Olympic champion Jessica Fox and enviornment hockey’s Eddie Ockenden — earlier this week, and said James having the same honor piqued grand extra hobby in the flag bearer role.

“There’s moreover an extraordinarily good deal of enjoyment in the Australian crew that LeBron James is their flagbearer,” Meares said.

Palestine’s entrance used to be met with cheers. Like many crisis-bothered worldwide locations, the nation’s delegation is little and an extraordinarily good deal of the athletes are Palestinian descendants or trained in other worldwide locations to be here.

▶ Read extra about the Palestinian Olympic crew

The ceremony eminent ladies folks, alongside with by featuring 10 gold-colored statues of big French female figures.

Throughout a performance of the national anthem “La Marseillaise,” the statues arose from giant pedestals alongside the river advance France’s decrease dwelling of parliament.

Amongst the pioneering ladies folks honored used to be Olympe de Gouges, who drafted the Declaration of the Rights of Girls and the Feminine Citizen in 1791 sometime of the French Revolution. She campaigned for the abolition of slavery and used to be guillotined in 1793.

The others: Simone de Beauvoir, a thinker and author; Gisèle Halimi, a legal official and activist; Paulette Nardal, a author; Jeanne Barret, an explorer and botanist; Christine de Pizan, a author; Louise Michel, a feminist activist; Alice Guy, a film director and producer; Alice Milliat, organizer of the first Girls’s World Games; Simone Veil, a politician and Justice of the Peace. The statues can be given to the City of Paris – which for the time being has 260 statues of males and perfect 40 or so of girls folks.

France most productive no longer too long ago has started honoring its big female figures. Till 2015, the Pantheon monument, which is the final resting enlighten of dozens of national heroes, had most productive one woman among them: Marie Curie. Since then, four other ladies folks hold been inducted.

These Summer Games aim to be the first Olympics with equal numbers of girls folks and males competing.

Closing but below no circumstances least, the French delegation has joined of the outlet ceremony’s athletes’ parade.

It passed under the Austerlitz Bridge rapidly after 9:15 p.m. to nice cheers from the rain-soaked crowd lining the riverbanks and looking out at from nearby residence windows. Fans chanted “Allez les Bleus, Allez les Bleus” — a infamous chant for the nation’s various sports actions teams.

Athletes on the first boats began to strategy at the Trocadero spherical 9 p.m., most of them wearing optimistic ponchos over their uniforms. They may moreover be here for extra than 2 1/2 extra hours as the assorted worldwide locations disembark earlier than the ceremonies started unswerving aspects, alongside with the athletes’ oath.

Some of us don’t have to leave the ceremony despite the rain and are making an are attempting to catch duvet to permit them to defend looking out at.

“I love the existing, but I don’t have to be out in the rain for 3 hours,” said Guillermo Saez, who stumbled on safe haven under a little bridge in the viewing predicament. “It’s miserable that it’s raining, it (the ceremony) used to be promising,” he added, noting that the French had awful luck.

More seats are being left empty alongside the parade route as the rain picks up in Paris. The athletes are quiet floating down the Seine, and loads fans hold quiet caught spherical with umbrellas and ponchos.

The mezzo-soprano Axelle Saint-Cirel perfect performed a reimagined model of “The Marseillaise,” which is France’s national anthem, in a downpour as the outlet ceremony strikes alongside.

It coincided with the elevating of the French flag at the Trocadero. As has been the case at the previous couple of Olympics no longer lower than, the flagpole got here geared up with fans that prolonged the flag out stout horizontally.

Loud cheers may moreover be heard for the huge majority of the anthem.

A little delegation from Haiti is floating down the Seine. Like other crisis-bothered worldwide locations in the Olympics, many in the delegation are from other worldwide locations and hold dad and mom or grandparents that migrated from Haiti.

The Caribbean nation — a French and Creole-talking nation that shares an extended, panicked ancient previous with France, its venerable colonizer — has largely changed into too bad for athletes to put together there.

That said, for some in the delegation who spoke to the AP, representing their family’s nation is a point of enjoyment for a nation that has long been spoken down to.

Basketball player Dennis Schroder says it’s “insane” that he used to be picked to be Germany’s flag bearer. And he loved every second of it, with a big smile on his face as the boat carrying his crew made its technique down the River Seine.

“With my background in addition, my mom’s from Gambia, me being murky skinned in Germany, been tricky infrequently rising up but now to be able to indicate Germany, it’s insane,” Schroder said. “It’s big for my family, no longer perfect for me, but of us that hold identical background. It’s a big, a pleasant, commentary in Germany.”

Schroder, a member of Germany’s reigning World Cup champion crew who performs for the Brooklyn Nets, is regarded as one of three flag bearers from the NBA in Friday’s opening ceremony. Greece’s Giannis Antetokounmpo and LeBron James of the U.S. are the others.

The Nigeria ladies folks’s basketball crew wasn’t allowed to board the delegation’s boat for the outlet ceremony of the Paris Olympics by regarded as one of the most nation’s officials, said a person mindful of the topic.

The person spoke to The Connected Press on condition of anonymity as a consequence of the Nigeria delegation has no longer publicly commented.

Once the crew made it to the predicament the keep they hold been presupposed to board the boat and be a chunk of the ceremony, they hold been denied entry by a Nigerian unswerving who suggested them that there hold been too many other folks on board. The crew made its technique to the athletes village after being grew to changed into away.

▶ Read extra about the Nigeria ladies folks’s basketball crew

The climate is getting worse at the outlet ceremony. And there’s now a fresh project: waves.

OK, they’re no longer passable for surfing, but when somebody in the athletes’ procession is inclined to seasickness, here’s hoping they’ve a clear up nearby.

The boats are seeming to leap on the Seine River moderately extra than they did when the ceremony started — amid a rupture in the rain.

It’s been raining step by step for about a half of-hour now. Most athletes hold pulled transparent ponchos over their snazzy opening-ceremony outfits.

A little trickle of spectators hold begun to file out of the ceremony. The overwhelming majority of of us continue to doughty the rain.

Just a few fans perfect jeered Israel as it went previous on a shared boat, but no longer many. The Italian delegation on the same boat rapid chanted “Italia! Italia!”

Athletes on one of the most most better boats needed to diminish the flags they hold been waving while passing through one of the most most smaller bridges on the Seine River. The real rain in Paris made one of the most most athletes conclude under duvet sometime of substances of the parade.