Paris Olympics 2024 Opening Ceremony as it happened: Magnificent, outrageous, unique: Celine Dion, floating cauldron cap Paris’s staggering party

What an opening ceremony.

A floating cauldron, a masked stranger, a metal horse on the Seine, 208 delegations including of course the Australian team led by Jessica Fox and Eddie Ockenden, swathes of celebrities, world-class athletes and VIPS, a light show at the Eiffel Tower, Lady Gaga, Celine Dion, that incredible music … I could go on and on.

That’s us for now from Paris, but we’ll be back tonight to bring you all the action as the Games officially get going. The first medal opportunity is in the diving, while the Boomers take on Spain before a huge night kicks off at the pool with some genuine Australian medal chances.

Thanks so much for joining us. On behalf of Rob Harris and Chloe Saltau on the banks of the Seine and Michael Idato filing from Los Angeles, au revoir.

Credit: Getty Images

From a show-stopping performance by Lady Gaga to an electrifying set by the heavy metal band Gojira, this opening ceremony has been a breathtaking spectacle of pomp and pageantry.

The use of the River Seine as a stage for floating platforms and artistic displays added a unique and memorable dimension to the event.

There were rock musicians harnessed to balconies, can-can dancers along the Seine and even a nod to the stage show Les Miserables.

Getting a bird’s-eye view of it all were the 30,000-plus athletes who are making their way down the Seine on boats.

Lady Gaga performs at Square Barye during the athletes’ parade on the River Seine.Credit: Getty Images

A general view of performance at the Palais de Justice.Credit: Getty Images

Smoke billows from windows as part of a sequence featuring decapitated Marie Antoinettes.Credit: AP

Actors perform during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics.Credit: Getty Images

Dancers perform on a roof during the opening ceremony.Credit: Getty Images

Team Greece begins the athletes’ parade past water jets and the water curtain under the Austerlitz Bridge on the Seine.Credit: Getty Images

A shimmering city of love

The Eiffel Tower and the Olympics rings are lit up.Credit: AP

The Paris ceremony started in daylight

Smoke resembling the flag of Team France is shown over Pont d’Austerlitz during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.Credit: Getty Images

Masked, on the Musee d’Orsay

A mysterious torchbearer runs atop the Musee d’Orsay.Credit: Getty Images

Aussie athletes wave with joy

Jessica Fox and Eddie Ockenden, Flagbearers of Team Australia on a boat waving their flag along the River Seine.Credit: Getty Images

Silhouettes and the Summer Olympics

Teddy Riner and Marie-Jose Perec watch as the cauldron rises in a balloon in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics.Credit: AP

What an opening ceremony.

A floating cauldron, a masked stranger, a metal horse on the Seine, 208 delegations including of course the Australian team led by Jessica Fox and Eddie Ockenden, swathes of celebrities, world-class athletes and VIPS, a light show at the Eiffel Tower, Lady Gaga, Celine Dion, that incredible music … I could go on and on.

That’s us for now from Paris, but we’ll be back tonight to bring you all the action as the Games officially get going. The first medal opportunity is in the diving, while the Boomers take on Spain before a huge night kicks off at the pool with some genuine Australian medal chances.

Thanks so much for joining us. On behalf of Rob Harris and Chloe Saltau on the banks of the Seine and Michael Idato filing from Los Angeles, au revoir.

Credit: Getty Images

Michael Idato has summed up the television spectacle of this truly unprecedented opening ceremony as a “tour de force of culture and camp”.

He writes:

One of the inescapable truths of the business of the Olympic Games is that there is a lot of US broadcast money in it. American television networks have historically poured the most cash into the Olympic coffers, and that money has always translated into the biggest voice at the table.

The net effect has always been Olympic Games that are either packaged perfectly for American TV, or Olympic Games that have consciously packaged only the right kind of local cultural notes, such as giant bouncing kangaroos, because they were precisely what an American television audience expected to see.

For the opening of the summer Games of the 33rd Olympiad, Paris offered an opening ceremony that set itself apart from the very first frame. Unpredictable, sometimes baffling, always artful, it was certainly camp, but it was also visually stunning and unapologetically French.

Read Michael’s full story here.

There were 3,500 performers involved in this opening ceremony and I ran into a couple of them after they’d finished their part in the show.

Lou and Lys are part of the Box Crew dance company that put on a breathtaking display of breakdancing, and they were still buzzing as they jogged along the banks of the Seine after their performance.

“It was really nice to dance in the rain, it’s crazy to do that in Paris,” said Lou.

Breakdancing (or Breaking) is, of course, making its Olympic debut at these Games and it was important to these young Frenchman to put on a captivating show.

“Seeing the smiles on the face of the people and to represent the breakdance, it was important to do this in a good way,” Lou said, offering a fist pump before the pair went off to watch Zinedine Zidane pass the Olympic flame to Rafael Nadal, which elicited a roar from the crowd.

What a moment that was. The red clay of Roland-Garros is Rafa’s natural habitat and his doubles with fellow Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz will surely be one of the hottest tickets of these Games.

I’d suggest watching this on repeat. I sure will be.

Celine Dion closed the Opening Ceremony of the Paris Olympics with a stunning performance of the iconic Edith Piaf song L’Hymne à l’amour.

The Charlemagne, Quebec-born French-Canadian singer was stupendous, not simply because it was a moment book ended by the hoisting of flags and the lighting of Olympic flames, but because it was Dion’s first concert performance since revealing she is suffering from a rare progressive neurological disorder.

Canadian singer Celine Dion performs on the Eiffel Tower.Credit: Getty Images

Dressed simply in white, the performance came with Dion’s characteristic understatement. Though she is something of a personality in life, on stage she is famous for letting here voice take the spotlight.

And she did not disappoint here, delivering a feat of vocal athleticism the equal of any gold medallist.

But etched on her face was a combination of pain and high-powered performance, testament to both an extraordinary voice, and also a deeply affecting and difficult chapter of her private life.

Dion opened up about her condition, known as Stiff Person Syndrome, in the documentary, I Am: Celine Dion.

In the wake of her diagnosis, Dion had stopped performing in public.

“It’s not hard to do a show, it’s hard to cancel a show,” Dion said in the documentary. “It’s been a struggle. I miss it so much. The people, I miss them.”

Today’s performance is Dion’s second at an Olympic Games. In the Opening Ceremony of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, in the United States, she sang The Power of the Dream.

The Olympic flame has been lit on a hot air balloon, flying high above the Paris skyline, in a remarkable finish to three-and-a-half hours of a ground-breaking opening ceremony here in Paris.

It was legendary sprinter Marie-José Pérec – the great rival to our own Cathy Freeman - and judo star Teddy Riner who lit the Olympic cauldron to officially inaugurate the 2024 Games.

One of France’s most famous Olympic athletes, Pérec won three gold medals in track and field over the 1992 and 1996 Games. Riner — nicknamed “Teddy Bear” — is one of the most physically imposing athletes in French history. A three-time Olympic gold medallist in judo, he triumphed in the 2012, 2016 and 2020 Games.

And it wasn’t just any Olympic cauldron. It was a seven-metre wide ring of flames topped by a 30-metre-tall hot-air balloon.

Some of you will have loved it, some will have hated it.

We saw some incredible athletes on the home stretch, including Zinedine Zidane, one of the greatest footballers in history, who famously scored two goals in the 1998 World Cup final against Brazil.

He passed the torched to Rafael Nadal, the king of Roland Garros, who was joined by fellow tennis great Serena Williams and legendary gymnast Nadia Comaneci and Olympic great Carl Lewis to take the flame back down the Seine.

Tony Parker, the former basketball player who was the first Frenchman to be inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame, also had a cameo.

And finally … Celine Dion closed the evening in stunning fashion, making a comeback after more than four years without performing in public.

OK, a quick recap of the journey the torch has taken during the ceremony:

• Up the Seine in the hands of the mysterious hooded stranger;
• Across rooftops and down the winding steps of cathedrals;
• Back onto the Seine with the mysterious stranger, but this time on a metal horse;
• Handed over at the Eiffel Tower to Zinedine Zidane;
• Passed to Rafael Nadal;
• Escorted in a boat by Nadal, Serena Williams, Carl Lewis and Nadia Comăneci;
• Taken off the boat by Amélie Mauresmo;
• Delivered to French former NBA star Tony Parker;
• Escorted past the Louvres by Marie-Amélie Le Fur and Michaël Guigou.

Zinedine Zidane, the football manager and former player known as Zizou, carries the torch.Credit: AP

And we’re still going.

So many questions.

We’re about to hit the big moment at the Eiffel Tower. French football star Zinedine Zidane took the torch from the masked, hoodie-wearing mystery man (I will be bummed if we don’t find out who that was) and handed it to Spanish tennis legend and Roland-Garros king Rafael Nadal.

Then a spectacular light show, paired with what can only be described as the kind of sexy guitar riff you heard on ’90s television soaps, set the tone for the big reveal.

A spectacular light show transformed the Eiffel Tower into the world’s best nightclub.Credit: Getty Images

Who is it? How will it be lit? Does the masked stranger moonlight as a 16th-century assassin?

UPDATE: Nadal is now carrying the torch on a speedboat with Serena Williams, Nadia Comăneci and Carl Lewis. It’s like a Bourne movie – but for generational athletes.

The light show continues. A techno banger is blaring. The Eiffel Tower has become the world’s most spectacular nightclub.