2024 Paris Olympics Opened Friday – Ends Sunday August 11

The opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games began on time on Friday, with lots of rain and the ceremony, for the first time, took place outside.  This was the first time that the opening event was not held in a traditional stadium.  Lady Gaga sang her heart out to the gathered crowd who were getting soaked with the rainfall.  The athletes were all in a boat that traveled through the canals of Paris.   French President Emmanuel Macron arrived at the staging area, where a hundred heads of state and government and leaders of international organizations were waiting for him.  The 86 boats that took the lead role along the Seine carried the athletes from the 205 delegations participating in the Games.  They sailed the 6 km between the Austerlitz and Iena bridges, on their way to the staging area, where the athletes disembarked to take part in the ceremonial part of the event.  

Celine Dion was the finale of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony on Friday – marking her first public concert in years since battling stiff person syndrome. She sang Edith Piaf’s “Hymne à l’amour” from the Eiffel Tower.  Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “Céline, it’s great to see and to hear you singing again.”  Trudeau called her “a Canadian icon” and “an incredible talent” who “overcame a lot to be there.”  The My Heart Will Go On singer, who has won five Grammys and 20 Juno Awards, stepped away from the spotlight in 2022 after being diagnosed with stiff-person syndrome, which severely limited her movement and hampered her ability to sing and perform.  The documentary I Am: Celine Dion, released in June, followed Dion’s journey to recovery and her hopes of singing live again.

With more than 200 delegations from different countries, 10,714 athletes and around 392 events, the French capital will be dressed up for the sporting world until next Sunday, August 11.  The government has announced that more than 50,000 police officers, gendarmes and soldiers constitute the largest force of law enforcement ever deployed in Paris for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, which has completely disrupted transport and the normal functioning of the city.  The city of Paris has been paralyzed in its entire central part to create several security rings around the Seine, with no traffic, no pedestrians, and no public transport and with all hospitality and commercial establishments closed for hours.  20,000 private security agents and some 10,000 soldiers are also involved in the operation.

Panamanian gymnast Hillary Heron will make her dream come true this Sunday, July 28, when she has her first experience at the Olympic Games in Paris.  Heron will compete in the Gymnastics All-Around, which will be held at the Accor Arena.  “I have trained in everything you can imagine.  Weights, stabilizing routines, trying new elements,” Heron said in an interview.  “We were already testing routines at the World Cup, evaluating which elements we put in and which elements we weren’t going to put in,” she added.  Heron comes to this event after a successful Olympic cycle, having been part of the team that won medals at important events such as the Central American and Caribbean Games in San Salvador 2023.  “Overall, it has been a very successful Olympic cycle, as it was the first one we did with a full gymnastics team in the senior category. We managed to obtain great results such as team medals at the Central American and Caribbean Games, at the Bolivarian Games (Valledupar 2022),” said Heron, who won the bronze medal at the Cairo 2024 World Cup.