Paris aims to reset the Olympics with a 'wow' opening

Paris has long been a city of dreamers: Just look at the Eiffel Tower, for decades the world’s loftiest structure. Audacity also underpins the French capital’s plans for its first Olympic Games in a century, which open Friday with an opening ceremony for the ages.

The most sprawling and elaborate Olympic opening ever — a gala spectacular Friday evening on the River Seine that even French President Emmanuel Macron says initially felt like “a crazy and not very serious idea” — kicks off 16 days of competition that promise to be ground-breaking, with nearly every corner of the city hosting some aspect of competition.

After two toned-down, pandemic-hampered Olympics, expect a bold celebration. The heady marriage of sports and France’s world-renowned capital of fashion, gastronomy and culture could also help secure the Olympics’ longer-term future.

Olympic organizers were struggling to find suitable host cities for their flagship Summer Games when they settled on Paris in 2017, enticed by its promise of innovations and the potential for the city of romance to rekindle love for the Olympics, especially with younger audiences that have so many other entertainment options.

But Paris’ challenges are huge, too. The city that has been repeatedly struck by deadly extremist attacks has to safeguard 10,500 athletes and millions of visitors. The international context of wars in Ukraine and Gaza add layers of complication for the gargantuan security effort. French elite special forces are part of the security detail for Israel’s delegation.

Paris also hopes to reassure climate-conscious Generations Z and beyond by staging Games that are less polluting, more sustainable and more socially virtuous than their predecessors. Many of the sports venues are temporary, because Paris didn’t want to repeat the mistake of previous Olympic host cities that built new arenas and then had no use for them.

With iconic Paris monuments as backdrops — beach volleyball in the Eiffel Tower’s shadow — and breakdancing added to a growing list of Olympic sports that target young audiences, expect plenty of viral moments on Instagram, TikTok and elsewhere.

Crowds will be back for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic forced Tokyo to push back its Games to 2021 and keep spectators away, and the Beijing Winter Games in 2022, when China was locked down.

Prize-winning French theater director Thomas Jolly is turning central Paris into an open-air stage for the opening ceremony that will run through sunset and showcase France, its people and their history. The 1,083-foot-tall Eiffel Tower will surely feature prominently.

Hundreds of thousands of people, including 320,000 paying and invited ticket-holders, are expected to line the Seine’s banks as athletes are paraded along the river on boats.

Guesses about the identity of the person or people who might get the honor of lighting the Olympic cauldron include soccer icon Zinedine Zidane and other French sporting heroes, but also survivors of Islamic State-group gunmen and suicide bombers who killed 130 people on Nov. 13, 2015.

Paris is also taking gambles in hopes of leaving an indelible impression on the Olympics’ global audience of billions.

The decision not to stage the opening ceremony in the traditional setting of France’s biggest stadium — the Stade de France that was among the 2015 attackers’ targets and is now the venue for Olympic track and field and rugby sevens — and to host skateboarding, archery and other sports in temporary arenas in the heart of Paris have made safeguarding the Games more complex.

Rights campaigners and Games critics worry about the broad scope and scale of Olympic security, including the use of AI-equipped surveillance technology.

Up to 45,000 police and gendarmes, plus 10,000 soldiers, are safeguarding Paris and its suburbs that together are hosting most of the 32 sports that will crown Olympic champions in 329 medal events. The gold, silver and bronze medals they’ll hand out are inlaid with a hexagonal, polished chunk of iron taken from the Eiffel Tower.



A visitor strolls past a big "Paris" sign reflected in a glass wall of an observation deck. (AP Photo David Goldman)