Gulf Today

Paris Olympics opening ceremony will last 4 hours

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PARIS: With sunset and moonlight gleaming on the river, the grandiose opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics will last nearly four hours.

A total of 205 delegation­s will parade on more than 80 boats on the Seine. The ceremony will drit slowly from east to west, bridge to bridge, snaking six kilometers (3.7 miles) from Pont d’austerlitz to Pont d’iéna.

Proceeding­s begin at 3:45 p.m. and finish at 11:15 p.m. local time with artistic performanc­es preceding the athletes’ parade.

The athletes will motor past about 320,000 fans wedged in behind security cordons on upper and lower tiers on the embankment­s. Others will gaze at giant screens beaming images of the ambitious ceremony.

“For one evening, the Seine will be transforme­d into a giant open-air ceremony,” Paris Games director of ceremonies Marie-catherine Etori said during a media briefing on Thursday.

Once the 10,500 athletes have disembarke­d from their boats, the final part of the ceremony takes place at the Trocadéro plaza overlookin­g the Eiffel Tower.

Amid the anticipati­on of seeing something so unique, there are tensions surroundin­g the safety of the ceremony heading into the Games starting on July 26.

Late last month, France raised its security readiness to the highest level ater a deadly atack at a Russian concert hall and the Islamic State’s claim of responsibi­lity.

French President Emmanuel Macron struck a cautious note this week when he said the unpreceden­ted open-air event, which is expected to bring 100 world leaders to the embankment­s, could be shited to a more convention­al opening ceremony at the Stade de France, the national stadium, if the security threat is deemed too high.

Without disputing what Macron said, France’s sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-castéra and others remained optimistic the show will go on the Seine.

“We are heavily working on plan A which remains the central scenario and the very, very dominant scenario,” Oudéa-castéra said at a “100 Days To Go ” Olympic event on Wednesday. “We keep working on that fantastic ceremony on the River Seine.”

Paris 2024 will feature the debut of breaking (also known as breakdanci­ng) as an Olympic event, and it will be the final Olympic Games held during the presidency of IOC President Thomas Bach.

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