Paris: Paris has waited for a century to host the Olympics for a third time and the City of Light is all geared up to put on a show, hoping the biggest sporting spectacle in the world provides temporary relief for a world ravaged by conflicts while the host country battled its own political turbulence.
As thousands of athletes, media and fans converge in one of the most vibrant and culturally rich cities in the world, the recently held snap legislative elections in France that left even the International Olympic Committee in complete shock, the ongoing war between Russia-Ukraine, the Israel-Palestine conflict and the doping allegations against Chinese swimmers seem to be taking the spotlight away.
But Macron, whose position as the head of the state appears the weakest since taking charge in May 2017, is confident the Games that he has taken great interest in planning and executing by splurging close to $5 billion, unifies the world over the next fortnight. He hopes world leaders, many of whom have assembled here for a “never-before-seen” opening ceremony, can bury their differences for sometime and athletes provide joy with inspirational performances.
To kick off a massive sporting party, France is attempting something that’s never been done before — an opening ceremony outside the confines of a stadium. Athletes, instead of parading on tracks, will be ushered in by boats along the river Seine which itself was beautified at a cost of $1.5 billion. It’s something that has irked the police given the security nightmare and angered residents of central Paris who need QR codes to even get to their homes.
Heavy rain preceding the summer almost put a spoke in those plans as sewage water mixed with water in Seine but Parisians have been blessed with glorious sunshine for the last few weeks and the organisers have been working on a war-footing to ensure the ceremony is spoken about in decades to come.
The whole of central Paris has been in lockdown mode for a week now with the usual train lines and bus routes closed, security forces busy combing every nook and corner. Even the Indian chef de mission Gagan Narang shied away from giving too many details about the opening ceremony apart from talking about the boat parade.
Ceremony aside, there’s a lot to look forward to at the XXXIII Olympiad with some of the world’s best going toe-to-toe in pursuit of glory. First up, like always, will be the swimmers. American duo of Caeleb Dressell and Katie Ledecky will be looking to enhance their legacy as one the greatest swimmers of this generation, so will the Great Britain’s Adam Peaty and Australian duo of Ariarne Titmus and Emma McKeon.
China will also be under intense scrutiny at the Paris La Defense Arena since the sensational news broke of how 23 of their swimmers were allowed to compete at the Tokyo Olympics despite testing positive earlier in the year for heart medication trimetazidine, a drug banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Eleven of the 23 are in Paris and rest assured American media will be scrutinising their every stroke.
In the second half will be athletics with the finest track and field athletes set to light up the majestic Stade de France. When sprint great Usain Bolt hung up his boots following the World Athletics Championships in 2017, the sport in general was tipped to take a beating.
But World Athletics president Sebastian Coe was confident there were other charismatic stars to ensure the glitter lingered on and the likes of Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Armand Duplantis, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Noah Lyles and Grant Holloway have done that with spellbinding performances.
In between, there’ll be the star-studded US basketball team, tennis legends like Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, the Spaniard hoping to cap a stellar career at his favoured turf Roland Garros with a gold, and a whole lot of upcoming athletes keen to make an impression.
Get set for the biggest party of the summer!