PARIS — After a spectacular Opening Ceremony on the River Seine, Marie-José Pérec and Teddy Riner lit the Olympic cauldron to formally inaugurate the 2024 Video games right here on Friday.
And it wasn’t simply any Olympic cauldron. It was a seven-meter-wide ring of flames topped by a 30-meter-tall hot-air balloon.
Olympic organizers stated the cauldron was “a tribute to the primary flight in a hydrogen-filled fuel balloon,” which occurred in Paris in 1783. In December of that 12 months, the hot-air balloon grew to become the primary human-carrying plane when two of its French inventors, physicist Jacques Charles and engineer Nicolas-Louis Robert, took flight from Tuileries Gardens.
And so, 241 years later, the hot-air-balloon Olympic cauldron was lit and rose from those self same Tuileries Gardens, nestled between two of Paris’ many iconic landmarks, the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde.
One among France’s most well-known Olympic athletes, Pérec gained three gold medals in monitor and area over the 1992 and 1996 Video games. She was named an Officer of the Legion of Honour, France’s highest commendation, in 2013.
Standing 6-foot-8 and weighing 290 kilos, Riner — nicknamed “Teddy Bear” — is among the most bodily imposing athletes in French historical past. A 3-time Olympic gold medalist in judo, he triumphed within the 2012, 2016 and 2020 Video games.
All of this had been a tightly guarded secret till the Olympic torch snaked by means of a wet Paris on Friday and arrived on the banks of the Seine. A whole lot of athletes, employees, celebrities and extra had carried it by means of France over the previous 2 1/2 months. However the last legs of the relay, as all the time, have been shrouded in thriller.
Via a lot of the Opening Ceremony, a mysterious torchbearer carried the flame across the metropolis, passing by means of the Louvre, atop buildings, by means of a Louis Vuitton workshop.
When the flame arrived on the Trocadero, the place the greater than 6,500 of athletes who’d traversed the Seine over a two-plus hour parade awaited, it was within the arms of soccer legend Zinedine Zidane, who handed it to Spaniard Rafael Nadal. The 14-time French Open winner then boarded a ship together with Serena Williams, Nadia Comaneci and Carl Lewis. The 4 made their means again up the Seine towards the Louvre.
From there, the torch was handed between quite a few French athletes, together with Amelie Mauresmo (winner of two Grand Slam titles and France’s solely girl to be ranked No. 1 on the planet) and NBA champion Tony Parker and at last to Pérec and Riner.
The 2 former Olympians lit the bottom of the balloon, which then ascended into the sky the place it would stay for the rest of those Video games.
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