Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony: Live Updates (2024)

The Paris Olympics opening ceremony has it all, and people are... processing.

The ceremony, billed as one of the most ambitious ever, featured a parade of boats along the Seine, with a series of fun and quirky shows along the banks as well as some prerecorded segments. It replaced the typical format of a parade of nations inside a stadium.

Athletes, some wearing ponchos over their uniforms, kept their spirits high despite rainy weather, waving from their boats.

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Power ballad icon Celine Dion closed out the ceremonies from high up on the Eiffel Tower with a moving performance of Edith Piaf's "Hymne A L'Amour."

Dion announced in late 2022 that she’d been diagnosed with a rare neurological disease and has since limited her public appearances. This was her first performance since the diagnosis.

NBC commentator Kelly Clarkson noted on the broadcast she had been moved to tears by the performance.

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Nadal, Williams, Lewis and Comaneci handed the Olympic torch off to French tennis legend Amélie Mauresmo, who ran with it to the Louvre, where she handed it off to French-American basketball star Tony Parker. The two continued the run through Paris, picking up multiple famous athletes along the way and letting each of them carry the torch, including the oldest living French Olympian, 100-year-old cyclist Charles Coste.

The final handoff went to French track star Marie Jose-Perec and French judo athlete Teddy Riner in the Tuileries garden. They lit the hot air balloon cauldron before it floated up into the sky.

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Spanish tennis legend Rafael Nadal took the torch form Zinedine Zidane, suggesting to viewers that he’d be the one to light to Olympic Cauldron – one of the greatest honors of the games. But then, he boarded a boat with three other Olympic greats: Americans Serena Williams and Carl Lewis and Romanian Nadia Comaneci, who all took turns holding the torch as the bot moved down the river.

It remains to be seen who will light the Cauldron.

The opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics on Friday featured a famous trio in French lore ― and we’re not talking about the three musketeers.

The festivities aired on NBC featured a prerecorded segment in which three attractive young people begin to engage in a ménage à trois. Sacrebleu you say? Hey, it’s France! And like one viewer said: “I’m here for it, not gonna lie.”

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A stunning, mechanical horse and rider dressed like Joan of Arc carried in the white flag of the International Olympic Committee across the Seine.

The horse appeared to be galloping, holding up a rider clad in armor that is the work of French designer Jeanne Friot, according to The New York Times.

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Team France, the games’ host nation, has tied up the parade of boats.

The host country, which always enters last, was seen soaking in the evening’s festivities amid waving flags and water shooting off around them in the water.

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Team Ukraine made its appearance down the Seine, carrying the smallest number of athletes in its history of participation in the Summer Games.

Ukraine, which has been locked in war with Russia, has 140 competitors in 26 spots.

No Russian official representing Putin’s government was invited, due to the ongoing war.

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French designers sparkled in a catwalk stretching across the Seine.

Models danced and strutted across the Passerelle Debilly (Debilly Footbridge) in the rain as French DJ-producer Barbara Butch spun a set. The models included Italian Paralympic fencer Bebe Vio.

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New York-based fashion brand Ralph Lauren is once again the stylist behind Team USA’s outfits, making the ninth time the company has served as an official Olympic outfitter for Team USA.

The outfits, which are made in American factories, feature a "classic tailored single-breasted wool blazer with red and white tipping and a striped oxford shirt, unexpectedly paired with a tapered jean and a classic suede buck shoe," the company said back in June.

Ralph Lauren styled the team’s closing ceremony parade uniforms as well.

Two countries will be absent from the Opening Ceremonies: Russia and Belarus.

Because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Belarus’ involvement in the conflict, the IOC has banned athletes with Russian or Belarusian passports from competing in the Paris Olympics under the flags of their countries. While athletes from those countries can still compete as “individual neutral athletes,” they may only do so if they refrain from displaying any outward support for Russia or Belarus.

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An elaborate video showing the minion characters bumbling around inside an underwater submarine appears to give a nod to its creators’ Parisian studio.

Illumination Studios is a French animated feature production company whose films include the Despicable Me franchise. It’s also a division of Universal Pictures, which is a unit of NBCUniversal. Its NBC brand has been providing exclusive American broadcasting coverage of the Olympics.

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Shortly after her surprise performance at the Opening Ceremonies, Lady Gaga shared some of the details that went into her performance, including the special place where she got those pink feather pom poms.

“Although I am not a French artist, I have always felt a very special connection with French people and singing French music,” she said on social media.

“We rented pom poms from Le Lido archive — a real French cabaret theater,” she explained. “We collaborated with Dior to create custom costumes, using naturally molted feathers.”

She added that she ”studied French choreography that put a modern twist on a French classic” – the Zizi Jeanmaire song “Mon Truc en Plumes,” or “My Thing with Feathers” in English.

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It’s raining at the Opening Ceremonies, and more precipitation is expected in Paris tomorrow, which has outdoor sports like rowing and dressage on the schedule.

But expect a reprieve from the wet weather in the following days when weather should soar into the low 90s. Rain may return midweek, even possibly bringing thunderstorms Wednesday.