When you put on a show as big as the Olympics, the most productive thing to do is to have a backup plan. . . and a backup plan on TOP of your backup plan.
In 2023, French President Macron announced that due to the terrorist threat, the French government and the organizers of the games were drawing up plans A, B, and C for the opening ceremonies of the 2024 Games. France has created several contingencies and turns out to be in a position to face whatever the future holds.
For the first time in history, the Summer Games will not start in a stadium, but in a river.
When the concept was unveiled in 2021, French gold medalist and president of the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee Tony Estanguet said: “The entire city is being redeveloped into a large Olympic stadium. The Seine represents the track and the docks the spectator stands.
By holding the opening rite on the Seine, Paris 2024 organizers hoped to make it more accessible to a wider audience than those who paid to watch the occasion in a stadium. In fact, they wanted it to be the first opening rite. that would be freely available to the public.
PARIS, FRANCE – JULY 22: A member of the public rides a bicycle in an empty Voie Georges PompidouArray. Avenue along the Seine River before the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on July 22, 2024 in Paris, France. Photo via David Ramos/Getty Images)
Nearly 100 boats will be used to create a flotilla of 10,500 athletes representing 206 countries. The boats will sail along the Seine from east to west passing through Paris for approximately 6 kilometers.
The boats will pass over some of the city’s most emblematic bridges, starting with the Pont d’Austerlitz, the Pont des Arts and the Pont Neuf. The flotilla will also pass several notable monuments, such as the Eiffel Tower and Notre-Dame Cathedral.
Many of the main points of the opening rite have been intentionally kept secret, but thousands of artists participate, in addition to three hundred dancers who choreograph choreographies to be performed on the bridge that crosses the Seine along the parade route.
Tourist boats sail under the Alexandre III bridge where rows of seats are arranged for Paris 2024. . . [ ] Opening rite of the Olympic Games in Paris on June 22, 2024. (Photo via OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT / AFP) (Photo via OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT/AFP Getty Images)
The Trocadéro gardens are, in fact, the final destination of the inauguration ceremonies of Plan A on the Seine. The flotilla of boats carrying all the Olympic athletes is expected to drop off all passengers in the gardens in front of the Eiffel Tower. In the gardens of the Trocadéro, French President Macron will officially announce the opening of the Paris Games.
Plan B would simply be the parade of athletes along the Seine and all opening ceremonies would be limited to the gardens as a meeting area.
A view of the Trocadero Gardens and the Palais de Chaillot seen from the top of the Eiffel Tower along the Seine River in central Paris, France, 2005. (Photo by Buddy Mays/Getty Images)
The Trocadéro Gardens were built with the Trocadéro Palace for the 1878 Paris World’s Fair by architect Gabriel Davioud.
Large teams of well-dressed people walking down the street of the Paris World’s Fair Array. in 1937 and replaced by “Le Palais de Chaillot”, Paris, France, around 1900. (Photo by The Montifraulo Collection/Getty Images)
Davioud also designed most of the Parisian street furniture we see today; Benches, lampposts, signs, fences, balustrades, kiosks, monuments, and fountains were commissioned when the city was redesigned by Napoleon III and his lead architect, Baron Haussman.
The Palace is named after the Battle of Trocadéro in 1823. The fortified island of Trocadéro in Spain was captured by French forces under the leadership of the Duke of Angoulême, son of Charles X.
It was intended to be a place where meetings of foreign organizations could be held during the fair and was never intended to become a permanent design afterwards.
Watercolour representation of the Universal Exhibition (1878) Paris, with the Trocadero appearing. (PhotoArray. . [ ] by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group Getty Images)
1937 Paris poster by Leonetto Cappiello (Photo by Swim Ink 2, LLC/CORBIS/Corbis Getty Images)
After all, the palace was demolished in 1935 to make way for the 1937 Paris World’s Fair and replaced by the Chaillot Palace.
The new construction is designed in the “modern” style, very popular in the 1930s. The Palace is made up of two distinct wings in the form of a wide arch: the old Trocadéro palace is in the middle and the new upper parts built in the front part.
The central corridor and towers of the old palace were demolished, and a wide esplanade was created at the top, providing unobstructed perspectives from the Trocadéro Palace to the Eiffel Tower and beyond.
The Stade de France, just north of Paris in the commune of Saint-Denis, has 80,698 seats, making it the largest athletics stadium in Europe.
Originally built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, it now hosts the French national soccer team’s international competitions.
PARIS, FRANCE – OCTOBER 28: General view of the stadium interior, the final Rugby World Cup match. . . [+] between New Zealand and South Africa at the Stade de France on October 28, 2023 in Paris, France . (Photo via Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
The Stade de France (Stade de France) is a national stadium just north of Paris, in the commune of Saint-Denis. The capacity is 80,698 seats, making it the largest stadium in France. The stadium is used by the France football team for foreigners. competitions and remains the largest in Europe for sporting events.
Plan C would simply be a classic Olympic rite similar to all Olympic Games to date (including Paris in 1924) dating back to the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896.
British athletes in matching uniforms, with athletes from other competing nations in the background, the opening rite of the 1924 Summer Olympics, held at the Colombes Olympic Stadium, outside Colombes in Paris, France, on July 5, 1924. (Photo via Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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