The Olympic Games have officially begun in Paris with an Opening Ceremony unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.
Paris 2024 officially kicked off in the wee hours of Saturday morning Australian time as 10,500 Olympic athletes floated down the River Seine on giant barges.
Viewers who braved the early shift on a Saturday morning were initially confused when Australia wasn’t among the first of the nations to sail down the river — given our early spot in the alphabet.
“I’m watching the opening ceremony and Cambodia are floating down the river at the moment but I haven’t seen Team Australia. Where the hell are they? Or have I somehow just missed it?” one user wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter).
But it turns out the alphabetical order doesn’t include future host countries, which always form the last of the athletes to enter the ceremony — which means Australia, the USA and of course, France round out the end of the 10,000+ athlete parade.
The ceremony dragged out for a grueling four hours in the pouring rain, which was enough to see some spectators in Paris head home early to avoid the elements. But thankfully, it wasn’t just four hours of athletes politely waving at fans — we also got a tonne of musical performances and other weird shit to keep us entertained.
While Sydney 2000’s combination of Nikki Webster and Vanessa Amarossi remains hard to beat when it comes to opening ceremony entertainment, everybody — and I mean absolutely everybody — has tried, including the French.
For starters, they wheeled in famously not French Lady Gaga to perform a rendition of Zizi Jeanmaire’s Mon Truc En Plumes in a performance that wouldn’t have been out of place at the Met Gala.
But even Lady Gaga was outshone by the Paris 2024 opening ceremony’s commitment to being extremely metal.
In a move that nobody saw coming, French heavy metal band Gojia teamed up with opera singer Marina Viotti to perform the famous revolutionary anthem Ah! Ça Ira! alongside an army of headless Marie Antoinettes.
The chorus of headless royals sang along while red fireworks exploded because, well, the French weren’t going to pass up the opportunity to mock the decapitated queen.
Keeping with the metal theme, Paris 2024 also featured an extremely cool metal horse boat that galloped down the Seine.
According to the Olympics X account, the horse is “a representation of Olympic spirit and a call for peace and solidarity takes shape in the form of a horsewoman galloping across the Seine.”
Sadly, the horse was not ridden by Celine Dion.
But just when you thought it couldn’t possibly get any weirder, the Paris 2024 Opening Ceremony gave us a threesome.
In an ode to the ménage à trois, the Opening Ceremony featured a threesome in the Bibliotheque National de France Reading Room.
And finally, as a little treat for those who stayed until the end, mother herself Celine Dion performed at the Eiffel Tower — her first performance since early 2023, when she said it might be her last.
Covered head to toe in a gorgeous, sparkly number, Celine proved that no matter what hardships she may face — she has always, and WILL always — be HER.
Love it or hate it, you can’t say the Paris 2024 Olympic Ceremony was boring.
You can watch the Olympics live and in full HD on Channel 9 and 9Now.
Credit: Getty Images
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