Swimming has a habit of taking over new sites and turning them into arenas dedicated to spectacle. In 2007, the world championships organized in Melbourne took place on the Rod Laver Arena which is traditionally used for the Australian Open tennis tournament. In 2015, the Kazan world championships were held in a football stadium. A change of scenery and atmosphere guaranteed.
Paris 2024 has installed the racing swimming events in the Paris Défense Arena traditionally occupied by Racing 92 and concerts. A setting eagerly awaited by swimmers. Gilles Sezionale, the president of the French Federation described: “A great cathedral, a magnificent enclosure. We went to see her during the installation. With nearly 20,000 seats, this is going to be something. In France, we have never swum in such a place. It’s going to be splendid…”
The Blues who entered the competition this Saturday appreciated it. Marie Wattel (3rd in her 100m butterfly series, qualified for the semi-finals) sums up: “It was pretty incredible stuff. Before my race, I heard that in the first series, they were cheered even though there were no French people. It was pretty crazy, explains the Frenchwoman. I didn't expect my name to be shouted before the race. I tried to stay focused, trying to enjoy the moment. We are very close to the public. It's quite incredible to experience. I hope I can honor this audience as best I can.”
“We have never experienced these kinds of moments” Beryl Gastaldello, member of the 4 x 100m relay qualified for the final, says: “I was very calm but here, the return, we will have to calm down because it was incredible. I felt myself growing wings and I feel that this evening I will be able to take the next step. That's great. We are launching the Games in a superb way. We have the whole audience behind it, I've never felt like that in my life. It will be beneficial in terms of energy.”
His relay partner Mary-Ambre Moluh adds: “We were warned that it was going to be a crazy atmosphere, we could hear it from the warm-up pool. Once I arrived at the edge of the pool, I had shivers but I managed to stay fairly focused.”
Charlotte Bonnet, captain of the French team which concluded the relay, said: “It was pretty crazy, we have never experienced these kinds of moments. With so much atmosphere, it's stressful at the same time because we didn't expect so much fervor. The people were really warm to us. It was great.” The French, 5th time, will meet for the final, this Saturday at 9:34 p.m. (the best time was achieved by Australia, ahead of Canada, China and the United States).
“An experience that I would only have once in my life” The French men's relay (12th time in the series) did not manage to post their ticket for the 4 x 100 m final. Despite the disappointment, the Tricolores enjoyed their visit. Hadrien Salvan assures: “We want to experience this all week, morning, noon and evening, to please people, to please ourselves. It was a really crazy moment.”
Guillaume Guth adds: “We tried to make the most of the atmosphere. It is an exceptional experience. It’s a shame we can’t enjoy it this evening with more emotion.”
Wissam Amazigh Yebba says: “It was very intense. When we walked in, the crowd was pretty crazy. What I really appreciated, even though we finished 7th (in their heat), they were still there after the race. It was a crazy experience... We would have liked to experience this moment with Max (Grousset) and Flo (Manaudou) who would have brought enormous added value to this relay but we are all going to remobilize for the rest of the week and be there. good teammates to our comrades.”
Rafael Fente Damers concludes with the same emotion: “When I set foot in the stadium, I heard people shouting 'Come on the Blues', it's really incredible because in swimming there is no There are normally not that many spectators. In Paris, with the French team, it’s an experience that I would only have once in my life…”
Who would have thought that one day they would see Zinédine Zidane stuck in a broken metro? Certainly not him. And yet, this is how the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games opened. In a video featuring him with his friend Jamel Debbouze, the 1998 world champion grabbed the Olympic flame in a deserted Stade de France before taking it to the RATP underground.
Once boarded a metro train... Zidane, Olympic torch in hand, found himself stuck after a few meters, in a broken down car and simply illuminated by his precious one. The French legend will end up passing on the totem to a group of children, with the mission of bringing it back to the capital for the opening of the Games.
An amusing and unexpected production, not necessarily to the advantage of the RATP, but which was indeed filmed in collaboration with the Parisian transport network, as its spokesperson, Jimmy Brun, seems to confirm on X (formerly Twitter). The latter also reveals that number 10 took the capital's metro for the first time in his life.
Omnipresent during this opening ceremony, Zinédine Zidane carried the Olympic flame twice, at the beginning through this incredible video for his first time - and probably his last - in the capital's metro, and at the end on the Place du Trocadéro where he passed it to Rafael Nadal to complete the relay.
That morning, at the end of a session on the floor of the LDLC Arena, in Décines (Rhône), before his 7th selection against Serbia and Nikola Jokic, Victor Wembanyama obviously did not want to be talkative. Sharpened like a gigantic Greek statue, the extraterrestrial still chases a small virus from its body carved from a material hitherto unknown to ordinary mortals.
White, red and blue fireworks lit up the Austerlitz bridge, from where the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics starts. Immediately the parade of the Olympic teams, with the Greek boat which traditionally opens, followed by the Team Refugees team.
A few minutes before the opening ceremony began, the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, arrived in the authority gallery set up at the Trocadéro, on the opposite bank of the Seine from the Eiffel Tower.
The conditions were not the best: a gigantic attack on several points of the railway network knocked out much of the high-speed rail network, with 800,000 train passengers stranded and traffic suspended with London. In Paris, main stations such as Montparnasse have been delayed for hours.
In Paris, main stations such as Montparnasse have been delayed for hours. In addition, the weather forecast has deviated its course these days and in the evening it will almost certainly rain during the Ceremony. A bad surprise, largely predictable given the season, with a summer that never began.
On the ceremony front, it is estimated that quite a few of the 800,000 stranded passengers are part of the 320,000 who will be present on the banks of the Seine this evening to attend the ceremony, which begins at 7.30pm and will last 4 hours.
The investigators' first leads lead to 'ultra-left groups', probably close to the 'ecological' protest. The modus operandi, incendiary devices used in some strategic hubs of the network, also suggest complicity within the company.
A few words for the president of the organizing committee, Tony Estanguet, on the weather conditions: 'We will cope', he commented looking at the gray sky full of clouds.
Yellow in the morning on the scheduled press conference of the committee, with Estranguet himself announced together with the director of ceremonies Thierry Reboul and the artistic director Thomas Jolly: an appointment however canceled without official explanations twenty minutes before the start.
The weather may have forced us to review some aspects of the ceremony, because a real plan B for the rain doesn't exist.
On the security front, everything is ready to guarantee it to the public, to the athletes who will parade on 85 boats - Italy shares its with Israel and several armed Israeli security forces - with 45,000 policemen and gendarmes, 2,000 private agents, 1,000 from the municipal and 10,000 billion.
Anti-mine divers and sharpshooters on helicopters at work. About a hundred heads of state and government will be in the official gallery on the Trocadéro esplanade, in front of the Eiffel Tower.
Among these, Sergio Mattarella, who this morning inaugurated Casa Italia, the headquarters of the Azzurri at the Olympics: 'This Casa Italia - said the President of the Republic - demonstrates how our country participates with conviction in the Olympics and what Italian genius is'.
