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Paris Olympics opening ceremony 2024: When it starts and how to watch
Follow The Telegraph’s Olympics opening ceremony live blog from Paris 2024.
The opening ceremony for the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad, is today. The Games are the first being held in Europe since London hosted in 2012. Paris is one hour ahead of the UK.
The opening ceremony marks the official start of the Games, although sporting action actually started on the Wednesday.
A total of 10,500 athletes, representing 206 countries including Team GB, and approximately 120 heads of states, sovereigns and heads of government are expected to attend the opening ceremony.
The day leading up to the opening ceremony has been severely disrupted by coordinated vandalism of France’s main train lines. For the latest on the transport situation, follow our dedicated live coverage.
See the full Paris 2024 schedule here.
When is the Paris Olympics opening ceremony?
The Olympics opening ceremony will take place later today (Friday, July 26). This marks the starts of the multi-sport event, running until the closing ceremony on Sunday, August 11.
What time does the Olympics opening ceremony start?
The Olympics opening ceremony will begin at 7.30pm in Paris, so 6.30pm UK time.
Where can I watch it live?
Eurosport is the main European rights holder for broadcasting the Olympics this year although the BBC will still be covering the big moments across its channels and the opening ceremony will be live on BBC One from 5.45pm. With Eurosport and Discovery+, you will need a subscription.
Paris organisers expect a total of one billion television and online viewers for the ceremony, which will be broadcast all over the world. Three hundred thousand spectators are expected to line the route.
Where is the opening ceremony taking place?
For the first time, the opening ceremony will take place outside a closed stadium, with an open-air parade of 160 boats – 94 of them carrying athletes – sailing 6km along the Seine at the heart of Paris. The parade will come to an end in front of the Trocadéro, where the remaining elements of the Olympic protocol and final shows will take place.
During the parade, performers in the ceremony will be with the delegations and passengers on the boats.
What is the parade route?
The river parade will travel east to west over a distance of 6km. It will depart from the Austerlitz bridge, beside the Jardin des Plantes, travelling around the two islands of Île Saint Louis and the Île de la Cité, and then passing under a total of eight to 10 bridges and gateways to the end point in front of the Trocadéro.
How to buy tickets
A total of 326,000 tickets will be sold or distributed for the opening ceremony. A limited number of 2024 Olympics opening ceremony tickets (hospitality packages) are still available from the Paris 2024 official ticketing website.
Who will be carrying the torch at the 2024 Olympics opening ceremony?
The Olympic torch was lit in Olympia, Greece on April 16 by the rays of the sun, according to ancient tradition. After an 11-day relay across Greece, a 68-day French torch relay, using 10,000 chosen torchbearers representing all ages and genders, travelled throughout France.
The culmination of the torch relay will be the final torchbearer igniting the cauldron with the torch to officially open the Olympic Games. The name of that person is normally kept secret until the final reveal.
Will Russia and Belarus athletes be at the opening ceremony?
The International Olympic Committee has said that Russian and Belarusian athletes will not take part in the Paris opening ceremony. Athletes from both countries are banned following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 but individuals can compete in Paris as neutrals.
The IOC said they would not be part of the opening ceremony “since they are individual athletes, but an opportunity will be provided to them to experience the event”.
Who will be performing at the opening ceremony?
Various performers will be involved at all stages of the event, including on the individual boats for the parade.
Lady Gaga and Celine Dion are expected to star. The duo are reportedly set to perform a version of Edith Piaf’s La Vie en Rose as part of a glittering conclusion to the first ever opening ceremony to be staged outside a stadium.
Dion, who is French-Canadian, teased her appearance in a post on X, writing: “Every time I return to Paris, I remember there’s so much beauty and joy still to experience in the world. I love Paris, and I’m so happy to be back!”
The city has been preparing for the unique ceremony for months, and over recent days the famous river has been increasingly hidden behind miles of chain-link fencing as part of a giant security operation.
Ticketed fans will have access to specially constructed stands on both sides of the river, while the ceremony’s conclusion will be beamed around the city via 80 giant screens.
The concluding stages of the torch relay, which travelled through each of France’s 64 territories before touching down in Paris in early July, is set to see rapper Snoop Dogg carry the flame through the suburb of Saint-Denis, home of the official Games stadium, the Stade de France.
Which GB athletes will be attending the opening ceremony?
A combination of the schedule, and a reluctance to take part in an event that might impact upon their preparations for competition, means that the number of British athletes appearing at the 6km ceremony down the River Seine is expected to be in the dozens.
Who will be GB’s flagbearers?
Tom Daley and Helen Glover have been named as Team GB’s joint flag bearers for Friday’s opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics.
The duo boast three Olympic gold medals between them with Daley coming into the Games as the defending champion in the men’s 10 metre synchro diving event.
Glover won coxless pairs gold in both London and Rio, and came out of retirement in 2021 in a quest to add to her medals tally in the French capital.
Starting at the Tokyo Games in 2021, the International Olympic Committee has encouraged teams to pick a male and female flagbearer. For Team GB it was sailor Hannah Mills and rower Moe Sbihi. Other notable summer Games opening ceremony flagbearers for Britain in the past include Andy Murray, Sir Chris Hoy and Sir Steve Redgrave.
