Rain-soaked opening ceremony gets Paris 2024 Olympics underway

By James Toney in Paris

After four hours watching athletes messing about on the river in the pouring rain, you had to ask... where was Noah and his Ark?

The Seine has inspired artists from Monet to Renoir to Seurat but this was the most ambitious picture yet painted on its iconic canvas.

And it was certainly a watercolour.

Organisers want records to show for their billions investment in welcoming the world to their Olympic Games, perhaps the title of wettest opening ceremony since Helsinki 1952 was not what they hard in mind.

You can plot and plan every moment but you can't cheat the weather. More than an inch of rain fell during the ceremony, the equivalent of 15 days rainfall in just four sopping hours.

There was certainly no perfect summer's sunset over the city's postcard landmarks. Il pleut des cordes, as we might say.

All of the city's iconic sites were used, the Mona Lisa was stolen (and returned) and the crowd in the Trocadéro, some of whom had paid over £2500 for their tickets, did their best to stay engaged, even if they were watching virtually all the ceremony unfold on a big screen that kept shorting out.

Over 300,000 braved the weather and the stringent security checks to line the river, cheering athletes from 205 nations and the Olympic refugee team as they travelled by boat from the Place de la Bastille past a cathedral rising from the ashes under the majestic Pont Alexandre to the Trocadéro, shivering under the shadow of Gustave Eiffel's iconic tower.

Tom Daley and Helen Glover were very British about it, waving their flag while looking like they had just taken a plunge off the 10m highborn in their clothes.

They were pictured at the bow of their boat recreating that famous scene from the Titanic, which you have to hope is not a metaphor for the high hopes Team GB arrive at these Games with.

Lebron James, carrying the Stars and Stripes, looked like he'd rather be in Paris, Ohio, where the weather was 26°C° and partly cloudy.

The Bateau-Mouche, 85 in total, serenely sailed through the teeming rain, 114 years after the Great Flood of 1910 nearly washed this city away.

From Lady Gaga's Dior-designed French Revue, framed by feather boas, to the high-kicking Cancans of the Moulin Rouge to the tortured strains of Les Miserables, with a nod to the rumbling anger of revolution, you certainly knew you were in France.

Opera singers hit the high notes but a quick set from Wet Wet Wet might have been more appropriate. There was high fashion to match the low pressure, which hung over the French capital and didn't relent.

President Macron fixed his best white smile just a few days after admitting the ambition of this ceremony was 'crazy'. International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach pursed his lips and smiled, you rather suspect he and colleagues won't permit another fully open-air ceremony until they take the Games to the Atacama Desert.

There was break dancing and baroque and fireworks to light up the leaden skies and, of course, the now obligatory performance of Imagine.

"Imagine there's no countries," sang Juliette Armanet, without a hint of irony, as scores of them, cloaked in ponchos, lined up in front of her.

The logic is you only need to remember one thing from an opening ceremony for it to be a success. In Barcelona Paralympic archer Antonio Rebollo ignited the flame with an arrow, in Beijing 2008 drummers thumped in unison and, 12 years ago in London, the Queen jumped out of a plane with James Bond.

If it shines without break from sunrise to sunset for another 16 days, no-one will ever forget this rain – or the fact they accidently hung the Olympic rings upside down after the flag arrived.

Paris is always a good idea, said Audrey Hepburn, though perhaps a £215 million opening night show in weather for ducks might have required a small rethink.

When the torch finally arrived, kindled by the rays of the sun in ancient Olympia just 101 days ago, you had to the thankful it was still alight.

Zinedine Zidane started its final journey, handing on to the King of Roland Garros, Rafa Nadal, before a host of sporting legends took their spin from Nadia Comaneci to Carl Lewis.

Athletics icon Marie-José Pérec and judo Teddy Riner were the final torchbearer, two sporting trailblazer whose exploits united a country so often divided.

The weather was far from perfect but her selection was on point, a hot air ballon cauldron floating above city as we can switch attention from songs and dance to the serious matter of gold, silver and bronze.

Pierre de Courbetin, the vision behind the revival of the modern Olympics, lived just a few streets from where the Olympic flame - and its spectacular cauldron - were lit last night.

These Games were inspired by Greece but very much made in France, de Courbetin's city becoming the second after London to host the world on three occasions, 1900, 1924 and now a century later.

The old Baron wouldn't recognise these Games, though considering some of this dated thinking that's no bad thing.

These Games have plenty of problems and more than a few uneasy contradictions, which even their biggest cheerleaders find hard to square.

In the days ahead we will witness the best and worst of sport, derring-do and doping, courage and corruption. The Olympics aren't perfect, despite the flawless megabucks marketing campaigns that sit behind them, but there will be more good than bad in Paris - and the weather forecast looks better too.

It's said the sun always shines on the virtuous, as damp athletes made their back to the Olympic Village you had to hope it also rains on the victorious.

Watch every moment of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 live only on discovery+, the streaming home of the Olympics.