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The South Korean delegation to the Paris Olympics rides a boat on the Seine River during the opening ceremony on Friday. (Yonhap) |
PARIS -- The first Summer Olympic Games in Paris in 100 years kicked off Friday with a one-of-a-kind opening ceremony held on the city's main artery celebrating the cultural diversity of France, a marathon of a show that pushed the boundaries of what is possible in Olympic ceremonies.
Some 6,800 athletes from 205 national delegations, including the Refugee Olympic team, marked the start of the 17-day competition by riding boats equipped with cameras on a 6-kilometer floating parade on the Seine River. This was the first Summer Olympic opening ceremony to take place outside a stadium.
Watched by 320,000 spectators from the river banks, the athletes sailed past many of the French capital's landmarks, including the Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Louvre Museum and the Eiffel Tower.
The ceremony began under the cloud of what French officials said were coordinated arson attacks on the high-speed rail network in the host city earlier Friday. Rain that soaked Paris didn't dampen the festive mood once the opening ceremony transformed the city's iconic monuments into stages for performers.
Officials set up 71 giant screens and 1,000 loudspeakers along the parade route.
As per tradition, Greece, the birthplace of the Olympic Games, was the first to enter, followed by the Refugee Olympic Team. As the host, France was the last nation in the parade, immediately preceded by the hosts of the next two Summer Games, the United States (2028) and Australia (2032).
The remaining teams came in alphabetical order in French. South Korea used its formal name, Republic of Korea, and was the 48th nation to enter as Republique de Coree.
South Korea shared the boat with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Cook Islands, Costa Rica and Ivory Coast.
In a gaffe, though, South Korea was introduced as North Korea through the PA system, in both French and English. As the boat carrying the delegation came into view, the French-speaking announcer said, "Republique populaire democratique de Coree," and the English-speaking announcer followed with "Democratic People's Republic of Korea," the official designation of North Korea.
The subtitle on the broadcast feed correctly showed "Republic of Korea."
North Korea was the 153rd nation in the parade.
High jumper Woo Sang-hyeok and swimmer Kim Seo-young served as co-flag bearers for South Korea, which has 143 athletes in 21 sports for this Olympics.
South Korea has fielded its smallest Summer Games delegation since the 1976 Montreal Olympics, because it failed to qualify for most of the team events, such as men's and women's football, men's and women's volleyball, and men's and women's basketball.
The Korean Sport & Olympic Committee (KSOC) has set a modest target of winning five gold medals, which could put South Korea around 15th in the medal table. It would be the smallest gold medal total in 48 years.
The medal race begins Saturday, and South Korea will be chasing medals in swimming, shooting and fencing. The country has won a gold medal on the first day of each of the past four Summer Olympic Games.
The open-air ceremony was a nod to the motto of the competition, "Games Wide Open." Put together by theater director Thomas Jolly, the opening show was split into 12 sections, with about 3,000 performers positioned on both banks of the Seine, the bridges and monuments around the river.
The ceremony had no shortage of star power. French football legend Zinedine Zidane, who led the country to the 1998 FIFA World Cup title on its home soil, was featured in a short film carrying the Olympic torch. American pop star Lady Gaga performed "Mon Truc en Plumes" in a tribute to French ballet dancer, actor and singer Zizi Jeanmaire.
French-Malian pop star Aya Nakamura, the most listened-to French-speaking singer in the world, sang her hit "Djadja" after emerging from a pyrotechnic display.
French heavy metal band Gojira and opera singer Marina Viotti joined forces to perform "Ah! Ca Ira," a song that became popular during the French Revolution. Gojira became the first heavy metal band to perform at an Olympic opening ceremony.
Zidane reappeared to carry the torch on the stage near the Eiffel Tower, and passed it to Rafael Nadal, the Spanish tennis icon who has won a record 14 French Open titles.
With a light show from the tower under way, Nadal joined other international sports legends in a boat traveling down the Seine: fellow tennis player Serena Williams, nine-time Olympic track and field champion Carl Lewis, and former gymnastics star Nadia Comaneci.
Former French tennis star Amelie Mauresmo and ex-basketball hero Tony Parker were next as they jogged past the Louvre and its pyramid.
The group of torchbearers grew to 18, including Olympians and Paralympian. The torch was then handed off to the final bearers from France: two-time Olympic judo gold medalist Teddy Riner, and three-time track champion Marie-Jose Perec.
The two lit the Olympic cauldron, a ring of flames spanning 7 meters in diameter, which was attached to a hot-air balloon measuring 30 meters tall and 22 meters wide.
A departure from the typical, ground-bound cauldron of earlier Olympic Games, the Paris caludron serves as a tribute to the first hydrogen-powered flight of a balloon in Paris in 1783.
Capping off the show that ran for four hours on this rainy evening was a stirring performance by Celine Dion.
The Canadian singer sang "Hymne A L'Amour (the Hymn to Love)" by French artist Edith Piaf on the Eiffel Tower, her first performance in years after being diagnosed with stiff person syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that causes muscle spasms.
Paris is the second city, after London, to stage the Summer Olympics three times.(Yonhap)
