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Why am I writing this post? It's an excellent question to start digging into my own motivations... However, the reason is obvious; perhaps after a FIFA World Cup, the most gigantic thing in existence is the Olympic Games.... Not to mention its history, legacy, impact and significance for over 100 years since that re-interpretation of the ancient games in Greece, from the 1896 edition... 3 centuries have seen the eternal ‘light’ of the Olympic torch...
Also, let's be completely honest with each other, no matter how much patriotic feeling you have individually, or how deep the impact of it is in your daily life, nothing is going to prepare you for when you see your delegation represent the colours of your country or nation... That feeling hits you and you can't be indifferent. And that glamour, added to the prestige that these competitions of the highest sporting level provide, is the perfect context in which to evaluate them (the Games, in general) and, of course, their long-awaited Opening Ceremony.
Having said that, there were, and continue to be, high expectations for these Games. We come from last year's edition, which was marked by a historic postponement due to force majeure. You know, a Pandemic hit the whole world in 2020, and that disrupted the plans of all the global competitions that were to be held... Tokyo was the assigned host, and frankly, from my perspective, it was a Games that passed into posterity with neither pain nor glory.
Paris, which had been designated as host city for some time, raised a lot of expectations. Not only because of its potential as an organising country, but also because the context of austerity and little relevance to which the Games themselves fell victim, due to the background I have already explained, provided the ideal scenario to give a new impetus from every possible angle... In addition, Paris had hosted the Games exactly 100 years ago? A very long time for such a gigantic and impotent city in terms of culture, art, music, tourism and world history...
And I think what we all saw yesterday was a mixture of all of that. From Gojira's Death Metal to the vindication of the diversity that marks France as a country, but which is also the origin of so much division and such extremist political stances... Precisely, the Olympic Games also serve as an ethical and blackberry meter of what, although ‘legal’, does not point to good and common sense... For example: Berlin 1936, the Olympics of the Nazis Who was the figurehead? Jesse Owens, black, segregated 4 times champion in the country of Fascism?
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Stories like that of Owens abound and are tenured and set the course of events by and because of the Olympic Games... A competition that keeps, for the most part, that amateur sense of love and genuine pride for competing and giving the maximum in the different disciplines... I am going to ‘wet myself’, and give my most honest opinion. I think this Opening Ceremony was on a par with London 2012 or Atlanta 1996; iconic and majestic at the same time.
All the elements of Paris, in all its epochs of splendour, were present within the 5 hours of the whole show. Art, violence, politics, music, fashion, sportsmanship, poetry, magic and urban elements such as starting the Ceremony with two things that everyone, French or not, can recognise: Zinedine Zidane and the metro... For me, an absolute success. Including Lady Gaga in her perfectly intoned French and the return of Celine Dion, a goddess of performance and with an epic touch. Paris 2024, it promises and will undoubtedly be unique, fleeting but impressive.
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