Despite the raging rainstorm and the strange atmosphere as athletes were separated from the fans who had cheered their arrival, there was one reassuring aspect to the opening of the Paris Olympics.
The opening ceremony was still a lot of fun, though it was hard to find that in all the weirdness.
As Outsports’ Jim Budzinski detailed, the decision to hold the Opening Ceremony on a boat across the Seine made for great television images, but it also dampened the atmosphere that is so important in making the Opening Ceremony one of the emotional touchstones of the Olympics.
The sight of boats sailing across the Seine during the opening ceremony was a testament to the great distance between the athletes and the fans who had gathered to support them.
Credit: Andrew P. Scott – USA TODAY Sports
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Plus, the emotional impact of many moments in the ceremony felt like watching a French New Wave film: it must mean something, but I just can’t bring myself to understand what it might be.
The opening ceremony’s consistent theme began with a shot of the French torchbearer racing into an empty stadium. Naturally, even France’s most celebratory day had to begin with a nod to existential despair.
For a moment, it seemed as if this might be the first inauguration ceremony based on a Jean-Paul Sartre novel.
However, the torch was then passed to French football hero Zinedine Zidane and eventually received by a masked figure who continued to carry it throughout the rest of the ceremony, inevitably raising the question: has the squid game become an Olympic sport?
Things only got weirder from there, with some LGBTQ highlights below…
Tom Daley gets wet and horny
Tom Daley appeared as the flag bearer for Great Britain, making him one of the most visible and well-known LGBTQ athletes at the ceremony.
As if to add a little intimacy to the ceremony, rain made Daly look as if he had just emerged from a swimming pool, and he and fellow flag bearer Helen Glover played Kate Winslet as they re-enacted an iconic scene from “Titanic,” adding to the glitzy atmosphere of the day.
After it spread on social media, a queue stretched all the way to Lyon to portray Daly as one of France’s women.
Daly posted the photo to his Instagram account, but the original caption omitted the “L” in “FLAGBEARER” for about 30 minutes.
We couldn’t help but do a double take and yell, “Zut alors!” Before it was edited, this was one of the few times Daly’s language was as foul as the river he was navigating.
When in France…
Speaking of flag bearers
Thanks to the rainstorm, “I paid 2 euros for a poncho” seemed to be a common fashion statement in most of the country.
After a few minutes of this, there were serious concerns that one of the Opening Ceremony’s most important traditions – the muscular, shirtless flag-bearer – might be lost.
All I can say is thank you to Marshall Islands weightlifter William Reid.
The Marshall Islands understands that. Photo via @TechAU
And Tuvalu!
Tubrow looks like he’s having fun too!
Twitter: @Luis_Endera
That’s sprinter Kalalo Epoiterot Maibuka, who singlehandedly created the most searched term on Google on July 26: “Where is Tuvalu?”
Je vous ton amour, and je vous ta revanche
After a masked figure took up the torch, the first 30 minutes of the opening ceremony were deeply unfocused and oppressive.
Fifteen minutes into the NBC broadcast, host Mike Tirico was already discussing E. coli levels in the Seine River, which is broadcast slang for “I have nothing to say about Antigua.”
We were desperately waiting for someone… anyone… who knew how to get our attention, who would make us sit up and take notice just by their presence.
At that moment, the TV screen switched to a figure hidden by dancers holding giant pink feathers arranged in the shape of a heart. The dancers held their feathers still for about 30 seconds, building tension, until finally they parted to reveal…
Someone was sending out gaga signals.
Commentator Kelly Clarkson gasped and exclaimed, “Wow!” – a moment that may not have been heard because gay men across France all broke the sound barrier at the same time.
Add an “Ooo-la-la” to the “Gaga-ooh-la-la.” Photo by Kyle Terada – USA TODAY Sports
Gaga performed a lighthearted French number called “Mon Truc en Plumes,” frolicking with her dancers in a feathered routine choreographed as if director Thomas Joly had requested, “Tripple, but sexy.”
In the midst of all the weirdness, it was a moment of genuine levity and fun.
LGBTQ team grabs attention at Olympic opening ceremony
What was especially frustrating about the boat ride portion of the ceremony was that the TV coverage only focused on any one player for a split second, and even when you were trying to find a particular player, all you could think was, “Oh, wasn’t that…?” as the camera cut to Trinidad and Tobago.
That being said, a few significant LGBTQ athletes caught our attention.
Nikki Hiltz was seen in several photos celebrating with other Team USA swimmers while waiting for their boat to enter the Parade of Nations.
Boxer Sindy Ngamba made history as the first LGBTQ flag-bearer for the Olympic Refugee Team.
Taekwondo fighter Jack Woolley was a highly visible member of the Irish team.
And Shacarie Richardson showed off her red, white and blue nails for NBC’s cameras.
Umm… what is it?
The torch relay continued between the boats and things got weirder and weirder. Honestly, the best thing about the gay portion of the ceremony was that it provided a moment of coherence.
A tribute to French fashion featured a runway where drag performers and dancers carried Louis Vuitton cases down the banks of the Seine River – of course, in a true tribute to Paris, they would have staged a walkout halfway up the stairs.
Then, at one point, Squid Games speeds down a zipline, carrying the torch towards Notre Dame Cathedral. Oh, what could go wrong?
From there, the character plummets into a full-scale rendition of “Les Miserables,” complete with a climaxing chorus of “Can You Hear the People Sing?” If they’d kept it, it would have been a clever tribute to both the French Revolution and one of musical theater’s most moving pieces.
But just when it seemed like the gay showtunes were about to have their best moment, the scene switched to a decapitated Marie Antoinette screaming something, a death metal band unleashing earsplitting acoustic intensity, and another diva singing opera, before transitioning to a boat firing red streamers and passing in front of a building that appears to have blood spurting out of it.
If this isn’t emblematic of much of our gay childhoods, I don’t know what is.
The opening ceremony cost hundreds of millions of yen, and the stopgap budget was apparently around 2 euros.
Celine Dion, Amelie Mauresmo and the balloon successfully landed
Luckily, after all that, the ceremony still managed to pull off a captivating finale.
Paris has made the most of the Eiffel Tower’s status as one of the world’s most spectacular sights by lighting it up in a way that brings out every centimetre of sublimity in its design.
And as the torch reached the banks of the Seine, Carl Lewis, Rafa Nadal and Serena Williams handed it over to Amelie Mauresmo, one of the greatest and most decorated LGBTQ athletes of all time to be inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame.
Rafa Nadal hands over the Olympic torch to Amelie Mauresmo.
The first and only French player to reach world number one ranking in the Open Era.
🇫🇷❤️ pic.twitter.com/GHCWcYSqRW
— The Tennis Letter (@TheTennisLetter) July 26, 2024
Mauresmo ran the torch past the Louvre, in what was truly an athletic masterpiece, running in front of thousands of other works of art.
Then there were the two final big reveals: the Olympic cauldron was part of a hot air balloon that was lit and then rose into the sky over Paris, filling the gathered crowd with awe.
And speaking of awe-inspiring…
Celine Dion.
The top of the Eiffel Tower.
Even after being diagnosed with a health condition called Stiff Person Syndrome in 2022, which caused her to suffer seizures and made performing extremely difficult, Dion showed she could still dominate the world’s biggest stages and invigorate the entire City of Light with her voice.
Her performance moved Clarkson to tears on air, as well as millions watching around the world.
It took a while to get there, but there was a moment at the opening ceremony in Paris that will forever send chills down our spines: gay culture was once again the savior.
