Bach: Paris Opening Ceremony to be ‘Iconic’ on Seine

International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach told French media recently the Opening Ceremony plans for this year’s Olympic Summer Games in Paris will be “unforgettable for the athletes, and everybody will be safe and secure” as security plans ahead of the July 26 event has dominated discussion.

“The very meticulous, very professional approach (from French authorities) gives us all the confidence that we can have this opening ceremony on the river Seine and that this opening ceremony will be iconic,” Bach told Agence France-Presse recently. “Everybody is determined to have this opening ceremony on the river Seine … while at the same time looking at all the different scenarios.”

The ceremony is scheduled to be 84 boats on the Seine along a 3.7-mile route toward the Eiffel Tower to open the 2024 Olympic Summer Games. In January, the number of spectators allowed to attend the ceremony was slashed from around 600,000 to around 320,000 and tourists were told they won’t be allowed to watch it for free from riverbanks.

But the most highly anticipated Opening Ceremony in Olympic history has a backup plan to a more traditional setting, French President Emmanuel Macron said in mid-April. Speaking to BFM-TV and RMC, Macron said “if we think there are risks, depending on our analysis of the context, we have fallback scenarios. There are plan Bs and plan Cs.”

Macron earlier said in his New Year’s address that the Opening Ceremony extravaganza could be moved if France is hit in the run-up by extremist attacks. Last month, he said organizers could shorten the itinerary of the parade on the Seine and even “repatriate the ceremony to the Stade de France” for a more conventional opening event.

Around 45,000 police officers are expected to be working the opening ceremony. France has asked 46 countries to help provide about 2,200 extra officers during the Games.

The Seine itself has been a focus of planning for Games organizers not only for its role in the Opening Ceremony but because it is the venue for marathon swimming at the Paris Games and the swimming leg of the Olympic and Paralympic triathlons.

Last week, French officials inaugurated a huge water storage basin meant to help clean up the River Seine. The giant reservoir aims to collect excess rainwater and prevent bacteria-laden wastewater from entering the Seine.

Last year, swimming test events had to be canceled due to poor water quality. One reason was heavy rains that overwhelmed the city’s old sewers, causing a mix of rainwater and untreated sewage to flow into the Seine and leaving safety standards unmet.

Paris mayor Anne Hildago promised she would herself swim in the Seine before the Olympics, a promise that has been traditionally made by French politicians and never actually followed through with. Hildago said she had invited top officials to swim at an event dubbed “the big dive” to be staged at the end of June or beginning of July including Macron, Bach and Paris Olympics organizers.

“We’re going to dive into the Seine, and many volunteers have already come forward to come and dive with me and all the athletes who will be there,” Hidalgo said. “We’ll all be safe to swim in the Seine.”

During the Olympics, water will be tested at 3 a.m. daily to determine whether events can go ahead as planned. If results were not up to the standards, events could be delayed by a few days, organizers said.

The Olympics are scheduled for the end of July and into early August, which last year was a heat wave through Paris and all of Europe. The changing environment has been a focus for the IOC with the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games with its dependency on snow but Bach did confirm last week in a separate interview that future Summer Games may have to move to the fall, saying “the international sports calendar may look very different from the one we are used to now,” in the future.