The 2024 Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony’s most iconic moments

The 2024 Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony kicked off with a colourful bang. A bright burst of France’s national colours streamed into the sky and could be seen from kilometres away.

Lady Gaga appeared from behind a flurry of pink feathers and in a beautiful custom black Dior number to perform iconic French song Mon truc en plumes. She also played an interlude of La Vie en Rose on piano during the performance.

Giant screens showing the festivities and revellers showed their support from balconies along the Seine.

Following the hooded and masked figure makes its way across the Seine to the Louis Vuitton atelier with the Olympic Torch.

The iconic, high-energy French dance The can-can was performed along the banks with dancers adorned in bright pink outfits making them standout.

For the liberte portion of the ceremony, numerous headless women dressed in red appeared in the windows of a building, a ‘nod’ to Marie Antoinette, and heavy metal band Gojira provided the rock soundtrack.

From heavy metal to Opera, French-Swiss mezzo-soprano Marina Viotti sang the iconic Habanera from Carmen.

From liberté to égalité, there were brightly dressed performers flying above the Seine and a video package showed a trio of performers jorneying through the library to a bedroom, honouring Paris’ status at the ‘city of love’.

Performing her hit song Djadja, the French singer and her dancers strutted across a bridge above the Seine and were joined by a marching band.

A beautiful rendition of French classical composer Maurice Ravel’s Jeux d’eau captured the mood.

Standing atop the Grand-Palais for her stirring performance of the French national anthem La Marseillaise, French mezzo-soprano Axelle Saint-Cirel united the entire country with her showstopping and patriotic performance.

Along the river there were reproductions of artworks from the Louvre Museum that sat within the river, and golden statues of iconic French women from history like French film pioneer Alice Guy and Simone Veil, former president of the European Parliament. were revealed.

To honour France’s deep connection with fashion, models walk a runway across one of the bridges to showcase fierce fashion looks.

Over the years, John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Imagine has been performed to share a hopeful message of peace and unity. Floating down the Seine on a fiery barge, Juliette Armanet performed the song alongside pianist Sofiane Pamart.

To represent the ‘Olympic Spirit’, a rider on a metal horse wearing the Olympic flag floated down the Seine.

After sailing down the Seine, athletes gathered at the base of the Eiffel Tower for the formalities. The Olympic flag was raised, Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, shared a warm message and French President Emmanuel Macron proclaimed the Games officially open. This was followed by an elaborate Eiffel Tower light show.

The final journey of the Olympic Torch was mesmerising.

The torch started with soccer great Zinedine Zidane who then passed it onto tennis star Rafael Nadal who took it onto a boat that travelled down the Seine with athletic greats Serena Williams, Carl Lewis and Nadia Comăneci.

Tennis star Amélie Mauresmo picked up the torch and ran it to the Louvre where basketballer Tony Parker was there to pick it up. As they continued their journey, they met with another 16 French Olympians and Paralympians that helped take the Olympic torch to its final destination.

Charles Coste, the oldest living French Olympic medalist, received the Olympic torch and had the honour of passing on the Olympic flame to sprinter Marie-José Pérec and judoka legend Teddy Riner who then lit the hot air balloon cauldron.

In, arguably, the most iconic Olympic opening ceremony moment of all time, singer Céline Dion performed Hymne à l’amour accompanied by a pianist on top of the Eiffel Tower. This comes after her health struggle since her stiff person syndrome diagnosis in 2022.