The Olympic Games in Paris- the opening ceremony

 The Olympic Games in Paris- the opening ceremony.

After 100 years you'd have thought they'd do their utmost to get it absolutely right. But last night, the fine, upstanding folk of Paris had to sit through perhaps the weirdest, strangest and, quite the most bizarre Olympic Games opening ceremony. For Sir Kenneth Branagh, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and the Industrial Revolution at London's Olympics in 2012, read Paris 2024, bonkers, barmy, fragmented, incomprehensible, indecipherable, confusing and utterly bewildering. Quite frankly, what on earth were our French neighbours doing on what should have been their most triumphant evening of modern times?

We were always led to believe that the Olympic Games was a celebration of the human spirit where the noble principles of fair play, sportsmanship and goodwill were displayed like a gold medal and, essentially the amateur ethos ruled, a confirmation of humanity playing according to the rules and regulations, never cheating, dissembling, hoodwinking and, of course taking excessive quantities of drugs and illegal narcotics.

But Baron Pierre De Coubertin must have been spinning in his grave. This was not a Friday night to remember for France, Paris and everything we've come to respect in the Olympic Games. It was the most embarrassing, ill conceived and executed Olympic Games opening ceremony. It was an Olympic Games opening ceremony without rhyme or reason, a story line that had gone missing long before the first Olympic flame appeared. Some of us genuinely thought that a comedy script writer had given us a presentation that made little or no sense. For reasons best known to the International Olympic Committee, the Olympic Games of 2024 was held on the River Seine. It was a radical departure from the norm and this one idea bombed.

Here before us was by far one of the most eagerly awaited Olympic Games and what we had, instead, was, quite literally a washout, a shameful parody of an opening ceremony that looked as though it had been cobbled together on the cheap, strung together with a thousand pieces of string and then dragged towards the centre stage by accident rather than design. We were expecting history, tradition, symbolism, imagery, a cultural pageant that would always be remembered for years to come. 

What we had instead was good, old fashioned rain, torrential rain, Biblical in its epic magnitude, rain that just kept falling from battleship grey skies. Then, it all turned absurd, outlandish and just beyond any categorisation, a flotilla of various boats heaving with athletes, swimmers, gymnasts, boxers, archers, sailors, tennis and golf players, rugby union prop forwards and fly halves, nimble table tennis players and all manner of sporting dignitaries.

And then there was the stately procession, the first Olympic Games playing host to a vast river regatta that sailed most serenely along the famous River Seine. There were small, compact barges, paddle steamers from a Mississipi, Tennessee boat festival, cabin cruisers and, for the United States of America right at the end, the kind of enormous cruise ship usually occupied by millions of holidaymakers every year. They came from all four corners of the world, a delightful collection of paradise islands in the Indian and Pacific Ocean, before the likes of Argentina, South Africa, Algeria, Angola, Guam, Romania and Guatemala, nosed their way along a huge expanse of water, cheerfully, joyously, uninhibitedly happy.

But, for those of us who still cling onto the nostalgic values of Olympics of yesteryear, there was the private recognition that it just didn't sit right for us nor we were comfortable with new fangled ideas or, hopefully, brief experiments. We were hoping and perhaps expecting familiar environments, the age old settings, the old routines and those well established Olympian narratives. It wouldn't have been too much to ask the International Olympic Committee to put before us the national athletics stadium where we knew we stood.

And so it was that it rained harder and harder, almost incessantly, a four hour deluge that soaked not only the Olympians on board their boats but the crowd watching from the grandstand seats now completely exposed to the elements. Suddenly, raincoats and mackintoshes were pulled on, hoods went up and, as far as you could see, hundreds of people were desperately trying to keep dry. But the show had to go on and it did. Rain has never stopped play at any Olympic Games but there were times when it felt as if the whole spectacle itself was destined to be called off since everybody was just drenched and soaked to the skin.

Still, though, a very nautical evening in Paris, continued along its merry way. There were gushing fountains of water spraying the assembled throng, what looked like November sparklers fizzing away on the river and sturdy bridges so bright and decorative in the Stygian gloom of a Paris evening, that it was rather like being at Henley with only the French tricolours emphasising the difference between the two events.

By now, some of us were just scratching our heads and wondering where exactly this whole Olympics opening ceremony was supposed to be going. Now, our heads were turned intriguingly towards a riverside staircase. On the top step, a fan of pink feathers slowly and teasingly revealed Lady Gaga, today's pop music phenomenon and certainly one of the most recognisable faces in the industry. Pouting her lipstick lips and wearing the sauciest black underwear, Lady Gaga strutted around with all the coquettish femininity of a Marilyn Monroe or Madonna at her naughtiest.

Eventually the river spectacular just kept on rolling on and on until the United States of America appeared on the horizon. For a minute, it looked like the Cunard had been hired for their arrival since there were so many passengers on board the American boat, that all the athletes seemed to be squeezed together like the proverbial sardines. It had to be seen to be believed.

Around us all was a French sporting Moulin Rouge, a carnival of pink exploding on the pavements of Paris, groups of dancers leaping around the boulevards and promenades, genuinely overcome with the emotion of the occasion. Then there were the fashion catwalks, yet more models with thick layers of make up and clothes from some crazy fancy dress shop along the Montparnasse. Then there was a cavalcade of French cabaret and burlesque, avant garde designer dresses and the kind of fabulous entertainment on the streets that we can now find in Covent Garden, in the heart of the West End of London.

It all though, looked wildly surreal, a glorious fusion of the sublime and the ridiculous. By now we could neither make head nor tail of who was going where and why they were there in the first place. Out of nowhere, a gentleman came bounding down a gangplank with what seemed like the Olympic torch. The man then seemed to perform some deeply impressive gymnastic display of acrobatics. We were just baffled if spellbound by the sheer unexpectedness of it all. 

In the closing moments of the opening ceremony last night, France put on a magnificent sequence of Euro disco music that almost lent itself to the interval of a Eurovision Song Contest. In fact it was a glorified version of the Eurovision Song Contest. You had to pinch yourself at the utter preposterousness of the evening, questioning its relevance to any kind of sport let alone the Olympic Games. But the fun and games had begun and now this symbol of sporting excellence had officially begun. As a proud Frenchman, Baron Pierre De Coubertin would have recognised the supreme irony of another Olympic Games in Paris.

But of course it's the taking part that counts above all. The gold, silver and bronze medal winning mentality will always mean so much to so many. To some of us, the memories of Steve Ovett and Seb Coe on the track, Mary Peters with the now unforgettable shot putt and the imposing figure of Brendan Foster pounding his way elegantly towards the finishing line for Team GB, seemed to good to be true. And of course there was Linford Christie, sprinting powerfully, while in London 2012 there was Sir Mo Farrah, running heroically for gold. It's time for the river cruises to make way for the 33rd Olympic Games. It is one of sport's greatest of all events. Let's enjoy.