Host cities of modern-day Olympic Games have gotten into the competitive spirit by trying to stage the most spellbinding, over-the-top opening ceremony on record. Beijing enlisted 2008 drummers. London featured James Bond escorting Queen Elizabeth II. All Rio needed to wow the crowd was Gisele, who turned the stadium into her personal catwalk, strutting the length of the field solo. But only Paris could make the unprecedented gamble that the city itself is spectacular enough to be the star of the show.
If all goes according to plan when the Summer Olympics alight in Paris this July, the opening ceremony will play out like a Hollywood epic: Timed to coincide with the sinking of the sun, an open-air flotilla of boats will ferry the athlete delegations on the Seine, sailing toward the sunset as hundreds of thousands of spectators cheer from either side of the river's banks and the bridges above, all bathed in the amber afterglow.
It will mark the first time the ceremony will be held outside a stadium, let alone on a water-way. So, too, many of the events themselves, instead of being mounted in mostly generic stadiums on the outskirts of the city, will take place in the heart of Paris, reframing the French capital in a way that locals and visitors alike have never experienced—and that's sure to dial up the promise of pageantry and emotion.
The Eiffel Tower's latticed silhouette will serve as the backdrop for beach volleyball at Champs-de-Mars. Place de la Concorde, where more than a thousand people (including Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette) had their heads lopped off during the French Revolution, will be the site of newly admitted Olympic sports such as skateboarding and breaking, a.k.a. breakdancing. And though Olympic swimmers have raced in pools since 1908, this year's athletes are slated to compete in the river itself. (Competitions will also take place in cities across France, from Lyon to Marseille, and Tahiti in French Polynesia will host the surfing event.)
The specs are ambitious and inventive and in some ways could restore the city's reputation for audacity. Because while the City of Light may be known as the cradle of fashion, culture, and gastronomy, not too long ago
