The world’s biggest sporting event– Paris Olympic Games opened on Friday night in French capital Paris which is the first Summer Olympics in a century with a rain-soaked, rule-breaking opening ceremony studded with stars and fantasy along the Seine River.
Five-ring Olympic flag was raised upside down at Trocadero across the way from the Eiffel Tower all under unrelenting, torrential rain at the opening ceremony that took about three hours.
The 2024 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad and officially branded as Paris 2024, is an ongoing international multi-sport event taking place from 24 July to 11 August 2024 in France, with the Opening Ceremony taking place on 26 July.
The flag was designed in 1914 by Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics. The five rings represent continents: blue for Europe, black for Africa, red for America, yellow for Asia, green for Australia.
Billions of people watching around the world on Televisions and millions of fans cheering over 10,000 athletes who will compete in 329 events.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the Olympic Games remind the world of the importance of the Olympic Truce and to make the world understand that we must silence the guns.
He encouraged countries to foster unity the way athletes are during these games saying the Olympic Games symbolise “cooperation and loyal competition, instead of division and conflict”.
“Sport is a symbol of hope and of peace, which are sadly in short supply in our world today,” the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, said encouraged everyone across the globe to promote “peaceful co-existence and mutual respect”
This year’s squad consists of 37 athletes – the largest since the 2016 Rio Games when refugee teams first debuted.
The IOC announced that Mr. Grandi would be the third recipient of the Olympic Laurel, an award created to “honour outstanding individuals for their achievements in education, culture, development and peace through sport.” He will receive this award during the Olympic opening ceremony.
The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has thrown its full support behind Cindy Ngamba and Yahya Al Ghotany, the athletes chosen as flag bearers for the Olympic Games which start on Friday in Paris, who will proudly bear the banner of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization is taking part in the Paris Olympics in multiple fields, supporting the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and France to help make the world’s leading sport spectacle, which officially starts this Friday, healthy and safe for spectators and athletes alike.
WHO and the IOC, close partners through a memorandum of understanding first signed in 2020 and renewed this year, have launched the Let’s Move physical activity promotion campaign, leveraging the power of sport, and the platform of the Paris Olympics, to motivate sports stars and the global public to move for better health.
WHO Secretary General Dr. Tedros was among huge local and global figures who took part in the Olympic Torch Relay on Friday.
Today’s vast changed concept inaugural ceremony has somehow challenged the organizers for the Los Angeles (LA) Games which is going to host the Olympic Games 2028 though the city had already hosted Olympic Games in 1932 and 1984, the sports experts believed.
