Covering an Olympic opening ceremony: rain, rain and memorable moments
Paris, France, AFP: AFP’s coverage of the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics had been meticulously prepared for a year, with every detail scrutinised to determine the optimal position for the best shot or the best reportage.
It was an unprecedented ceremony on the River Seine — an Olympics had never opened before outside the main stadium — and it merited unprecedented coverage. At this Olympics, Paris-based AFP are also ‘playing at home’.
But all the planning was put in jeopardy by an uninvited guest — the rain. In the air, on the roofs of monuments in the City of Light, on the decks of boats or on the banks of the Seine, around 60 AFP text and photo journalists were poised to capture history on Friday. Then the rain started falling. And it didn’t stop.
“Until the day before, the forecasts said it would rain on Friday morning and that the evening would be dry,” said Chief Photo Editor Martin Bureau, who for a year had led the scouting missions to determine the best positions for the 48 AFP photographers involved.
United States' Coco Gauff and Lebron James travel along the Seine River in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics
Instead, the hoped-for vivid colours against a Parisian sunset were replaced by rain-blighted gloom before night fell and the spectacle was lit up. AFP sent out 3,500 photos, which includes the pooled content produced by all the international agencies. That number is double the production for a classic Olympics opening ceremony in a stadium.
“The weather made it harder for all of the photographers,” said Martin. “It definitely had an impact, it meant we sent fewer photographs than we had planned.”
The rain also meant plans had to be changed fast.
“My position could have produced very different things with different weather conditions,” said photographer Julien De Rosa, who spent the day on the north tower of Notre-Dame cathedral, under renovation following a devastating fire in 2019.
Like the other rooftop positions (at Chatelet Theatre, the Musée d’Orsay, the Louvre, Chaillot and, of course, the Eiffel Tower), access had to laboriously negotiated. Julien faced strict conditions because of the presence of lead in the renovation — he had to strip to his underwear and put on a disposable white suit, boots and helmet. And then carry 15 kg of equipment up the tower, hoping for a magnificent view of the Seine. Sadly, the clouds and rain spoiled that idea.
“I had imagined doing the series of bridges with La Défense (business district) in the background. It was not possible,” he said.
Hovering in the sky above was another photographer, Lionel Bonaventure, in a helicopter accompanied by an editor who was responsible for transmitting the photos straight to the validation desk at the Olympics Main Press Centre.
The helicopter had to stay on the right bank of the river Seine, at 1,800 feet (600 metres). There were just two helicopters below them — one for US broadcaster NBC which followed the USA boat, and the other from Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS). The helicopter had to make several passes in a window of around two hours.
“I couldn’t open the door, I just took photos through the window. But I had to get back in quickly, because the lens was quickly soaked.”
The helicopter ended its flight prematurely at 10:00 pm, landing in the close suburbs and it didn’t receive authorisation to take off again. So Lionel’s mission was also cut short — but he will remember the experience for years
“It was still an exceptional thing to be there. I was amazed,” he said.
Photographers on the ground had to wear black to avoid showing up on the TV images. Many looked very wet.
“It was hell, but what a great moment, what excitement!” said Franck Fife, who was on the French delegation boat on the Seine.
“The French team got on the boat looking a bit down,” he said.
“But the atmosphere quickly picked up. There really is a special emotion in this kind of moment. It’s really their thing, as athletes. They were impressed by the number of people who had stood in the rain to watch them pass. It was huge. And also I was able to work as I wanted.”
His summary of the evening was pictures of joy — and two cameras out of action.
Among other unexpected mishaps a robot camera installed at Trocadero in May to capture the culmination of the ceremony at the Eiffel Tower was suddenly obscured by a tarpaulin cover that had blown loose on the eve of the show.
One of AFP’s robot-camera specialists, Francois-Xavier Marit, managed to move the offending cover out of the way using a seven-metre (23-foot) telescopic rod.
Thank goodness he did — a “surprise” promised by organisers turned out to be French-Canadian superstar Celine Dion belting out a show-stopping number from the first level of the Eiffel Tower and the camera was there to capture the moment. Text journalists also grappled with the weather. The normal protection of umbrella, capes, raincoats was insufficient — the rain got everywhere.
“It wasn’t easy, but we’re not complaining. We were not in a theatre of war, in Ukraine in the middle of winter,” said Karine Perret, one of 15 writers spread along the route of the parade.
Adam Plowright was with spectators at the Alexandre III bridge — but it was a tricky evening.
“Like the spectators in the stands, we reporters on the ground could only see a very limited part of the ceremony and spent much of the evening watching big screens to know what was going on,” he said.
“Unlike the spectators, we hadn’t paid hundreds, if not thousands of euros, for our seats.”
Ben Stansall’s job was to record the stunning moment when the Olympic cauldron was lit in the Tuileries Gardens by Jose-Marie Perec and Teddy Riner — it formed the base of a hot air balloon that lifted off the ground in a plume of light.
“It was quite a spectacle because they had smoke coming out of the cauldron and it lit up as it went into the sky. It was really quite something to see,” he said.
It was the fifth Olympics opening ceremony Ben has covered — but this experience was very different.
“It is hard to compare because all the previous ones I did were stadium-based. It was very strange not to see anything at all until the relay runners arrived with the torches,” he said.
“I had no idea what else was happening in the ceremony until then.”
For Photo Chief Martin, several images stood out: Celine Dion’s surprise performance; the stunning laser show around the Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower and huge plumes of white, red and blue smoke on the Austerlitz bridge. In truth, all the moments AFP recorded on a remarkable night will live on for decades.