France went into full Olympic countdown this week. The long-awaited Summer Games will begin in Paris tomorrow with a spectacular evening parade of 85 boats and barges along the iconic River Seine.
This unique, creative opening ceremony, featuring over 10,000 athletes and dignitaries from the teams, will include a resplendent Pharaonic spectacle that evokes ancient Egypt as much as modern France.
The Games arrived after years of preparations, with traffic disruptions that were bad even by Parisian standards and a security lockdown in large parts of the city.
Not surprisingly, many Parisians have left the city to avoid the crowding and traffic jams. Tourism is down, too, and the city is quieter than usual.
Though the Games cost nearly $10 billion (about 361 billion baht) they have not been as costly as recent Olympiads. Surprisingly it has also not over budget. Moreover, construction was integrated into preexisting venues and buildings, thus causing a lower "carbon footprint".
Naturally, the Games have not been without controversy; Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist mayor of Paris, barred the Total Energy group as a sponsor. Instead, there's the luxury goods company LVMH.
The risk of swimming in the otherwise polluted River Seine was challenged when Ms Hidalgo took a quick dip while wearing a wetsuit in a publicity-staged and paradoxical event.
Security is tight the week preceding the waterborne opening ceremony with 45,000 police and Gendarmes sealing off both sides of the Seine with metal fencing for over 3kms in an already dense and historic urban environment.
People living in the affected zone need special QR codes on their phones to access their own neighbourhoods and homes in chic areas. A week before the events, public transport has been restricted in large parts of Paris.
Even pedestrian and bicycle movement were highly restricted. When walking through well-known streets and haunts near the river, I noticed various checkpoints needed QR codes for local movement.
Municipal police, national police, and the Gendarmerie, often with automatic rifles, controlled movement.
Such area control evoked Paris during the Covid-19 pandemic when local lockdowns reached absurd levels.
A further 18,000 military reinforced security against terrorist threats, especially rooftop security along the river and providing anti-drone technology. Special security speedboats were deployed on the river, and Swat teams were prepared for any eventuality.
Newly constructed spectator seating lined large swaths of the Seine, where 10,000 athletes will stage a waterborne parade tomorrow ending at the Eiffel Tower and the Trocadero. About 300,000 spectators are expected to line the Seine for the spectacular event.
The Summer Games slated between July 26 and Aug 11 -- followed by the Paris Para-Olympics --will host 24,000 athletes from around the world as well as hundreds of thousands of spectators.
Among more than 30 traditional sporting competitions, including boxing, sailing, swimming, soccer, and judo, the Paris committee is introducing a new sport this Olympiad -- breakdancing. The athletes will compete for 329 gold medals.
Venues range from the splendid skatepark in the newly created urban park in the central Place de la Concorde to swimming in new aquatic stadiums in St Denis, to taekwondo in the historic Grand Palais in central Paris, home to the 1900 Grand Expo, to equestrian events in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles.
While most events are in the Paris region, such as beach volleyball at the Eiffel Tower in a new 13,000-seat pop-up stadium, sailing competitions will take place halfway around the world in French Polynesia.
Some 14,000 athletes will stay at the newly built Olympic Village in St Denis. Following the Games, the village will become affordable housing in this poorer part of suburban Paris.
In parallel, many of the larger teams will host special hospitality venues; Team USA House is located in the historic Palais Brongniart in central Paris. Korea House is in the Maison de Chimie, prestigiously situated near the Parliament. Denmark has a great place on the central Champs Elysees.
For those without pricy tickets to see sporting events, the Hotel de Ville (City Hall) has a spectacular "fan zone" with continuous video and live events.
Bruno Jeudy of the weekly La Tribune Dimanche wrote editorially, "In the end, let's not forget the last step associated with Olympianism; Excellence."
John J Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defence issues. He is the author of 'Divided Dynamism the Diplomacy of Separated Nations; Germany, Korea, China'.
