Ilya Averbukh, Olympic silver medalist in figure skating and director of the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi, told that it was unpleasant for him to watch the opening ceremony of the 2024 Games in Paris.
The opening ceremony of the Summer Games took place on Friday on the Seine, the first time in history that it was held outside the stadium. Participants in the parade of delegations were placed on 85 boats, which sailed along the river from the Pont d’Austerlitz to the Trocadero. The event was criticized for its poor organization as well as for some scenes.
— I try to analyze the ceremony in a more professional way, as someone connected to this industry. Of course, the expectations raised by the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in a partly pioneering country were greatly exaggerated. I always remember the Olympic Games in Albertville in 1992, the Games that are a reference work for me, because many interesting solutions were found there.
I was surprised by the lack of tempo, which usually characterizes good ceremonies, for example in Sochi, where the ceremony took place with an incredible tempo: we felt one thing over another. And while in Paris, a horse flies on the water for several minutes, in Sochi, three scenes change. Yes, it is a very interesting solution, but watching it for eight minutes… It is quite strange. And there were quite a few things of this kind that raised questions.
Unfortunately, the quest for tolerance was very exhausting. The feeling of this chase, in which the essence of the event was lost, haunted the entire ceremony. The Olympic Games are a global event bringing together people of different cultures, religions and traditions. And respect for this global history was completely absent. At the very least, it seemed controversial. Unfortunately, the feeling of devilry has not disappeared.
I have already compared this opening ceremony to the very beautiful French film Euphoria. There, people gather for a party, one of the participants pours psychotropic drugs into a barrel of wine and people start behaving in a completely inappropriate way. The film is very talented, but it is extremely unpleasant to watch. Yesterday in Paris, everything was talented, but it was unpleasant to watch.
I also find the long speeches from the podium by Thomas Bach and other participants in the ceremony unacceptable. It was a moment of narcissism lasting about twenty minutes in front of an audience of a billion people. It seemed like extreme egocentrism. However, this is not a corporate evening where you have to listen to someone talk about themselves to their loved ones for half an hour. It was a very weak part of the ceremony.
The main thing is that after this ceremony there remains an aftertaste of some loss, as if something bad happened. Of course, France tried, there were many creative moments. For example, lighting a fire seemed very interesting. But if we compare with the fundamental openings of the Olympic Games, we have not seen such decisions as in Moscow 1980, Sochi 2014, London 2012 or Beijing 2008. It is definitely a bad experience for me.
In search of innovation, leaving the stadium, it turned out to be a kind of festival. Where sport is not just secondary, it was completely forgotten. However, the sports facility gives the feeling that the Olympics are not just a congress of people of different sexual orientations, but a competition of the best athletes in the world. There was a feeling that this is just a big party against which someone else will compete. In other words, everything has been turned upside down, ”Averbukh told .
The Paris Olympics will end on August 11.
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Source : MatchTV
I’m John White and I’m an experienced journalist working in the news industry. My specialty is covering sports news, which I’ve been doing for over 6 years now. During this time, I have worked as an author with Athletistic, a popular online news website focusing on sports topics.
