A turbulent Olympic opening ceremony finished with a magnificent flourish in Paris on Friday evening as the iconic cauldron was lit beneath a hot-air balloon .
The Olympic flame reached the French capital after a globetrotting 17,000-mile journey, added to the cauldron by judo practitioner Teddy Riner and retired track star Marie-Jose Perec, creating a magnificent glow inside the balloon that was designed to reflect Paris' City of Light moniker.
Friday's opening ceremony was the first such event held outside, as Olympic athletes flowed through the Seine River on boats as crowds watched on from attached bleacher seating. This historic decision backfired spectacularly, however, as heavy rain hid the athletes' ornate outfits beneath ponchos and distracted from the ceremony after thudding against the iconic waterway. The unorthodox design also fielded criticisms for being too "disjointed" and failing to capture the roar of the crowd.
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The proceedings also included multiple creative interpretations of French history, including an operatic metal performance by Gojira that was performed in part by a headless Marie Antionette, the host nation's former queen whose 1793 execution via guillotine was a pivotal moment in the French Revolution. The Olympic Spirit was embodied by Joan of Arc riding a robotic horse over the Seine, and the final torchbearer was a noted reference to the Assassin's Creed video game, which was developed by French publisher Ubisoft and based on the famous Three Musketeers.
The legendary torch was passed among several additional high-profile figures in sports and pop culture. American hip-hop artist Snoop Dogg, serving as a "special correspondent" for NBC this summer, carried the flame through suburban Paris earlier in the day. Parapalegic tennis player Kevin Piette also made history Friday afternoon, walking through the ceremony by using a robotic exoskeleton.
Closer to the cauldron, the flame reached a pair of European sporting legends in Zinedine Zidane, who made 108 appearances for Les Bleus and is considered one of the world's greatest soccer players, and legendary Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal . Finally, 100-year-old Charles Coste, the longest-living French Olympian, handed the torch off to Riner and Perec.
Additional history was made from the boats floating through the Seine, as Los Angeles Lakers star and all-time NBA leading scorer LeBron James became the first male basketball ever to bear the flag for Team USA . James' peer Giannis Antetokounmpo performed the same task for Greece, becoming the nation's first Black athlete to do so.
Despite the opening ceremony taking place on Friday night, Olympic action began on Wednesday, with soccer, handball, rugby sevens, shooting and archery all through the first round of preliminary action. The world games begin in earnest on Saturday, however, with more than two dozen sporting competitions taking place in Paris and around the nation of France, as far removed as the French Polynesian island of Tahiti.
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