Paris 2024 to hire 116 boats for unprecedented opening ceremony

A total of 116 Parisian and regional boats from 42 river companies have been identified to sail on the River Seine for the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games on July 26, 2024, the organisers have announced.

While 98 per cent of the boats will be hired from the Paris ecosystem, Batorama, a Strasbourg-based provider, will also send their boats to participate in the opening ceremony next year, a Xinhua report said.

"On July 26, 2024, more than a billion viewers will turn to Paris for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games," said Paris 2024 president Tony Estanguet on Monday.

"We are very happy and grateful to be able to count on them to make the organization of this unprecedented, exciting, and we hope, the greatest ceremony in the history of the Games possible," he added.

In December 2021, the organisers unveiled their ambition to present the opening ceremony on the River Seine, with at least 600,000 spectators expected to attend the grand party.

For the first time in a summer edition of the Games, the opening ceremony of Paris 2024 will take place outside of a stadium and in the heart of the city.

The boats will transport the athletes, sailing six kilometers from Pont d'Austerlitz to the Pont d'Iena, with the river and the capital's iconic monuments like Notre Dame, the Louvre, and the Eiffel Tower serving as the backdrop. The cruising route is also one of the classic tourist attractions of Paris.

An estimated 100,000 tickets will be sold for the opening ceremony, ranging from 90 euros to 2,700 euros.

Paris has hosted the world's biggest sporting event twice before, in 1900 and 1924. It will be the second city after London to stage the Olympics for the third time when athletes around the world gather in the French capital next year from July 26 to August 11.