Paris Opening Ceremony: Marie-José Pérec and Teddy Riner light the Olympic cauldron

PARIS — After a spectacular Opening Ceremony on the River Seine, Marie-José Pérec and Teddy Riner lit the Olympic cauldron to officially inaugurate the 2024 Games here on Friday.

And it wasn’t just any Olympic cauldron. It was a seven-meter wide ring of flames topped by a 30-meter-tall hot-air balloon.

Olympic organizers said in informational material distributed to media that the cauldron was “a tribute to the first flight in a hydrogen-filled gas balloon,” which took place in Paris in 1783. In December of that year, the hot-air balloon became the first human-carrying aircraft when two of its French inventors, physicist Jacques Charles and engineer Nicolas-Louis Robert, took flight from Tuileries Gardens.

And so, 241 years later, the hot-air-balloon Olympic cauldron was lit and rose from those same Tuileries Gardens, nestled between two of Paris’ many iconic landmarks, the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde.

One of France’s most famous Olympic athletes, Pérec won three gold medals in track and field over the 1992 and 1996 Games. She was named an Officer of the Legion of Honour, France’s highest commendation, in 2013.

Standing 6-foot-8 and weighing 290 pounds, Riner — nicknamed “Teddy Bear” — is one of the most physically imposing athletes in French history. A three-time Olympic gold medalist in judo, he triumphed in the 2012, 2016 and 2020 Games.

All of this had been a tightly guarded secret until the Olympic torch snaked through Paris on Friday and arrived at the banks of the Seine. Hundreds of athletes, workers, celebrities and more had carried it through France over the past two-and-a-half months. But the final legs of the relay, as always, were shrouded in mystery.

Through most of the Opening Ceremony, a mysterious torchbearer carried the flame around the city, passing through the Louvre, atop buildings, through a Louis Vuitton workshop and, eventually to the Trocadero, where the more than 6,500 of athletes who’d traversed the Seine over a two-plus hour parade awaited.

There, Zinedine Zidane handed the torch to Spaniard Rafael Nadal, a 14-time French Open winner, who boarded a boat on the Seine along with Serena Williams, Nadia Comaneci and Carl Lewis. The four made their way back up the Seine toward the Louvre.

From there, the torch was passed between a number of French athletes, including Amelie Mauresmo (winner of two Grand Slam titles and France’s only woman to be ranked No. 1 in the world) and NBA champion Tony Parker and finally to Perec and Riner.