Vive la révolution!

"Everything will be fine. We will hang the aristocrats from the street lamps", the severed head of Queen Marie Antoinette sang the chorus of the famous song from the French Revolution Ça ira, in Edith Piaf's version from 1953. Somehow at that moment it started to rain.

I was at the Summer Olympics in Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Rio 2016, and at the last two I was at Wembley and Maracana for the opening ceremonies. What pop music and the queen are to the British, Gisele Bundchen is to the Brazilians walking across the stadium with Girl from Ipanema which is played and sung on the piano by the grandson of the author of that famous song, it is for the French the severed head of Marie Antoinette, cabaret, parodies, disguises, self-irony towards their own history and the majority religion. Everything that Maria Zakharova, Elon Musk and part of our public did not understand.

photo: ap

THIS IS HOW THE FRENCH DO IT

When I joined the morning program of one of our television stations with a national frequency the next day, I had to comment: "Here, when Maria Zakharova, Elon Musk and these fans of our conspiracy theories organize the next Olympic Games, let them do it differently. This is how the French did it!”.

I understand the motives of Maria Zakharova, but the others - it's as if they haven't seen any movie, musical, any of the hundreds of reinterpretations of Da Vinci Last Suppers, watched a musical or a movie.

And before it started raining, we arrived in Paris six hours late because our plane, already ready for takeoff on the runway of the "Nikola Tesla" Airport, was promptly disembarked because a crack was noticed in the cockpit window. We waited for the plane of identical capacity to land from Antalya and instead of 6.40:13.00 we flew to Paris at XNUMX:XNUMX.

News of railroad sabotage and announcements of strikes followed us all the way. From the hotel next to Park Villette, where the national houses of some of the participating countries, including Serbia, are located, we immediately headed for the banks of the Seine. There, at the entrance of L2 in Zone D, there were places waiting for us from where we will watch the spectacular opening ceremony of the 33rd Summer Olympic Games. The first that does not take place in the stadium but on the river next to which there are buildings that represent the history of France and a good part of the political and cultural history of the world.

photo: ap

FIREWORKS OF CREATIVITY

The contrast with the previous opening ceremony could not have been greater: only 2021 invited guests were allowed to appear at the 1.000 "Corona Games" in Tokyo, including only 15 heads of state. This time, around 120 heads of state and government attended the ceremony.

The program, which was designed by the team of French actor and theater director Thomas Joly, was a real firework of creativity, some would say provocation appropriate for the French. "A real revolution in the mental, artistic and technical sense!", as my colleague Radmila Stanković wrote to me.

The program started with fireworks in the French national colors on the Pont d'Austerlitz. The parade of ships on the Seine started from there, and in a few minutes it reached the place where we were sitting.

Teams from a total of 85 national Olympic committees, as well as a team of refugees from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), sailed the Seine on 206 ships and boats. I immediately noticed that with South Korea, they read the wrong name of the country - North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea). What remains a mystery to this day is how the ship with the Israeli athletes passed by empty - only with the inscription Israel, empty chairs and in front of them Iceland, and then a few minutes later on the screen that we saw on the location and the viewers in the live broadcast - appeared a ship with athletes from Israel waving to the crowd. Unofficially, that scene was shot seven hours earlier to avoid safety risks, as well as potential audience booing.

The "Serbian ship" performed impressively with 113 representatives from our country, which is the largest team in relation to the entire region. Nikola Jokić and Novak Djokovic were not among them, which, as it was already raining heavily at the time, we couldn't notice right away, but we read about it later. By the way, it is also the largest delegation of Serbian athletes at some Olympic Games since the breakup of Yugoslavia.

photo: ap

The parade of ships was accompanied by numerous dance and music spots. The first big show was provided by Lady Gaga, who sang a classic chanson in the shadow of the Notre-Dame cathedral. My feather thing. This was followed by a presentation of French culture and lifestyle: from "Cancan" to the opera Karmen and a scene from a musical Poor people i Phantom of the Opera and heavy metal bands; from the fashion show on the bridge, through the display of famous works of art that stood in the Seine near the coast, to the performance of breakdancing, the only new sports discipline at the games in Paris.

After the parade of ships ended, the Olympic flag was carried across the Seine to the Trocadero, on a metal horse carried by a female rider. Then the flag with the Olympic rings was mistakenly raised upside down, which some conspiracy theorists, both in the world and in our country, interpreted as clear evidence that "Satanists were involved".

photo: ap

French former soccer ace Zinedine Zidane began the final leg of the torch-carrying, which went from the Trocadero to the Seine to the Louvre. International and French sports stars passed the torch to each other. Among them were Spanish tennis ace Rafael Nadal, who is saying goodbye to his last Olympic Games in Paris, former tennis star Serena Williams, sprint legend Carl Lewis of the USA, as well as former Romanian world gymnastics champion Nadia Comaneci and former French NBA star Tony Parker. In the end, two three-time Olympic winners from France lit the Olympic flame on the grounds of the Louvre: former runner Marie-José Perec and former judoka Teddy Riner. The flame was raised by balloon into the rainy Parisian night sky. Canadian singer Celine Dion, who suffers from Stiff-Person syndrome, a rare autoimmune disease, took care of the emotional ending. She hasn't performed live since 2020, and now she sang a chanson under the Eiffel Tower Hymne à l'amour the legendary Edith Piaf.

photo: ludovic marin / ap photo

COMMUNITY TOLERANCE

The biggest dust was raised by the "reinterpretation" of Da Vinci's painting The last supper, so the next day after the opening, the organizers apologized to everyone who might have been offended by that scene. The ceremony's artistic director, Thomas Joly, said there was no intention to "mock or disparage anyone" and added that the scene was designed to refer to pagan gods. "It is clear that there was never any intention to show disrespect to any religious group," Anne Deschamps, a spokeswoman for the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee, told reporters on Sunday, a day after the event. "On the contrary, I think that Thomas Joly tried to present and celebrate the tolerance of the community. We believe that he succeeded in that!"

As expected, the most trees and stones towards the opening ceremony came from those who were "not invited to the party", more precisely from Russia. Russian state officials and religious leaders have bitterly criticized the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics, seizing on rain and flashy costumes to distract from the games, where Russia's participation is strictly limited, with its national symbols banned because of the invasion of Ukraine. The latest ban follows previous restrictions on the participation of Russian athletes and the exclusion of Russian national symbols and officials due to state-sponsored doping. Both Russia's Foreign Ministry and the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church made anti-LGBT comments after Friday's lavish opening ceremony, where more than 10.000 athletes from more than 200 countries and territories paraded down the Seine. "Cultural and historical suicide is taking place in one of the former Christian capitals of European civilization," said Vakhtang Kipshidze, a spokesman for the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church.

The spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, on Saturday criticized the camp scene from the ceremony in Paris, which some have linked to Last Supper Leonardo da Vinci, stating that it is "a mockery of the holy story for Christians" and accused the organizers of the ceremony of portraying Christ's apostles "as transvestites". "Apparently in Paris, they decided that if the Olympic rings are multi-colored, you can turn it all into one huge gay parade," Zakharova said. Zakharova said the event was a "ridiculous outdoor ceremony that forced guests to sit for hours in the rain" and suggested organizers should have considered "cloud seeding" to try to change the weather.

Under the onslaught of Russia's disinformation campaign against the Paris Olympics, French authorities this week also announced the bizarre detention of a 40-year-old Russian chef who was allegedly involved in a "large-scale" plot to disrupt the Games.

Last year, after banning Russian athletes due to systematic doping, the International Olympic Committee suspended Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine and Moscow's claim that it annexed four Ukrainian regions. Then the IOC announced that some Russian and Belarusian athletes could apply for participation under strict criteria. The IOC eventually gave permission for 14 Russian and 11 Belarusian athletes to compete under neutral status in cycling, gymnastics, weightlifting and wrestling. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) concluded in 2016 that more than 1.000 people participated in an elaborate and lengthy doping scheme between 2011 and 2014 that was aided by the Russian state.

photo: ap

SERBIA

When it comes to our country, except in the Olympic Village and on the sports fields, Serbian can be heard at every turn in Paris. As I wrote in the text seven days ago, these are the first Olympic Games in the past 20 years that are held in continental Europe and for which citizens of Serbia do not need a visa. The next ones in 2028 are in LA, those in 2032 will be in Brisbane, Australia, so for many this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to attend such an event. During the Games, Serbia presented itself at two special locations in Paris. The first is the Cultural Center of Serbia, where before the opening of the Olympic Games, the President of the Olympic Committee of Serbia, Božidar Maljković, the Minister of Sports, Zoran Gajić, and the Olympic boxing competitor, Sara Ćirković, opened an exhibition The path of true values. Among the items, Ivan Gubijan's first medal in athletics from the OI in London in 1948, the silver medal in wrestling by Branislav Martinović from Rome in 1960, a letter from Novak Djoković and Viktor Troicki from Rio in 2016 stand out. Many exhibits, authentic photographs, sports equipment, writes…

A day later, the "Serbian House" in La Villette Park was also officially opened. The opening was attended by President Aleksandar Vučić, who cut the red ribbon. During the Games, Park La Villette will bear the name "Park of Nations" because there are as many as 15 national houses in it. The host of "Srpska kuća" Danijel Nikolić presented the setting Roots by Dušan Jovović, who depicted notable personalities such as Nikola Tesla, Milutin Milanković, Mileva Marić Einstein and many others. "Serbian House" is conceived as a unique center that will offer visitors a rich and interactive experience of Serbian culture, history, sports and gastronomy. There was a big crowd at the opening, so I immediately positioned myself in the epicenter of this last part - gastronomy. In the atmosphere of a traditional Serbian tavern with checkered tablecloths, I was immediately served brandy, and then traditional Serbian dishes prepared in a modern way by the most talented young chefs of Serbia from the Junior Chef's Club.

After two rainy days, a sunny Sunday dawned, which I took advantage of, of course, to cycle around Olympic Paris. Lots of smiling people all over the city, a visible presence of armed police, but everything seems pretty relaxed. For those in town during the Games, it is even possible to book a visit to the Louvre or Orsay museums a few days in advance. There are no excessive crowds in public transport and on the streets because something similar happened in London in 2012. Namely, a large percentage of the citizens of Paris left the city before the start of the Games.

At the moment when I am sending this text, news is also arriving about the first gold medal for Serbia at these Olympic Games. Serbian shooters Zorana Arunović and Damir Mikec in the 10-meter air pistol discipline defeated the Turkish couple Seval Ilajda Tarhan/Jusuf Dikec with a score of 16:14. Tonight in the "Serbian House" we will celebrate their gold.