00:00And so this is it. We're just a few hours away now from the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games.
00:07There are many things about this opening show that we don't know.
00:10It's the big surprise that Paris is going to be springing on the world.
00:13But there are some things that we do know.
00:15We know, for example, that these are going to be an opening ceremony like the world has never seen.
00:20Paris is doing things differently.
00:22It's taking a ceremony that is usually held in a stadium and it's putting it into the heart of Paris,
00:28essentially turning France's capital into a giant open-air stage.
00:33The athletes, thousands of athletes, there are 10,500 of them taking part in the Games,
00:38are going to be embarking on boats and they'll be going down the River Seine
00:42on a long parade that will take them through some of Paris' iconic sites.
00:47Imagine the Eiffel Tower, for example, or the Louvre Museum.
00:51There'll be hundreds of thousands of spectators lining both sides of the river
00:56and then the athletes will disembark and they'll take the oaths as athletes
00:59and there will be speeches and then, of course, fireworks
01:02and that's how the ceremony is expected to end.
01:07It's a huge security challenge for the French authorities
01:11by taking it out of a stadium into a much more complex and urban environment.
01:16There are tens of thousands of police officers that are going to be securing the show.
01:21We've got the airspace over Paris will be closed for the duration of the ceremony.
01:26And then, of course, there are the big surprises that we're all expecting.
01:30Who is going to be singing, for example? Who's going to be performing?
01:33The French press is already saying that Lady Gaga, perhaps, is on that list.
01:37Celine Dion has apparently flown in on a private jet.
01:40Might she be one of the stars of the show?
01:43And then the most tightly kept secret,
01:46which is who will be given the honour of lighting the cauldron.
01:50That's one of the signature moments of the Games.
01:54The director of the show is an award-winning theatre director, Thomas Joly,
01:58and it's Paris' way of showing that these Games, they hope,
02:03are going to be Games that will leave an indelible mark
02:05both on the Olympics and on the Olympic audience.
02:20.
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