A rehearsal for the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics which was to be held at the end of May on the Seine has been postponed because the flow of the river is too strong, we learned on Wednesday from the prefecture of the Île-de region. -France.

The opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics is to be held on the evening of July 26 along six kilometers of the Seine, in a new format on which the State, the organizers and the IOC are banking heavily, to dust off the genre and start with a stroke of brilliance.

A first rehearsal took place on July 17, 2023 between the Pont d’Austerlitz and the Pont d’Iéna, involving around forty boats.

Another was to take place on April 8, but it was postponed due to the flooding of the river and a very rainy spring in Île-de-France which did not make things easy. It is now that of May 27 which is postponed, the regional prefecture told AFP.

“This will take place when the weather conditions permit,” the Ministry of the Olympics and the organizing committee responded together to AFP, without wanting to give a new date. Initially the date of June 17 was also indicated for a rehearsal.

This is not a repeat of the artistic show which remains top secret. The objective is to make adjustments between the parade boats, a little less than a hundred which will transport the delegations, and the follower boats as well as the cameras of OBS (Olympic Broadcasting System), television broadcaster of the Olympic Games.

Emmanuel Grégoire, first deputy mayor of Paris, assured some journalists that the river was at “usual levels” for this season. And he sees a positive point in this: this postponement will allow “to tackle the restoration work in a much easier way” of the Sully Bridge. This cast iron bridge, located in the center of Paris, was accidentally hit this winter by a boat and has been the subject of security work since mid-April.

“The prefect asked all the companies participating in the ceremony to carry out compulsory training for captains to explain how the ceremony will take place,” a company boss participating in the ceremony told AFP. “They are on edge with these security issues,” added this source.

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Securing this gigantic outdoor party, on a river, in the presence of athletes and heads of state from around the world, constitutes a real headache for state services. The quality of the water in the Seine for the Olympic events is also monitored very closely.