
France broke the tradition of hosting the Olympics opening ceremony in a conventional stadium and instead chose the River Seine as the venue, braving the rain, on Friday. This audacious and pioneering move, fraught with security challenges, was indeed a daring experiment. The Olympics, taglined “Games Wide Open,” paradoxically featured extensive barriers, checkpoints, and a substantial presence of law enforcement personnel numbering in the tens of thousands. Yet, these elements remained largely unseen during the telecast, be it from NBC or Peacock.