Olympic Opening Ceremonies 2024: Social Media Reacts to Celebration in Paris

Let the 2024 Paris Olympics begin.

The Games are officially open following Friday's Opening Ceremonies, which dazzled audiences with music, performances, a historic boat parade, a visually stunning torch cauldron in a hot air balloon and even Celine Dion singing at the Eiffel Tower.

American audiences surely tuned in to see Team USA, and basketball legend LeBron James and tennis star Coco Gauff led the group as the flag-bearers. They were far from the only notable names, as hundreds of athletes who will be competing for gold in the coming days were on the boat for the Red, White and Blue.

With such an ambitious Opening Ceremonies, there was plenty of reaction on social media from the athletes and others:

Friday's ceremony was a historic one.

According to the Olympics' official website, it was the first Opening Ceremony for a Summer Games that did not happen in a stadium. Instead, the athletes rode along the Seine River on boats, which allowed far more spectators to be in attendance since the river runs through the center of the city.

The boat parade started with Greece and flag-bearer Giannis Antetokounmpo. Greece always starts the parade of athletes at the Opening Ceremonies as the birthplace of the Olympics, and that wasn't going to change just because it was along the river instead of inside a stadium.

It was just the start of quite the show.

Colorful red, white and blue smoke to match the French flag billowed off one of the bridges, performers danced along the river and Lady Gaga sang and played the piano on one of the city's outdoor staircases all while the torch went on a journey that included video of soccer legend Zinedine Zidane running it through the streets before it was ziplined from one building to another.

Throw in a heavy metal mashup of Les Miserables, a seemingly endless supply of pyrotechnics, the torch going through the Louvre and a red carpet tribute to Parisian fashion on one of the bridges, and Paris made its mark.

All of this happened as the boats—many of which carried multiple countries depending on the size of the delegations—continued to sail down the river. The boat parade concluded with the French boat sailing through as the home nation celebrated and the Eiffel Tower sparkled.

That was far from the end, though, as the representation of a horse carrying the Olympic flag galloped along the Seine as highlights from previous famous moments of the Games played. From there, the flag was carried into the Place du Trocadéro ahead of the performance of the Olympic anthem.

It all built toward the memorable lighting of the cauldron.

Zidane handed the torch to Rafael Nadal, who took it and joined Olympics legends Serena Williams, Carl Lewis and Nadia Comăneci on a boat that sailed the river in the reverse direction of the athlete boat parade.

From there, French athletes including Amélie Mauresmo and Tony Parker ran it through the city and past the Louvre to light the cauldron in a hot air balloon as Dion sung below the Eiffel Tower for a dramatic conclusion.