Former Team GB Olympic champion Rebecca Adlington branded the Paris 2024 opening ceremony as ‘disjointed’ as athletes were paraded along the River Seine on Friday.
For the first time in history, an Olympic opening ceremony was not held inside the stadium of the host city, as Paris opted for a unique approach with over 90 boats.
The broadcast flitted between the athletes being shown on their boats to various dances and artistic performances before the end of the ceremony at the Palais du Trocadero.
After the Olympic flag was raised upside down, Celine Dion stole the show with a sublime performance to end the ceremony.
And Adlington, who won two golds and two bronze medals during her Olympic swimming career, said she would have preferred the ceremony to be held inside the stadium.
‘I think it’s one of those it’s a different experience when you’re watching it on telly to when you’re out there,’ she said in the BBC studio in Paris.
‘The weather isn’t helping, it has not stopped raining so I think being cold and it’s just one of those where it’s slightly tarnished the experience.
‘It wasn’t my favourite opening ceremony, I have to admit, just because I think it was so different and so ambitious that I think I’m probably stuck in my ways.
‘I like the stadium, I like when it’s all together and I like when you can see different things going off whereas this felt a bit disjointed in parts.’
Former United States sprinter Michael Johnson, who was also working as a BBC pundit for the opening ceremony, claims some spectators were also ‘going long periods without being entertained’.
‘It was different,’ Johnson said of the ceremony in the French capital.
‘I applaud the French for going out there, I mean they went big, it was very ambitious to do that, to have the athletes down the Seine instead of in a stadium.
‘The athletes looked like they enjoyed it, in the end they were lighting the cauldron was really, really different and fantastic, lights show, I love a lights show, we had an amazing view of the Eiffel Tower lit up.
‘I’m curious for fans who watched on television and people who were in the stands of what their experience was.
‘Because I think from what I was getting from some people that I know who were out there, there were some long periods where they weren’t really entertained, they didn’t get to see anything.
‘When you’re in a stadium, you have that sound and all of the live action and entertainment going on in front of you, so I’m not sure what their experience was.’