He admits to having been particularly “stunned” by the announcement of the bad weather forecast for the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on July 26. A month and a half later, Thomas Jolly, artistic director of the opening and closing ceremonies of the Paris Games, looked back on this extraordinary day, immortalized in a documentary by the Naudet brothers, broadcast this Tuesday evening on France 2.
In the broadcast sequence, Thomas Jolly is filmed in tears, consoled by his teams, when he learns that rain is forecast for the evening.
“I didn’t realize it,” he said on the set of the show C à Vous, on France 5, this Monday, September 9. “We had the rehabilitation plans but suddenly, the effect of reality…”, the director continued.
A crisis meeting at 7:30 in the morning
A difficult announcement to take for the director, especially since that very morning, just after rehearsals with Céline Dion, he had looked at the weather forecast. “I went to bed around 5am, the weather was nice, we were in T-shirts. I looked at the weather forecast and I saw that it was nice. I told myself that it was really great, that the planets were aligned, the rehearsal with Céline was amazing, it was going to be so beautiful,” he said.
But two hours later, at 7am, he received a call from Thierry Reboul, the organiser of the Paris Games ceremonies. “He told me there was a crisis meeting in half an hour, it was raining. I told him ‘no Thierry it wasn’t raining, I checked so it wasn’t going to rain’. He told me ‘yes, Thomas, it was raining, so there was a crisis meeting and you were coming'”.
Thomas Jolly explains that he simply went to the wrong city while looking at his weather app. “When we knew it was going to rain, I saw two years of work flash before my eyes… I didn’t know what it was going to be like,” the director reveals.
A beautiful evening in hindsight
For his part, Thierry Reboul explains that he was less affected by this rain, explaining that he “had to hold the fort”, with 20,000 people having participated in the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. “So, at a certain point if we let ourselves go too much, it doesn’t work”, he continues.
“All evening, every two minutes, I have to make a decision: ‘is it going up, is it not going up, yes, no’. We didn’t have a very comfortable evening,” jokes Thierry Reboul.
Afterwards, with a little hindsight, Thomas Jolly explains that he “thanked this rain so much because there was so much strength”, with “the artists, the technicians, all the teams who reorganized themselves”, rejoices the artistic director of the ceremonies.
- RMC Sport
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