Paris Olympic Games opening ceremony: a high-kitsch, riverside spectacle

An armada of boats carrying athletes along the Seine, dangling dancers and parading drag queens – all under torrential rain

• Opening ceremony review – soaring ambition deflated by patchy delivery

The Paris Olympic Games opened on Friday night with a high-kitsch, riverside spectacle, as an armada of boats carried athletes along the Seine, dancers dangled from high poles, drag queens paraded on bridges and the Olympic rings lit up the Eiffel Tower – all under unrelenting, torrential rain.

France had promised its opening ceremony would be the biggest open-air show on Earth. More than 300,000 people watched from the riverside and bridges – and hundreds more stood at windows and balconies – as a show of dance, live music and acrobatics unfolded along more than 6km of river from the Pont d’Austerlitz to the Eiffel Tower.