IOC President’s speech – Olympic Games Paris 2024 Opening Ceremony:-Here is Thomas Bach’s full speech from today, July 26, 2024, at the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games Paris 2024. He is President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
Paris, good evening to you! France, good evening to you!
Greetings, athletes!
This letter is addressed to Mr. Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic.
My fellow Olympian and personal friend, Tony Estanguet, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to the President of the Paris 2024 Organising Committee.
Yours faithfully, Mrs. Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris,,
Excellencies, I Thank You
Friends of the Olympic Games,
At long last, the time has come: we are pleased to welcome you to the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024!
I would want to express my deepest gratitude to our wonderful French hosts. We are grateful that you have honored us with such a magnificent welcome. With the Olympic torch, Paris and the rest of France will glow even brighter than they already do.
Other post
We are extremely thankful to each and every one of our French friends. To begin, I would want to address this to the President of the French Republic. In addition, we would like to express our gratitude to the public authorities at all levels, as well as to the Paris 2024 Organising Committee, which is led tremendously by Tony Estanguet, who is also an Olympian. By allowing a wide range of people to participate in these Games, you are putting our Olympic Agenda changes into action. Every single one of us will have the opportunity to see the Olympic Games in a manner that is more inclusive, more urban, younger, and more sustainable. These will be the first Olympic Games to include complete gender parity on the playing field.
To the thousands of people who volunteered their time, a particular thank you. I am grateful to you for your dedication. When you grin at us, we find ourselves falling even deeper in love with Paris and France.
In addition, we would like to extend our gratitude to the whole team of the Organizing Committee, as well as to the public services and to everyone else who is helping to make these Olympic Games an event that will be remembered for a lifetime.
The Olympic Games are a magical event that should be shared with the entire globe, and what better venue to do so than in Paris?
We owe everything to Pierre de Coubertin, our founder, who was born in Paris. Paris is the birthplace of our founder.
It was in Paris, the City of Light, that he conceived up the contemporary Olympic sporting events.
“Paris, the City of Desire”
I am grateful to France for providing such a mystical welcome.
To all of my fellow athletes:
Your Olympic odyssey has reached its zenith with this moment. The athletes that you are have traveled to Paris. You are now known as Olympians.
As you enter the Olympic Village, you come to the same realization that previous generations of Olympians have realized: suddenly I am a part of something that is much larger than myself. At this moment, we are a part of an event that brings the entire planet together in harmony.
There is no such thing as a “global south” or “global north” in the sport of Olympic competition. Everyone is respectful of the same rules as well as one another. Every one of us has a place in the Olympic globe.
Since we are Olympians, we look out for one another. We are not only respectful of one another, but we also live in one another’s collective solidarity. Each and every one of you has been through this, and you have benefited from our Olympic solidarity as you have traveled the long path to eventually participating in the Olympics. Each and every one of our Media Rights Holders and TOP Partners has been extremely generous in their support, which has made this solidarity possible. Thank you to each and every one of them, as well as everyone else who supported you on your road to the Olympics.
The athletes from all 206 National Olympic Committees and the International Olympic Committee Refugee Olympic Team are able to come together tonight because of the solidarity that exists in our world, which is ripped apart by wars and conflicts. Tonight, we are able to join together because of this kind of solidarity.
Olympic athletes, you are the best athletes in the world. Welcome to the Olympic Games!
One could argue that those of us who work in the Olympic scene are dreamers.
However, we are not the only ones in this situation.
In addition, tonight is the night that our ideal will become a reality for everyone to witness. Olympians from every corner of the world, demonstrating to us what amazing feats we, as humans, are capable of doing.
So I extend an invitation to everyone: dream with us. Be motivated by the joy that can only be given to us through the medium of sport, just like the Olympic athletes. This Olympic ethos of living life in peace, as the one and only humankind, unified in all of our variety, is something that we should work together to honor.
In light of this, I would like to extend an invitation to everyone in the globe to join me in celebrating the joy that comes from participating in sports tonight, with my heart brimming with feelings. Have confidence in what lies ahead. Let us get together and celebrate the most admirable aspects of our common humanity.
The Olympic Games will endure on forever! France, may you endure!
I would like to take this opportunity to extend an invitation to Mr. Emmanuel Macron, the President of the French Republic, to officially open the Games of the 33rd Olympiad that will take place in Paris in 2024.
Volunteers make up the worldwide Olympic Committee, which is a civil, non-governmental, worldwide organization that is not for profit and is dedicated to achieving its mission of making the world a better place through the discipline of sport. More than ninety percent of its profits are redistributed to the larger sporting movement. This means that every day, the equivalent of four and a half million United States dollars is given to athletes and sports organizations at all levels all over the world.