Paris 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony: 5/10

Friday 26th July, BBC One, 18:30

It went on a-bit didn’t it? If I cast my admittedly poor memory back a few years, I can remember the incredible sceptical of Beijing 2008, the wit and humour of London 2012, the colour and beauty of Rio 2016 and… we’ll let Tokyo 2020 off due to social-distancing - Paris 2024 contrasted by sending boats down the Seine one-by-one. In the plans, this looked spectacular and I’m onboard with the economics of using your existing infrastructure and the rain-washed landscape didn’t help the evening, but the logistics of using the river meant that each part of the ceremony took forever… Okay, positives: the Eiffel Tower light show was great and the flying balloon with the flaming cauldron is very cool, but it was a swing and a miss from Paris 2024 for me, nothing on level of HRH QE2 parachuting in with Bond that’s for sure.