Football, rugby kick off Games ahead of opening ceremony

The sporting action at the Paris Olympics kicked off with two soccer matches on Wednesday, two days before thousands of athletes and artists are set to take part in an ambitious opening ceremony at the heart of the French capital.

After years of preparation, and as more than 10,000 athletes are getting ready for their shot at one of the 329 gold medals that will be up for grabs in 19 days of competition, the first two events of the Paris Games kicked off at 3pm (1300 GMT).

Spain’s men’s team faced Uzbekistan at a less than full Parc des Princes in Paris while Argentina, who won the title in 2004 and 2008, were booed by spectators as they played Morocco in the eastern city of Saint-Etienne.

A video posted by Argentina international Enzo Fernandez after his team won the Copa America earlier this month featured a song sung by some members of the Argentina squad about France’s players of African descent.

The French Football Federation (FFF) said the video was “racist and discriminatory“.

At halftime, Morocco were leading 1-0.

Meanwhile, the start of the Games was marred by a scandal over video footage that led to Britain’s joint-most decorated female Olympian Charlotte Dujardin pulling out of the Paris Games.

The video shows Dujardin whipping a horse’s legs multiple times.

“What is shown in this video is first of all completely unacceptable at any point, any time in a horse’s training,” International Equestrian Federation (FEI) Veterinarian Director Goran Akerstrom told Reuters.

Paris 2024 is meant to be the first post-pandemic summer Olympics, after the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, postponed by a year due to COVID, were held largely without spectators.

But three more Australian women’s water polo players have tested positive for COVID, the country’s Olympic team chief Anna Meares said on Wednesday, taking the total number of confirmed cases to five.

SECURITY

Six more men’s soccer games were scheduled later in the day, including hosts France playing the United States at 9pm. France won the title in 1984 in Los Angeles.

Also at 9pm, Israel’s opening Olympic soccer match against Mali is set to be a first security test for the Games. France will deploy thousands of police officers to secure it amid pronounced security concerns and heightened geopolitical tensions, including over Israel’s war in Gaza.

Rugby Sevens is also on the menu on Wednesday, with French global star Antoine Dupont elevating the host country’s hopes of a gold medal after their heartbreaking failure at the XVs World Cup last year. France play the U.S. at 4.30pm and then Uruguay at 8pm.

Handball and archery will make their own debut at the Paris Games on Thursday, and shooting on Friday, before floating parades of athletes and artists on the river Seine take part in the Games’ first ever opening ceremony outside a stadium.

DOPING WOES

Questions over doping – and doping rules – resurfaced on Wednesday.

Ysaora Thibus, one of the favourites for gold in the foil event, was confirmed in the French fencing team for the Olympics, but she could later be stripped of any medal as an appeal from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is hanging over the 32-year-old.

American swimming great Katie Ledecky said she hopes athletes will be “competing clean” at the Paris Olympics amid a row over a doping case involving Chinese swimmers.

WADA chief Witold Banka warned that the United States could find itself isolated from world sport with significant consequences for American athletes if it risks the harmonisation of global anti-doping rules over the Chinese case.

On the security front, French police have arrested a Russian man suspected of planning to destabilise the Olympics, the Paris prosecutor’s office said, which could take the form of disinformation or other types of attack.

WINTER GAMES

France was conditionally picked as the host of the 2030 Winter Games on Wednesday and must now deliver key financial guarantees in the coming months, the International Olympic Committee said. Salt Lake City was awarded the 2034 Winter Olympics.

As for the summer Games, organisers said Friday’s opening ceremony, which will officially mark the start of the Olympics, would be a daring, joyful show – protected by 45,000 police and thousands more military.

Dozens of boats will carry athletes and performers on a 6km route along the Seine.

Details including some of the artists taking part, who will last carry the torch and light the Olympic cauldron to mark the start of the Games, have been kept secret.

But sightings in Paris of Canadian singer Celine Dion have kicked off rumours that she could be taking part in the opening ceremony. French Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera said Dion’s presence in Paris was not a coincidence.