A buoy is seen during a surfing training session in Teahupo'o, on the French Polynesian Island of Tahiti, on Tuesday, ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics. AFP-Yonhap

PARIS — France went into full Olympic countdown this week as the long-awaited Summer Games will begin in Paris with a spectacular evening parade of 85 boats and barges along the iconic Seine. This unique, creative opening ceremony, with over 10,000 athletes and dignitaries from the teams, featured a resplendent pharaonic spectacle evoking ancient Egypt as much as modern France.

The XXXIII Olympics are being held just 100 years since the 1924 Paris Olympics.

John J. Metzler

The Games arrived following years of preparations, traffic disruptions bad even by Parisian standards and a security lockdown in large parts of the city. Not surprisingly many Parisians have deliberately sarcastically left the city to avoid the crowding and traffic jams. Tourism is down too and the city is quieter than usual, even for summer.

Though the Games cost nearly $10 billion and have gone not surprisingly over budget, they have not been as costly as recent Olympiads in London. Moreover, construction was integrated into preexisting venues and buildings thus causing a lower “carbon footprint” for construction. Naturally, the........

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