“I woke up this morning and it was raining,” Australia’s flag bearer Jess Fox said in Paris on Friday, as she prepared to lead her national team on a barge along the Seine in the grand opening to the Olympics. “But it won’t rain on our parade.”
The line was obviously rehearsed, one final practice session for Fox ahead of the formal start of Olympic competition on Saturday. But seeing the soaked smiles of the Australians as they sailed down Paris’ magnificent central artery, flanked on both sides by hundreds of thousands of Parisians, it was hard to disagree.
The face of Australia’s 2024 team was born in France to a French mother and British father, but moved to Australia at age four. She has now entered one of Australia’s most exclusive clubs, as one of just 27 to have carried the flag.
“Ian Thorpe rang me and Susie O’Neill sent me a message,” she said. “Those moments are just pinch me moments ... what is life really right now? It’s just incredible. And I’m so grateful to our whole team who’s just embraced us.”
Australia had been given the third-last slot in the parade, a privilege afforded to them as hosts of Brisbane 2032. Only the USA – which is preparing for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles – and France followed. In the elaborate production lasting hours, rain took hold midway through. It was steady under darkening skies when Australia finally made their entrance.
But the wait, and the conditions, did not seem to extinguish the Australians’ enthusiasm and especially not of their leader. As the group emerged from under the Pont d’Austerlitz in eastern Paris at the formal start of the procession, there was the canoeist, gripping the flag alongside hockey player Eddie Ockenden at the head of the contingent. Like it was a paddle.
By the time their boat – shared with Zimbabwe – made it under the next bridge at Pont de Sully less than a kilometre away, her hair was already drenched. But still the 30-year-old waved and bounced, her glistening grin visible from the shore.
Both Fox and Ockenden are in action on Saturday, hours after the opening ceremony was to conclude. The Kookaburras veteran, at his fifth Olympics, wasn’t perturbed. Instead, he wanted to leverage the experience for a competitive advantage. “I’m taking the energy to our events, I think that’s going to be awesome, it’s going to be good for us,” he said in the lead-up.
Yet the format for the opening of these Games was more of a marathon, rather than a 400m walk around a stadium we have seen at previous Olympics. The Australian athletes had to commit at least five and a half hours to make the journey from the Olympic village on the other side of Paris, along the river and then back amidst hundreds of security checkpoints, dead ends and road closures.
Eighty Australian athletes decided it was worth the trouble. There was breaker Rachael “Raygun” Gunn. Boxers Tina Rahimi, Marissa Williamson Pohlman and Harry Garside. Gangurrus’ star Anneli Maley. Tennis players including Alex de Minaur, Ajla Tomljanovic, Matthew Ebden and Alexei Popyrin. All donning plastic ponchos to avoid a chill.
Many more Australians were on the banks. Two friends Ben and Max, wrapped in Australian flags, jostled for a position near the end of the procession. They were at their first Olympics, a “sneak peek” Max said, ahead of Brisbane in 2032. He was there to support the swimming and rugby sevens teams, as well as Garside. Or, as Ben said, “just whatever we’re succeeding at”.
And while they were looking forward to seeing the Australians float past, it was the other countries, and the spectacle of the whole exercise, that had convinced them to brave the crowds and queues – some hundreds of metres long – and sample one of Paris’ most famous nights. “We haven’t been out yet, that will be after tonight, then we’ll really see how it is,” Max said.
Behind the Australians, the volume of the crowd’s cheers lifted. The USA received a rowdy reception, reflecting the large American contingent that has invaded the French capital in recent days. But the largest ovation was reserved for the home nation.
The Parisians had been made to wait almost three hours from the first boat setting off to when the Tricolour finally appeared, and hours more beforehand navigating the queues that seemingly had no end. In that moment, with flags waving from the banks and balconies, not even the sombre skies could spoil this party.
