The Paris Olympic Games have officially opened with a long and extravagant ceremony along the River Seine.

In the pouring rain, athletes from every competing country floated along on boats of varying shapes and sizes as multiple performances took place across bridges, buildings and riverside boulevards in central Paris, celebrating all the weird and wonderful parts of French history and culture.

We sat through the three-hour-long ceremony and picked out the best bits so that you can get on with your day like a normal human instead.

1. Lady Gaga gets her peacock on

The American singer was one of several individual performers of the night, and she opened the 'pink' section of the show in truly French fashion.

Standing on a large gold staircase as a stage, and surrounded by black and pink feathers, Gaga's entire set was sung in French - including her own piano performance teasing Edith Piaf's famous song "La Vie en Rose."

A jazz orchestra sat just off to the side as she and her back-up dancers went through a glorious routine, twirling Gaga up in the air and around people's shoulders as she continued singing.

She then exchanged her black fluffy number for a white burst of feathers, which she strapped to her waist like a tail, before one final chorus saw her finish her set up on the golden steps.

2.Gojira helps behead Marie Antoinette

Paris isn't all about jazz, though. Turns out they love their heavy metal music, too.

And given how badass their own history is, it's perhaps no surprise that an artistic recreation of the beheading of Marie Antoinette was accompanied by the metal band Gojira, whose members stood on platforms on the walls of a Seine-adjacent building while playing electric guitars and drums.

Inside each of the windows were statues in red dresses posing as the famous French character, each of them holding their own heads in their hands, as a large painted boat slowly sailed beneath them carrying an opera singer.

As Gojira belted out their song, a choir soon began to swell, building to a crescendo that saw the walls of the building explode with red streamers, sparks and fireworks in a truly bloody spectacle mimicking the iconic moment in French history when the last queen consort was beheaded by her subjects, sparking (in part) the French Revolution.

And given the current political situation in France in light of the recent election, such a celebration makes sense.

It was pretty epic.

3. It's fashion, darling

As each nation's team floated along the river, we finally got a glimpse of each of their formal outfits designed for the Opening Ceremony.

Here's a quick snapshot of the best and worst dressed of the 206 nations, as critiqued by ABC Sport's reluctant fashion expert (me):

• The three kids who chased Zidane in the opening video sequence, dressed like they drew their own costumes: funky, 8/10.
• Greece, the traditional first nation in every Opening Ceremony procession, wearing a cream jacket over a navy pant-shirt combo: yawn, 3/10.
• Aruba, wearing jackets that fade from blue to yellow, in a throwback to my favourite tie-dye Word Art illustration style: nostalgic in the wrong way, 3/10.
• Belgium wearing what appear to be a range of silk pyjamas: awkward, 1/10.
• Burundi wrapped in bright traditional outfits featuring shell headbands: delightful, 7/10.
• Canada in plain red tracksuits that blend into one red blob the further a drone hovers away from them: boring, 1/10.

• Spain whose skirts look like used tampons: very French? Or just very gross? 2/10.
• Ghana wearing breezy colourful tunics: fun but underdressed, 5/10.
• Team GB in cream bomber jackets and light blue pants: trying too hard to look cool but just invites bullying, 4/10.
• Athletes getting tangled in the clear plastic raincoats as the skies above Paris opened: hilarious, 10/10.
• Women from Iran, Oman, and a few other nations wearing hijabs in a country where they're banned from Olympic sport: radical, 8/10.
• Liberia in sheer black-and-gold robes, with one athlete sporting a truly miraculous afro: fierce, 9/10.
• Madagascar in what can only be described as improved safari outfits for a costume party: didn't read the memo, 2/10.
• Monaco wearing red and white stripes with red berets and pencil skirts: read the memo too closely, 2/10.
• Mongolia in cream robes topped with a blue chest plate piece detailed with traditional gold and silver images: awesome, 10/10.

• Papua New Guinea shivering in traditional outfits of feathers and grass skirts: definitely not weather-appropriate, but wonderful anyway. 10/10.
• South Sudan in black military-style jackets, which might be a little too soon given what happened there in 2021: inconsiderate, 2/10.
• Sweden wearing bright yellow jackets that look bulk-purchased from Uniqlo: we've already had Minions, we don't need more yellow things, thank you. 1/10.
• France, the hosts, wearing simple navy-blue suits: I thought you were meant to be a fashion culture? 2/10.
• Australia in rain-drenched dark green blazers and wet t-shirts, squealing like they're on a boozy schoolies cruise on the Gold Coast: that's the Aussie spirit, 10/10.

4. Peace and protest

There had been a lot of concern leading up to the opening ceremony that unrest within France itself, as well as more broadly around the world, would lead to attempts to disrupt the event.

Concerns were so high that France closed the entire airspace over Paris for several hours, while the streets surrounding the river have been barricaded and heavily guarded for the past week, with only residents and workers allowed through.

That didn't stop a couple of different, smaller protests taking place though. Some folks watching unfurled banners and flags in the surrounding apartments, while a small number of athletes themselves used the spotlight of the ceremony to shine a light on particular issues.

The Algerian team threw flowers into a particular part of the Seine where, in 1961, 200 Algerians were allegedly shot and drowned by French police, who were responding to a protest against a curfew placed on Muslim people in Paris.

The Palestinian team then floated down the river holding their flags in one hand and a peace sign with their fingers on the other, and traditional keffiyehs around their heads and shoulders. 

The contingent was led by flag-bearers Waseem Abu Sal, who wore a shirt stitched with images of jets dropping bombs, and Valerie Tarazi, whose family is from Gaza, where much of the current conflict is taking place. 

One of the final musical numbers saw a singer standing in front of an on-fire piano, floating in the middle of the Seine, as she sung a pared-back version of John Lennon's "Imagine". 

The phrase "we stand and call for peace" then showed up on the screen at the end, which was quite touching. Those you can't help but notice that the lyrics "Imagine there's no countries" didn't quite square with the alphabetic procession of 209 countries we literally just saw.

5. France being ... very French

The opening ceremony wasn't all serious, though. It also leaned heavily into the beautiful and sometimes bizarre elements of French culture.

Over the course of the three hours, we saw a parade of pink-costumed dancers, some of whom wore giant heads of rats or costumes made of croissants. 

We watched a small video montage of three attractive people locking eyes in a library and flirting with each other by reading famous saucy French novels before escaping into a stairway to, it's implied, make sweet French love to each other in some kind of liberating queer polycule.

We watched a glittery blue man emerge from underneath a silver cloche, reclined on a bed of flowers and fruits, apples and vines draped across his, um, delicate parts, while he sang some sensual French song like a sexy cabaret version of Genie from the Disney movie, Aladdin.

We saw can-can dancers kick and spin along the riverbank, a fashion show featuring drag queens stomping and voguing their way across a bridge, a musical number featuring a bunch of acrobatic bellboys wheeling Louis Vuitton-themed suitcases supposedly carrying the Olympic medals across cobblestones.

We watched a forest of ghostly dancers waving and bending on giant poles, a sexy French pianist playing a number in the rain, and, for some reason, a long animation sequence of Minions trying a bunch of Olympic sports, only for the submarine they were practising in to implode, in what I assume was a touching tribute to the billionaires lost in the Titan submersible disaster. Very moving.

6. The mysterious torch-bearer is finally unmasked

The ceremony opened with a video montage of Zinedine Zidane, icon of French football, carrying the Olympic torch on its final leg before handing it over to a masked figure wrapped in robes, reminiscent of the main character from the Assassin's Creed videogame.

The figure then spent the next two hours parkouring across France's iconic buildings, racing along rooftops and zip-lining over rivers, carrying the torch with them everywhere they went, building the drama and mystery of who would be the one to light the final flame.

There were wild rumours about who had been chosen for the honour of lighting the flame for the Paris Olympics, from Olympic legend Marie-Jose Perec to actor Omar Sy to astronaut Thomas Pesquet to survivors of the 2015 Parisian terror attacks.

Online, entranced watchers grew giddy that the masked figure would reveal themselves as the chosen flame-lighter at the end of the night. But as the ceremony's traditional speeches and Olympic Oath concluded beneath the Eiffel Tower, the mysterious figure was not unmasked at all. 

Instead, they handed the torch back to Zidane, who reappeared from nowhere before walking it back down the stage to hand it to that famous French figure in sport ... Rafael Nadal?

Loading...

Yes, the Spanish tennis legend, who will compete in his last ever Olympics here in Paris, for some reason was given the torch, and the crowd did not care that it made no sense. 

Nadal walked back along the platform and soon disappeared from view as the most photographed tower in the world above them was engulfed in darkness.

A glittering light-show on the tower then began, accompanying Nadal's journey on another boat back up the Seine. 

But he wasn't alone: beside him on the boat were three other former athletes — Serena Williams, Carl Lewis, and Nadia Comanceci - who are, famously, also not French, but were there anyway, because why not at this point?

They finally handed it to an actual French person, Amélie Mauresmo, who was the third tennis player of the final torch relay for some reason, and the start of the final sequence of French athletes who carry the flame from the Seine to the Louvre to its final resting-place: a giant old-timey hot-air balloon cauldron.

7. My heart will always go on for Celine Dion

The final torch-lighting sequence closed with Charles Coste, the oldest living French Olympic champion, receiving the flame from the many French athletes who carried it up from the river.

Coste, a cycling champion in 1948, was born the last time Paris hosted the Games 100 years ago. 

He hands the torch over to the final flame-lighters, Teddy Riner and Marie-Jose Perec, who carry it across a small bridge and to the base of the hot-air balloon, lighting it underneath and watching it rise into the night.

And then, the performance we've all been waiting for: the French-Canadian singer Celine Dion suddenly appears at the base of the Eiffel Tower dressed in a glittering white gown.

Having withdrawn from public life as she struggled with Stiff Person Syndrome, the world was wondering if we would ever see her again.

But Dion, one of France's adopted crowning glories, returns to the spotlight in style, belting out an incredible rendition of Edith Piaf's "Hymn to Love" with a live pianist next to her.

Tears. Goosebumps. Let the Games begin!