Boats cruise the Seine river in a rehearsal for the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony

Boats cruise the Seine river in a rehearsal for the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony
Barges cruise on the Seine river during a rehearsal for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games opening ceremony Monday in Paris. The river will host the Olympic Games opening ceremony on July 26 with boats for each national delegation. (AP)
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Updated 18 June 2024
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Boats cruise the Seine river in a rehearsal for the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony

Boats cruise the Seine river in a rehearsal for the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony
  • Officials are confident that the near four-hour ceremony will run like clockwork on July 26
  • On the day of the eagerly-awaited event, around 200 Olympic delegations will join the parade on more than 80 boats

PARIS: Curious onlookers gathered on bridges as dozens of boats snaked along the Seine river on Monday in a rehearsal for the Paris Olympics’ unique opening ceremony next month.

A total of 55 boats made the journey from Pont d’Austerlitz, named after a French military victory in 1805, to Pont d’Iena, a stone’s throw from the Eiffel Tower, the nation’s most striking and best-known landmark.

Officials are confident that the near four-hour ceremony will run like clockwork on July 26.

“Six months ago we had like 10 minutes delay on the timing and today we are very close, almost to the second to our targets,” Thierry Reboul, the executive director for ceremonies said. “So it is very satisfying. We’ve respected an extremely precise level of timing.”

On the day of the eagerly-awaited event, around 200 Olympic delegations will join the parade on more than 80 boats. They will make the journey from east to west, along a six-kilometer (3.7-mile) route which has become a major talking point — for its audacity as a unique open-air event and for its exposure to potential danger.

Security concerns led French President Emmanuel Macron to say in mid-April that the ceremony could shift to Stade de France if the threat level was too high. But Reboul said Monday that authorities are preparing for the big day as originally planned, with no alternatives being prepared at this stage.

There will be a final rehearsal, involving the full armada of boats, before the opening ceremony — one which is expected to bring 100 world leaders to the city’s embankments, where more than 300,000 people will watch.

“We will give our heart and souls to make it a great success for the French people,” France’s Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera said Monday. “They deserve it.”

The rehearsal saw 10 police speedboats shadowing the convoy, as well as speedboats equipped with television cameras. There were armed police officers stationed at various points along the way. The boats crossed 16 bridges, passing by iconic landmarks such as the green-tinged Grand Palais — where fencing and Taekwondo events will be held.

On each bridge, a few dozen people watched attentively.

“Fifty-five? That’s a lot of boats,” said 49-year-old Rosa Gabriel. Taking a break between walking from the Louvre and Notre Dame Cathedral, she watched it from the Pont des Arts bridge — fondly known as Love Lock Bridge, with its thousands of personalized locks attached to the railings.

One tourist even mistook the scene for something else.

“Maybe they are making a movie,” said Driss El Kaoutari, a 42-year-old from Morocco who was on vacation in Paris with his daughter.

What people actually saw were empty vessels bobbing slowly by. But they will be full of life, color, sound and movement next month.

“You will have many delegation members on the boats with their uniforms and their flags,” Reboul said. “Around them there will be many other things, as you can imagine.”

The water itself has become a sensitive and thorny topic for the organizers and politicians heading into the July 26-Aug. 11 Paris Games. A whopping $1.5 billion investment has already been made to improve the Seine’s water quality, with Macron and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo both promising to take a dip.

This time, it was Oudea-Castera’s turn to give assurances about the river — where marathon swimmers and triathletes are set to compete during the Olympics.

She bristled a little when answering.

“Regarding the quality of the Seine’s water, we are confident. You shouldn’t ask us to be ready ahead of time,” Oudea-Castera said, adding that a new center for collecting waste will be opened next week.


Bayern score late to see off Celtic in Champions League

Bayern score late to see off Celtic in Champions League
Updated 19 February 2025
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Bayern score late to see off Celtic in Champions League

Bayern score late to see off Celtic in Champions League
  • Bayern started the playoff second leg leading 2-1 from the first game in Glasgow but the visitors canceled out that lead after 63 minutes

MUNICH, Germany: Alphonso Davies scrambled the ball in with seconds left to give Bayern a 3-2 aggregate victory over Celtic and a place in the last 16 of the Champions League.
Bayern started the playoff second leg leading 2-1 from the first game in Glasgow but the visitors canceled out that lead after 63 minutes.
Nicolas Kuhn, a former Bayern reserve team player, pounced on an error by Kim Min-jae to sweep the ball home.
Bayern dominated and peppered the Celtic goal but could not beat Kasper Schmeichel, until, with regular time almost up, the goalie could only parry Leon Goretzka’s header to substitute Davies. The ball bounced in off the Canadian’s shin to give Bayern a 1-1 draw in the match.


Ancelotti downplays Guardiola’s suggestion Man City have 1 percent chance of eliminating Madrid in playoffs

Ancelotti downplays Guardiola’s suggestion Man City have 1 percent chance of eliminating Madrid in playoffs
Updated 18 February 2025
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Ancelotti downplays Guardiola’s suggestion Man City have 1 percent chance of eliminating Madrid in playoffs

Ancelotti downplays Guardiola’s suggestion Man City have 1 percent chance of eliminating Madrid in playoffs
  • “He doesn’t really think that,” Ancelotti said on Tuesday in a pre-match news conference
  • Guardiola later said he lied a bit when he talked about the 1 percent, and that he knows City’s chances of reversing the first-leg defeat are higher than that

MADRID: Coach Carlo Ancelotti is not buying Manchester City rival Pep Guardiola’s suggestion that his own side have only a 1 percent chance of eliminating Real Madrid in the Champions League playoffs on Wednesday.
Madrid rallied late to win the first leg 3-2 last week in England to seize control ahead of their home match at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium.
After City’s 4-0 win over Newcastle in the Premier League on Saturday, Guardiola said his team would arrive in the Spanish capital with a “1 percent” chance of going through to the round of 16.
“He doesn’t really think that,” Ancelotti said on Tuesday in a pre-match news conference. “Tomorrow I’ll ask him before the match if he really thinks that they only have a 1 percent chance. He thinks he has more than that, just as we don’t think that we have only a 99 percent chance. We know that we have an advantage, and we have to make the most of it.”
Guardiola later said he lied a bit when he talked about the 1 percent, and that he knows City’s chances of reversing the first-leg defeat are higher than that.
“You have to play an almost perfect game,” he said. “The result was not so good, we usually come into the second leg with a better result, so it is not the perfect situation. We have to attack, we have to score goals. We want to win, so let’s see if we can adjust some things that didn’t work in the first leg.”
Ancelotti said he was not one of those coaches who liked to fully downplay his team’s advantage.
“It’s foolish to say that we will prepare for the game as if we were tied 0-0,” he said. “Nobody will believe you because it’s a fact that we scored three goals and City two. You can’t change that. We have to try to play the same way as we played a week ago, but without forgetting that we have an advantage.”
Guardiola has never failed in 16 seasons of coaching — four at Barcelona, three at Bayern and nine in Manchester — to take his team to the last 16. The 2012-13 season was the last time City did not play at that stage.
City have been struggling recently, though, and Guardiola said that has to be taken into consideration.
“This season the reality is we have been miles, miles away,” he said. “The results have been poor.”
Madrid got the better of City in the quarterfinals last year, and with a 3-1 win in extra time in the semifinals in 2022. Each time Ancelotti’s team went on to win the title, extending the club’s record to 15 Champions League trophies.
Ancelotti can count on central defender Antonio Rüdiger, who has recovered from the muscle injury that has kept him out in recent weeks. Against City last week, Ancelotti fielded an improvised back line who played together for the first time.
Ferland Mendy, youngster Raúl Asencio and midfielders Aurélien Tchouaméni and Federico Valverde played at the back in England.
Ancelotti said Rüdiger can start on Wednesday, though he didn’t say whether the central defender would replace Tchouaméni or the 22-year-old Asencio.
It is the fourth consecutive season in which the teams are facing each other in the Champions League, with City prevailing in the semifinals two seasons ago on their way to winning the European title for the first time.


Feyenoord knock out 10-man AC Milan to reach Champions League last 16

Feyenoord knock out 10-man AC Milan to reach Champions League last 16
Updated 18 February 2025
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Feyenoord knock out 10-man AC Milan to reach Champions League last 16

Feyenoord knock out 10-man AC Milan to reach Champions League last 16
  • Julian Carranza thumped home the winning header in the 73rd minute
  • Argentine attacker Carranza struck for Feyenoord shortly after coming on as substitute

MILAN: Feyenoord reached the last 16 of the Champions League on Tuesday after a 1-1 draw at 10-man AC Milan which took them past the seven-time kings of Europe 2-1 on aggregate.
Julian Carranza thumped home the winning header in the 73rd minute at a frigid San Siro, canceling out Santiago Gimenez’s first-minute opener for Milan and sending the Dutch through to meet either Inter Milan or Arsenal.
Argentine attacker Carranza struck for Feyenoord shortly after coming on as substitute as the away side pushed to reach the next round, while Milan struggled following Theo Hernandez’s sending off early in the second half.
Already on a booking for a needless foul on Anis Hadj-Moussa just before half-time, Hernandez was ruled by referee Szymon Marciniak to have dived in the penalty box when under pressure from Givairo Read.
The France full-back was dismissed, leaving Milan on the back foot after having dominated up to that point.
Hernandez’s sending off and Carranza’s tie-winning header ruined what looked to be Gimenez’s night when he nodded home the opener against his old team after just 36 seconds.
Mexico forward Gimenez has already scored three times for Milan since signing from Feyenoord during the winter transfer window but his sixth goal in the Champions League this season was also his last.
Sergio Conceicao’s Milan are by no means assured of a spot in next year’s tournament as they sit seventh in Serie A, five points off the top four with a game in hand.


Medvedev edges Khachanov in windy Qatar Open

Medvedev edges Khachanov in windy Qatar Open
Updated 18 February 2025
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Medvedev edges Khachanov in windy Qatar Open

Medvedev edges Khachanov in windy Qatar Open
  • Medvedev, who won the tournament in 2023, scored his first victory over a top-30 player in 2025
  • In match of long rallies, Medvedev did not carve out a break point until the 12th game of the second set

DOHA: World No.6 Daniil Medvedev eliminated compatriot and defending champion Karen Khachanov 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 in the second round of the ATP Qatar Open on Tuesday.
Medvedev, who won the tournament in 2023, scored his first victory over a top-30 player in 2025.
Medvedev, the former world No.1, has not won a tournament since the Rome Masters in spring 2023. He was knocked out in the second round of this year’s Australian Open by teenage American Learner Tien.
In match of long rallies, Medvedev did not carve out a break point until the 12th game of the second set, by which time he was a set down. He took his chance and then went on attack in the third set to win in two hours 30 minutes.


A third Russian former champion, Andrey Rublev, the fifth seed, beat Alexander Bublik 6-3, 6-4.
Alex de Minaur celebrated his birthday by beating Russian Roman Safiullin 6-1, 7-5, even though the Australian did not enjoy the weather.
“They’re tough days, these ones,” said De Minaur. “It’s cold, it’s windy, you probably don’t want to get out of bed. But once you step on court, you have to do everything you can to win. Whether it’s ugly or pretty tennis, you just put the ball in the court, and that’s what I did today.”
“Out went any sort of tactics you had for the match and it was all about surviving more than anything.”
In the evening matches, Novak Djokovic was making his comeback against Matteo Berrettini after his Australian-Open semifinal injury.
Earlier in the day, Djokovic said that Andy Murray would continue as his coach “indefinitely.”
“I expressed my desire to continue the collaboration with him so I am really glad he did accept,” said Djokovic.


F1 drivers gather in London to launch 75th anniversary season

F1 drivers gather in London to launch 75th anniversary season
Updated 18 February 2025
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F1 drivers gather in London to launch 75th anniversary season

F1 drivers gather in London to launch 75th anniversary season
  • The F1 75 Live event at London’s O2 arena marks a new approach by the series
  • Teams will present their 2025 liveries, but don’t have to show off the actual cars they’ll race this season

LONDON: All 20 Formula 1 drivers and the 10 teams are expected in London on Tuesday to kick-start the 2025 season with a new live launch show.
The F1 75 Live event at London’s O2 arena marks a new approach by the series. It’s the first time the sport is hosting its own large-scale launch event, rather than leaving it to the individual teams to present their drivers and cars.
The televised two-hour show includes musical acts like country singer Kane Brown, British band Take That and American rapper MGK, also known as Machine Gun Kelly.
Teams will present their 2025 liveries, but don’t have to show off the actual cars they’ll race this season. Teams are still allowed to hold their own launch events to present their 2025 cars, as McLaren and Williams did last week.
It comes at a time when F1 is keen to expand beyond a sports audience, with races in cities like Miami and Las Vegas, a movie called “F1” starring Brad Pitt releasing in June, and the ongoing popularity of the “Drive To Survive” series on Netflix.
“To have this many fans out shows that we bring the sport together away from the racetrack. There’s a lot of excitement,” McLaren chief executive Zak Brown said Tuesday.
“The Brad Pitt movie will no doubt create a huge amount of awareness for the sport. Netflix, I’m sure, knowing what happened last year, will be a drama-filled television show again, which has been great for all of us. So I think the sport’s going from strength to strength.”
Drivers broadly welcomed the new launch show, though two-time champion Fernando Alonso warned it could be “a little bit of distraction” at a time when drivers and teams are fine-tuning their approach to the season.
F1’s preparations for the new season — which marks the series’ 75th anniversary — continue with preseason testing next week at the Bahrain International Circuit. The first race is the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on March 16.