He didn’t have the honor of lighting the Olympic cauldron, which is quite logical, since he never participated in the Olympics during his career. But Zinedine Zidane was largely called upon on Friday evening during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Games.
After the official speeches, it was the former number 10 of the Blues who restarted the torch relay, at the Trocadéro, to pass the precious torch to a certain Rafael Nadal. The two men are friends, linked by Real Madrid, the club of “Rafa”, of which “Zizou” has long been one of the emblems.
Zidane’s first metro trip
But Zidane had made a first notable appearance at the beginning of the evening, in a video that launched the ceremony. The Marseille native gave the reply to Jamel Debbouze, and rushed into the metro to take the Olympic flame from the Stade de France to the Pont d’Austerlitz.
The scene in the metro, in a fictitious Stade de France station, was filmed at Porte des Lilas, in the north-east of the capital. Apparently, the scene was filmed in May. “There are some secrets that are harder to keep than others… how hard it was to say nothing for two months!” This is what a member of the RATP on X confided, who made this strange confession: “He told me it was his first time on the subway.”
A great first for Zizou!
