With the Paris Olympic Games' opening ceremony to be held for the first time outside a stadium, about 80 boats will carry athletes from around the world on a 6km route along the Seine River, as authorities are on high alert by placing over 45,000 security agents in the city to secure the event.
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00:00Khalid Riouech will be one of the 80 boat captains transporting some 10,500 athletes
00:08down the Seine during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games on July 26.
00:15The 60-year-old said he could not wait to participate in the six-kilometre unique cruise
00:20and parade that will end at the Trocadéro.
00:23I have been a captain on the Seine since 2010.
00:27Since then, we have evolved on several boats, hence the Paris-Trocadéro.
00:34There is impatience, excitement, and above all, there is the countdown.
00:39You can see that…
00:41I can't forget it, I can't forget it.
00:46You can't imagine how happy I am to participate in these Olympic Games,
00:53that 67 million French people would like to be among us.
01:00It is a great pride.
01:03Frankly, I am happy to represent my nation, which is France.
01:08The captains will only know which delegation they are responsible for transporting until the last minute.
01:15The company that operates the boats said its crew members had undergone a lot of training
01:20and test runs for the opening ceremony,
01:23while the organisers said they will have 45,000 personnel securing the event.
01:28The boats will be delivered as they are,
01:32and what we know is that there will be no special arrangements around the boats.
01:37The goal is that the boats are in line with the Parisian image of the cruise and the Seine.
01:43It is really up to the organisers to keep the boats as they are and as they sail throughout the year.
01:50The opening ceremony is a very unprecedented operation, as you know.
01:53In order for that plan to go ahead, it was agreed at the highest level of this country.
01:59The President of the Republic supported the initiative.
02:02So what I can tell you is we have an unprecedented security operation
02:06with over 45,000 security agents here,
02:11supporting whether it is the athletes, the guests or of course the spectators,
02:17across the entire six-kilometre span of the ceremony.
02:22We are extremely grateful and very confident in the state's capacity to assure the security of this event,
02:29which has been planned for over five years now.
02:33The Games is held against a backdrop of wars in Gaza and Ukraine,
02:37as well as an assassination attempt against former US President Donald Trump last week.