Celine Dion Concludes Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony With Breathtaking Performance

Celine Dion performs at the 2024 Olympic Games opening ceremony in Paris.
Celine Dion performs at the 2024 Olympic Games opening ceremony in Paris. / NBC

In the history of the Olympics, a handful of images from opening ceremonies have stood the test of time.

For Americans, think boxing icon Muhammad Ali lighting the cauldron in Atlanta in 1996—or the Miracle on Ice men's ice hockey team doing so six years later in Salt Lake City.

On Friday, Paris got its stop-the-presses moment. At the close of the Olympic opening ceremony—following the lighting of an airborne cauldron—singer Celine Dion took the stage to sing the iconic French song, "Hymne à l'amour."

The performance marked Dion's comeback after her much-publicized battle with stiff-person syndrome—a rare neurological disorder—over the last two years.

Dion, a native of Charlemagne, Quebec, is the best-selling Francophone artist in the history of recorded music. She previously performed her song "The Power of the Dream" at the opening ceremony for the Atlanta Olympics in '96.

Even that performance 28 years ago, however, pales next to one that instantly took its place in the annals of the Olympics.


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Patrick Andres
PATRICK ANDRES

Patrick Andres is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. He joined SI in December 2022, having worked for The Blade, Athlon Sports, Fear the Sword and Diamond Digest. Andres has covered everything from zero-attendance Big Ten basketball to a seven-overtime college football game. He is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism with a double major in history .