Rugby World Cup kick-off: Paris gears up for Olympic dress rehearsal

World rugby’s showpiece is one of the biggest sporting events of 2023 but also starts the countdown to the 2024 Games

When dusk falls over Paris on Friday, the city will reverberate to the spectacular and the divine. To mark the start of the Rugby World Cup, the Eiffel Tower will blaze with light. Then Oscar winner Jean Dujardin will direct an opening ceremony that celebrates French “savoir-faire and art de vivre”, as well as the sport’s 200th birthday. Inevitably, there will be fireworks. But the biggest bang of all will come when the two favourites for the tournament, France and New Zealand, lock muscle and bone in the opening game, and 80,000 people at the Stade de France roar their approval.

Organisers hope it will set the mood for a competition that stretches over 48 matches and 51 days – and is more than three weeks longer than the Fifa World Cup in Qatar. The initial signs are certainly positive. Teams have been welcomed to their training bases by huge crowds. Images of the French captain Antoine Dupont are everywhere. And 2.5m tickets have been sold, the highest ever, with 600,000 visitors arriving from abroad. Among them are the Prince and Princess of Wales, who will be in Bordeaux and Marseille to cheer on Wales and England this weekend.