Communities across the Bi-State hosted watch parties for the Paris Olympic Opening Ceremony.
It was festive, patriotic, but also rainy in Paris for the spectacle.
American athletic legends like Steph Curry and LeBron James dodged the rain drops in France on July 26 and rode the waves of the Seine to commemorate the 100 years since the Olympics were in Paris last in 1924.
"It's Paris, for goodness sake," Jane Biehle said, who attended an Olympic watch party in Affton with her husband, Alan Biehle.
The Biehles were at Nine Mile Garden to watch the Opening Ceremony live starting at 12:30 p.m. on Friday.
"It's so different, going down the river is just incredible," Jane said.
That river hit a little closer to home for Isabelle Heidbreder, executive director of Alliance Française de St. Louis, a French language school in University City.
A French Riviera native, Heidbreder has spent decades teaching people in St. Louis ranging from six months old to people in their 90s about the language and French culture.
Heidbreder described Paris as a place where you can just "sit at a cafe and you watch people go buy and you can guess, they're Americans."
The extracurricular school hosted its Olympics watch party Friday night.
Instructors stretch the language skills of their students by teaching French phrases such as "Vive les jeux," Heidbreder said. "Vive les jeux means long live the games."
Meanwhile, the U.S. Olympians are now stretching for their first heats this weekend. Especially the dynamic swimming sibling duo born in St. Louis. The pair is 19-year-old Aaron Shackell in the 400m freestyle and 17-year-old Alex Shackell in the 200m butterfly.
Both of the Shackells are competing in their first Olympics.
Coming from great genes, Aaron is hoping to break his Olympic trial time in the 400m freestyle after winning the trials with 3:45.46.
His younger sister Alex isn't even 18 yet but has one of the most grueling heats tomorrow with the 200m butterfly. She will be chasing down her American teammate Regan Smith who won silver in Tokyo in 2020.
Luckily, both of the Shackells were practically born in the water.
Their dad Nick Shackell swam for Great Britain during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Their mom Ali Shackell was a three-time All-American swimmer specializing in the freestyle and butterfly events.
Not unlike her children now in Paris.
