1900 Summer Olympic Opening Ceremony - Paris

The Games of the II OlympiadParis, France
1900

Tug of War competition in the 1900 Olympics

Olympic Ceremony Records
italics indicate records at the time

First Olympics Without an Opening Ceremony
First Olympics Held as Part of the World's Fair
First Olympics that Women Competed
Most Countries Participating (24) - previous Athens 1896 (14)
Most Athletes Participating (997) - previous Athens 1896 (241)
Most Olympic Events (95) - previous Athens 1896 (43)

Opening CeremonyNo official Opening Ceremony
VideoNo official Opening Ceremony
Official Report
Opening Ceremony Highlights
The 1900 Olympic Games took place during the Paris World Exhibition of 1900. These massively outshone the games and with the poor organization, it nearly killed the Olympic movement. Even though there were no opening ceremonies, I did find the following ceremony for the Archery events in the Official Report. This was the first time Archery would be a part of the Olympics. Even though it is in French, I will give some of the details below in English:

Archery was one of the first events of the games; the Archery Parade Grand Prix of the Exposition took place on May 27
Instead of competing as nations, the competitors paraded with their professional archer company
The parade consisted of 178 companies of archers and 25 crossbow companies
1,723 company members marched in the parade
182 flags were marched (some hundreds of years old - part of the old archer companies)
4 marching bands paraded
2,000 military gunmen marched in the parade
The parade was 3km in length and started at noon, arriving at the shooting range at 1:00
4,000 people were in attendance at the shooting range
President of the Competition M. Jay, opened the games, and archers launched arrows into the sky
200 bronze medals were distributed to the participating companies
Archery competitions lasted 48 days

Photos