Kelly Clarkson, Peyton Manning and Mike Tirico are officially set to host the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“It’s an honor to be able to announce for the first time anywhere that this year, at the Summer Olympics in Paris, the opening ceremony will be hosted by yours truly, Peyton Manning and Kelly Clarkson,” Tirico, 57, shared while on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Tuesday, March 12.
Clarkson, 41, and Manning, 47, joined the NBC Olympics primetime host to make the big announcement. “I’m so glad we can say it,” Clarkson gushed. “We’ve been holding this forever. I’m not a vault. I hate secrets.”
This marks Clarkson and Manning’s first time joining Olympic coverage, and the former football player said it will be the first time he takes his mother to France.
“I took a little French in high school, and I told my mother I would take her to Paris one day,” Manning shared with host Jimmy Fallon. “Thirty years to the time I graduated, I’m taking my mom to Paris for the Olympics.”
While Manning speaks a bit of français, Clarkson said she just recently swapped her Duolingo app from Spanish to French in order to prepare for the upcoming trip, which will take place amid her hiatus between seasons of The Kelly Clarkson Show.
The group showed Fallon, 49, the Olympic and Paralympic medals that athletes will win this summer. “The coolest part of those [medals] is each one has a little piece of the Eiffel Tower in it,” Tirico explained. “So, if you win a medal, not only do you get your gold, silver or bronze, you get a piece of the Eiffel Tower to take with you for life.”
The trio will be positioned near the Trocadero where the parade concludes, per an NBC press release. Meanwhile, Today hosts Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb will also return for Olympic coverage. The duo will be stationed on a bridge along the River Seine during NBCUniversal’s coverage of the opening ceremony of the XXXIII Olympiad.
Unlike other opening ceremonies that take place in a stadium, the Paris Olympics are using the River Seine as the stage for the first night. Viewers can expect a four-mile-long flotilla of more than 90 boats to carry athletes from more than 200 countries, concluding at the Eiffel Tower.
The opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics will air live on NBC and Peacock Friday, July 26, at 12 p.m. ET, and primetime coverage will start at 7:30 p.m. ET. The summer games will air on NBC and Peacock through August 11.
