Cirque du Soleil, a world-leading live entertainment and experiences company, is currently featuring seven Olympians in its Las Vegas production, O, with a total of 13 Olympians performing across its global portfolio during 2026.
While this extraordinary number of top-tier athletes is rarely seen outside an Olympic training centre, it is standard for a Cirque du Soleil production to feature world-class sportspeople.
In fact, the company is home to one of the largest concentrations of elite athletic talent on the planet.
The opening ceremony for the 2015 Pan American Games was one of the largest live productions in Canadian history.Image courtesy of Cirque du Soleil
Over the past 40 years, 85 Olympians have performed with Cirque du Soleil.
These athletes, including gymnasts, divers, synchronised swimmers, acrobats, and aerial specialists, once represented their countries on the world's biggest sporting stages and now perform in front of millions of people in Cirque du Soleil productions each year.
Partnering with prestigious sporting events
The company says that sport and live performance are built on shared principles of discipline, sacrifice, resilience, and the relentless pursuit of excellence.
Both Olympic sportspeople and Cirque du Soleil artists dedicate years to perfecting movements that unfold in seconds. Both perform under immense pressure, and both understand that excellence requires thousands of hours of preparation.
"The Olympic level in gymnastics is the best because your technique has to be perfect, your execution has to be perfect, your mental strategy has to be perfect, your physicality must be perfect," says Olympic bronze medalist and former Cirque performer Elise Ray.
"And Cirque is the best of the best in the performing world."
Cirque du Soleil's opening and closing ceremonies for the 2018 World Cup in Dubai explored the theme 'Make the Desert Bloom'.Image courtesy of Cirque du Soleil
This unrivalled pedigree explains why major international events have repeatedly collaborated with Cirque du Soleil.
For example, the company conceived the spectacular opening and closing ceremonies for the 2018 Dubai World Cup, which were attended by 60,000 spectators.
These large-scale performances were presented on an 86-metre moving stage, with a 110-metre LED screen, Heliosphere balloons at 40 metres, and pyrotechnic drones soaring at 100 metres.
At the 2016 NBA All-Star Game in Toronto, Cirque du Soleil once again worked with the NBA to produce a pre-game show introducing the first All-Star Game ever held in Canada. The performance demanded 1,300 rehearsal hours and 37 artists.
The organisations had previously collaborated on the 2007 NBA All-Star Game in Las Vegas, which also featured Christina Aguilera and Toni Braxton.
Meanwhile, at the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto, the company was tasked with creating the opening ceremony of the largest sporting event in Canadian history.
The performance, which was viewed by 45,000 spectators in the stadium and 2 million viewers on broadcast, sought to unite 41 nations under a single narrative. This project required 625 performers from 25 nations, 530 bespoke costumes, 10,000 square feet of stage, 125 minutes of original music, and 22 weeks of rehearsals.
The Super Bowl XLVI Halftime Show in 2012 served as a direct aesthetic influence on Madonna's MDNA World Tour.Image courtesy of Cirque du Soleil
And in 2012, 68,658 on-site spectators and 114 million TV viewers worldwide watched Madonna's Super Bowl halftime show in Indianapolis.
With creative leadership from writer and director Michel Laprise, and in partnership with Moment Factory, Cirque du Soleil transformed the entire football field into a video surface using projection mapping, with support from 1,500 team members.
This groundbreaking performance surpassed the audience of the game itself, with 8,000 tweets per second for five minutes, and directly influenced Madonna's MDNA World Tour.
Honouring athletes' stories
Across the breadth of these elite sports events, organisers regularly ask the same question: how can they create a ceremony to honour the athletes who have devoted their lives to reaching that moment?
According to Cirque du Soleil, the answer lies in authenticity. When a ceremony is designed and performed by fellow elite athletes, the result resonates differently for both the sportspeople and their audiences.
Rather than moments of entertainment, it views ceremonies as an extension of the athlete's story that marks a celebration of human potential; a tribute to the commitment, courage and steadfastness that define high-performance sport.
Cirque du Soleil's pre-game show for the 2016 NBA All-Star Game in Toronto was a five-minute tribute to basketball, combining acrobatics, dance, and technology.Image courtesy of Cirque du Soleil
As sports evolve, this perspective becomes increasingly relevant. Fans now look beyond competition to seek emotion, meaning and memorable moments. In this, ceremonies have become a key part of the experience and can leave a lasting impression.
The future of sports ceremonies, says Cirque du Soleil, will be dominated by organisations that can bridge these two worlds to deliver the precision and excellence of elite sport with the emotional power of live storytelling.
And the company has been thriving within this space for more than four decades. Because at their core, Cirque du Soleil's productions are not simply performers celebrating athletes; they are often athletes celebrating athletes.
Last month, Cirque du Soleil participated in the Experiential Marketing Summit 2026 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, where it presented a session exploring how emotional resonance drives deeper engagement and how brands can design for it.
