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In 100 days, Paris will host the biggest sporting festival on the planet: the Summer Olympics.
There will be action in 32 sports followed by millions of visitors, as well as an unprecedented opening rite that will take place on the Seine, which runs through the city center. At least that’s Plan A: Emmanuel Macron, the French president, showed for the first time on Monday a riverfront option.
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The enthusiasm has not yet reached Paris. The decorations surrounding the city remain discreet on the occasion of the Games awarded to the French capital in September 2017. The town hall was draped in Olympic badges, but emphasis was placed on the practicality of the messages – “anticipating the Games,” as evidenced by the posters posted on the Paris Metro, the city’s metro system.
In recent years, it has focused on the organisation of the Games, but there has been much more debate about their practical impact. The government fought and struggled to meet deadlines and targets. There have been fears about security, exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. and the Israeli-Gaza conflict, with the river’s audacious rite of opening – which is expected to be the first time the Games have not started in a stadium – a specific area of concern.
Add to this considerations of disruptions in shipping and threats of strike action by public sector painters’ unions, as well as the police, and the not easy wage concessions for the additional paintings planned for the Games, and the preparation has been smooth. Even booksellers, booksellers who have been living in a 400-year-old culture on the banks of the Seine, have erupted in protest at the prospect of a temporary withdrawal from the opening ceremony.
But now the focus is on what else the Games can offer before the Olympics start on July 26 (although the men’s and women’s football and rugby sevens competitions start on July 24), with the Paralympics taking place from August 28 to September. 8.
“It’s the French edition,” joked Emmanuel Grégoire, first deputy mayor of Paris, when asked during a news conference this month about his optimism ahead of the Games. “At first we talked about problems, but we feel that the joy is growing. “
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The Olympic flame is already lit, lit on Tuesday on Mount Olympia in Greece, before starting its adventure through 400 cities in 65 regions of the French territories and landing in Marseille on May 8.
“Paris 2024 starts on 8 May, it’s the starting gun,” said Pierre Rabadan, deputy mayor in charge of sport, the Olympic and Paralympic Games and the Seine.
It’s been a long adventure to get to this point. Since Paris hosted the Games, there has been a global pandemic — which first postponed the Tokyo Olympics and then forced them to take positions behind closed doors — conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, inflationary pressures, and headlines about bed bug infestations plaguing Paris.
In other words, the world could use a little joy, and perhaps the Games can provide it.
The question now is whether Paris is ready.
Consistent sites are ready. Paris aims to host a sustainable and environmentally-focused Games, with 95 per cent of tournament venues either transitory or with existing infrastructure.
The new permanent venues, built especially for the Olympic Games, are almost here. The only new sports stadium in Paris, the Adidas Arena de la Porte de los Angeles Chapelle in the 18th arrondissement, opened in February. The two-hectare venue will host badminton, rhythmic gymnastics, para-badminton and para-weightlifting.
The other two new venues, the Olympic Village and the Aquatics Centre, are in Saint-Denis, north of Paris and close to the Stade de France, the national stadium. The Olympic Village passed to the Organising Committee in February and the Aquatics Centre opened this month.
“I thought it wasn’t possible, but we delivered them two weeks or a month before the (due date),” Rabadan said. “So it’s a smart point for two things. First of all, because we are not behind. “And there’s less pressure. Secondly, because we must stay within our budget.
But it’s not all over. Temporary and renovated sites are nearing completion, while some educational sites are not yet ready. Rabadan added, “We are completing some of the renovations to the camps and educational sites. For example, we have a huge swimming pool in the north of Paris (20th arrondissement), the Georges-Vallerey pool, which will open at the end of April.
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The remodeled venues include the renovated Yves du Manoir stadium, used for the eighth Olympiad in 1924, which will host box hockey competitions. Pop-up sites are also installed around famous plos angelesces, such as the Eiffel Tower (beach volleyball), the Plos angelesce de los angeles Concorde (which will be an urban park and host 3×3 basketball, BMX freestyle and skateboarding), the Champ de Mars. (judo and wrestling) and the City Council (archery, athletics, cycling). The Grand Palos Angelesis, on the Champs-Elysées, will host taekwondo and fencing.
Existing infrastructures are also being used and reused, such as the venue for the Open de France tennis tournament, Roland-Garros (tennis and boxing) and La Défense Arena, which hosts the Racing 92 rugby team and organises giant concerts, but will host swimming and water polo.
“We are precisely where we would like to be 100 days away from the Olympics,” Rabadan said.
The extension of metro line 14 is now ready. It will link Saint-Denis, the venue for the Games, with Paris-Orly airport. Capacity is increased thanks to more trains and other improvements, such as an extension of the tram to Porte Dauphine, which will provide access to the Porte de los Angeles Chapelle. That’s over now. The organization of the new lines, called “Grand Paris Express”, will not be all ready. The new lines 15, 16, 17 and 18 will open by 2030.
“We have known for a long time that the Paris Express may not be in a position to attend the Games,” Grégoire said. “So it’s not a problem, but of course it might have been better. But those lines don’t service the Olympic venues. The main aspect is that we are guaranteed to have line 14 in Paris. It will open in May or June.
“We will have 15 percent more exercise and the metro will give the Games,” Rabadan said.
The Charles de Gaulle motorway, a new line that will speed up connections between Charles de Gaulle airport and the Gare de l’Est, will not be in good condition. “It’s ready to be delivered for the Olympics,” Gregoire said. “But five years ago, we knew it wouldn’t be available. It would be available until the end of 2025-2026.
More trains and more people will mean more costs. During the Games, shipping fees will be doubled.
As it stands, the athletes will parade outside a stadium for the first time, as part of a giant flotilla of boats along the Seine.
The party will start at the Bibliothèque Nationale and end at the Trocadéro of the Palais de Chaillot, on the opposite bank of the Eiffel Tower.
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It promises to be an eye-catching spectacle, but questions have been raised about its feasibility, especially given the heightened security risks. Last month, following an attack on a concert hall in Moscow that killed more than 130 people, France raised its terror alert. to the level.
The complexity and uncertainty are basically due to the huge number of participants and the challenge of securing the river. Early hopes of more than a million spectators were temporarily disappointed, but the capacity is still more than five times larger than that of the Stade de France (with a capacity of 80,000 people).
In addition to the 10,500 athletes, the ceremony will be attended by approximately 600,000 other people. Of these, 104,000 are paid tickets sold through the Olympic Committee, 220,000 are distributed among the organising parties (the State, the City of Paris and Paris 2024) and 200,000 will be for other people on barges or on balconies.
Other considerations have had some impact. The booksellers, the booksellers who have covered the Seine for nearly 400 years, caused a minor headache by refusing to remove their boxes, some of them centuries old, for the opening ceremony. This conflict was resolved, albeit at a costly pace, thanks to Macron’s intervention. “We lost 70,000 spectators to ensure safety,” Rabadan said.
So, is there a plan B? The messages have been mixed. This month, Paris city officials insisted that the occasion would not be removed from the water. “We can reduce the impact and comforts of the rite of openness if the foreign threat becomes harsher,” Rabadan said. “We can reduce that, the show, the number of people. But there’s no plan B. “
But on Monday, Macron said there were unforeseen developments, potentially even outside the river. Asked what would happen if safety hazards made the river procession too risky, he told BFM TV/RMC: “There are plans B and plan C. We have a rite that would be limited to the Trocadero, so it wouldn’t cover the whole of the Seine. Or we could just go back to the Stade de France. This is what is traditionally done.
In a statement Monday, city officials said: “In pronouncing the chosen projects, the president reiterated his priority commitment to the rite of the Seine. This is a purpose shared by all stakeholders.
If Paris manages to hold the entire ceremony, it will be spectacular. The opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games will take place on the Champs-Elysées.
French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced this month that an “anti-terrorist” perimeter would be set up around the Seine a week before the opening ceremony. It will expand several square kilometers and be closed to traffic unless authorized, while 15 metro and tram stations will also be closed. Only 4 bridges will remain open. This will resume on July 26 and no access will be allowed after 1 p. m. m. People living inside this security cordon will need a QR code to enter. “If you’re not registered, you won’t be able to come back,” Darmanin explained.
Checks are underway for volunteers and torchbearers. This month, Darmanin told LCI that he had “excluded 800 people, adding 15 from the ‘S File’ (the list of the most serious threats). “
Paris needs to host the emptiest Olympics in history and plans to clean up the Seine River and use it to host events such as triathlon and open water swimming. Swimming on the Seine has been banned since 1923, but the organisers hope to be able to open 3 pools. spaces on the river before 2025, a main goal of the Games.
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To help offset the huge waste runoff during heavy rains, a new multimillion-dollar garage pond is being built near the river, designed to store enough wastewater to fill 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Concerns have been raised about the suitability of the river. “You have to have a plan B in case it’s not imaginable to swim,” Ana Marcela Cunha, the reigning Olympic champion in the 10-kilometer open water, told AFP last month. “The physical condition of the athletes will have to come first. “
City officials have insisted they are confident the river trials will run safely, but the possibility of a triathlon (swimming, cycling and running) leg still remains.
“We know that if there is a problem, we can delay the occasion by two days,” Rabadan said.
“We’re going to repair all the paints and the water quality (will adapt). Unless we have two months of continuous rain during the summer, we’ll be ready. “
Last month, the S-score
According to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), 96 percent of the Games’ budget comes from the sector, “i. e. the IOC, partner companies, ticket sales and licenses for the Games. “
A review of the 2022 budget through Paris 2024 cites a total of €4. 38 billion (£3. 74 billion, $4. 66 billion) for the Paris 2024 Organising Committee, with an IOC allocation of €1. 2 billion (including €750 million TV rights and the association’s contribution). EUR 470 million). Ticket sales, hospitality and licensing will bring in €1. 1 billion, €170 million and €127 million, and associations will contribute €1. 226 billion, according to the magazine. A further 4 cents of the public budget will be used to finance the organisation of the Paralympic Games.
The rest of the spending and infrastructure adjustments are expected to double this budget, reportedly to around €8. 8 billion. That’s up from the €6. 7 billion announced, still less than London, Rio and Tokyo.
This month, the former president of the French Court of Auditors, Pierre Moscovici, told France Inter that “the Games are expected to collect” between €3 billion and €5 billion; the actual amount will not be known until the Games are over.
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Paris needs to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games with the most commonly existing infrastructure, but, more broadly, an environmentally friendly technique is at the heart of those Games.
This is explained by the cleanliness of the Seine, but also by the increase in the number of bicycles. According to city officials, there will be “10,000 more bikes” in Paris and the network will be expanded to 1,400 kilometers. ). Among them, there will be 60 “Olympists”, bike lanes committed to the Games and that will move between the venues.
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Paris aims for a 50 percent reduction in carbon emissions compared to the London 2012 and Rio 2016 averages. They need to use 100 percent renewable energy, and they plan to achieve this through modifications such as connecting all sites to the grid. thus restricting the use of transient diesel generators. They want all sites to be available via public transport and will even “double plant-based food to reach a target of 1kg of CO2 per meal, compared to 2. 3kg on average in France,” according to Paris 2024.
Ensuring a sustainable impact on disadvantaged communities is also on the agenda. Saint-Denis, in particular, will reap benefits, as the athletes’ homes are expected to be transformed into 2,800 homes after the Games, 25 percent of which will be social housing. The domain is also expected to benefit from renovated pools, adding the aquatic center, which will update a 50-year-old 25-meter pool.
This, along with cycling, will contribute to a sporting legacy. There will also be more sports for other people with disabilities. ” Four years ago, only four sports clubs (in Paris) could accommodate young people with disabilities,” Grégoire recalls. “Before the Games, we’re talking about almost 50. “
The other new stadiums will be redesigned. The Adidas Arena will be the home of the Paris Basketball Club and will host concerts and schoolchildren.
But, in essence, Paris wants to revive the Olympic movement, which suffered from the pandemic at the Tokyo Games.
“The world wants joy and if the Paris edition of the Olympics contributes a little to that, it will be for everyone,” Grégoire said.
(Top photo: Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)