Macron aiming to boost Paris bid at vote
FRENCH President Emmanuel Macron will travel to Lima for the IOC’s September 13 vote on thehe 2024 Olympics, Paris bid team member ember Guy Drut announced yesterday. ay.
Dr ut con f i r med t he new French head of state’s presenceence in Peru for t he c r uc i a l v ot e a f t e r t a l k s bet ween Macron a nd t he IOC’s eva luation commissionssion over coffee a nd croissa nts at t he Elysee Palace.
“Emmanuel Macron ron told Patrick Baumann [thehe head of the IOC’s inspectionection team] that he would definitely be in Lausanne nne for the IOC’s debriefing fing and also in Lima on September 13,” said Drut, France’s 110m hurdle dle champion at the 1976 Games.mes.
Paris is battling with Los Angeles for the right t to succeed 2020 hosts Tokyo kyo and stage the Games in seven years’ time, and Baumann admitted that OlympicOlym officials would have to “really nitp nitpick” to find fault after spending MondayMo inspecting potential sites for theth Paris bid. Macron’s commit commitment to securing the Olympics was underlined by his one hour mee meeting with the IOC taking place justj two days after his inaugurationinaugurati as, at 39 years of age, France’sFrance youngest president since Napoleon.Na “This is evidence of commitment.mitme It is not just a word, there is a unity up to the highest level of the state,”state suggested Paris 2024 co-president Bernard Lapasset. “T “This could help our candi candidacy for sure – the n e w p r e s i d e n t , who receives the commission just tw two days after his nomina nomination, and who is the sam same age as our copresiden president Tony Estanguet.” Macron (pictured, AFP) is a strong supporter of the Paris bid to host the Olympics for the first time in a century and even before Sunday’s investiture he had telephoned Olympic chief Thomas Bach to confirm his support.
‘Very bad’ stories
His decision to attend the Lima vote adds significant political capital to the Paris bid, but the presence of presidents or political leaders at recent votes has proved mixed.
Former French President Jacques Chirac’s decision to press the flesh with IOC delegates at the 2005 vote in Singapore for the 2012 Games when Paris were hot favourites was spectacularly undone by Britain’s then prime minister Tony Blair’s more determined networking among Olympic delegates with London upsetting the odds.
Blair, in his autobiography A Journey, recalled: “[The French] affected an attitude of ‘we are going to win and aren’t you lucky when we do’ and tried to sweep people along as if invincible – very French.
“We affected an attitude of ‘we humbly beg to offer our services to your great movement’ and paddled and conspired like crazy underneath.”
At the IOC’s 2009 vote in Copenhagen even the star presence of then-US President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, could not prevent Chicago getting knocked out in the first round of voting with Rio awarded the 2016 Games.
This time around the Los Angeles 2024 team have said they are cautious about asking Obama’s successor Donald Trump to attend in Lima.
Los Angeles bid chairman Casey Wasserman said in London last week that he had heard “very bad” stories from the Copenhagen vote when some International Olympic Committee members were said to be furious to be kept waiting outside the venue while Obama’s security detail swept the building having flown in to give his support to Chicago.
It is said to have cost Chicago votes.