With a mountain of sport, Paris is the pinnacle
All sporting roads lead to Paris this summer, with the first post-COVID Olympic Games looming large on the horizon, but the twoweek sporting extravaganza will merely be the centerpiece for another 12 months of action.
Germany will stage soccer’s UEFA European Championship in June and July, with the host running out of time to assemble a team capable of reviving past glories.
Meanwhile, the Copa America kicks-off in the United States, widely seen a rehearsal for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Saudi Arabia will enhance its status as a global sporting hub on Feb 17 when Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury meet in Riyadh to decide the undisputed heavyweight boxing title — a clash for which the hype will reach stratospheric proportions.
As further proof, if any were needed, of the Gulf states’ appetite for staging major events, swimmers and divers got an early chance to put down markers for Paris when the Aquatics World Championships took place in Qatar earlier this month — the first time it has been held in the region.
After a short break, the tennis season resumed days after Christmas and the Australian Open has already made history, producing a first Chinese finalist since 2014 in Zheng Qinwen, and a first Italian Grand Slam winner since 1976 in Jannik Sinner.
The sporting conveyor belt, it seems, gets more and more loaded each year, but, once every four years, everything — for a few weeks at least — bows before the Olympic Games.
Paris is, and will continue to be, dogged by the usual gripes about staging the greatest show on earth.
Transport issues and security concerns are par for the course, but organizers are also contending with an outbreak of bed bugs, pollution in the River Seine and a stink about Paris’ traditional street booksellers being dispersed. Not to mention the potential heatwaves.
By the time thousands of athletes arrive in the French capital, however, the focus will likely switch to the return of near Olympic normality after the COVID-impacted Tokyo Games.
International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach says Paris will be a “new era” for the Games — more inclusive and more sustainable than ever before.
The world’s oldest sporting competition, the America’s Cup, returns in October when Barcelona hosts the 37th edition of sailing’s blue riband event, with New Zealand seeking to regain the “Auld Mug”.
While great sporting sagas will unfold around the globe in 2024, with feats of human skill, endurance and athleticism, the narrative will have less edifying battles.
The European Court of Justice’s ruling in December has raised the specter of civil war in soccer, with the proposed European Super League back on the agenda. In some sports, it seems, money talks louder than any fan can shout.
Thankfully, the Olympic spirit of fair, amateur competition still prevails — if only for just two weeks.