Olympic numbers: the euros, viewers and the bananas

PARIS: Six months before the Paris Olympics, the statistics are already impressive: the budget has hit almost nine billion euros and one billion viewers are expected to watch the opening ceremony.

AFP has collected the Games numbers:

• 10,500 athletes: most will stay in the Olympic Village in suburban Saint-Denis.

• 329 events: the Paris Games offer 32 sports, including four newcomers: surfing (in distant Tahiti), sport climbing, breaking and skateboarding.

• 203 invited nations: these include the Refugee Team. Russian and Belarussian athletes will compete as neutrals.

• 8.8 billion euros (US$9.57 billion): the current Games budget, although the total bill will not be known until after the Games. France’s national audit body estimates a total of 3 billion euros of public money could be spent on the Olympics.

• 15 million spectators: will attend the Olympics (July 26 to August 11) and Paralympic Games (Aug 28 to Sept 8), according to forecasts by the Paris tourist office, with around 12 per cent, or two million coming from abroad, including 1.5 million for the Olympics, many of them British and American.

• 100,000 opening ceremony spectators: the number paying to sit in stands on river banks for the ceremony on the Seine. The number of spectators further back has not yet been fixed, but will be in the hundreds of thousands.

• 7.6 million tickets: the number of tickets already sold, of 10 million available.

• 1 billion viewers: the expected global audience for the opening ceremony as the athletes sail down the Seine on boats.

• 30,000 police and gendarmes: security is to be bolstered by 15,000 military personnel and, at Olympic venues and fan zones, between 17,000 and 22,000 private security guards.

• 30,000 volunteers: will welcome and seat spectators, provide information, assist athletes and help with the forecast 6,000 anti-doping tests.

• 13 million meals and snacks: organisers promise 80 per cent will be produced in France. On the menu: three million bananas.

• 4 euros: from July 20 to Sept 8, the price of a Paris metro ticket will rise from the current 2.10 euros per trip.

File photo — AFP The Arc de Triomphe reflects in an official’s store window for the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris. One hundred years after the black-and-white Olympic Games of 1924, France is putting its image on the line by hosting the Summer Olympics (July 26-August 11) in the heart of the French capital in six months’ time, in a tense international context.