Paris begins 100-day countdown to Olympics that could lift nation
ORGANIZERS AIM TO ENSURE SUMMER GAMES BENEFIT ONE OF FRANCE’S POOREST REGIONS
In Paris’ outskirts, a bright-eyed young girl is eager for the Olympic and Paralympic Games to end. That’s because the swimming club where 10-yearold Lyla Kebbi trains will inherit an Olympic pool. It will be dismantled after the Games and trucked from the Olympic race venue in Paris’ highrise business district to Sevran, a Paris-area town with less glitter and wealth.
There, the pieces will be bolted back together and — voila! — Kebbi and her swim team will have a new Olympic-sized pool to splash around in.
In 100 days, the Paris Olympics will kick off with a wildly ambitious waterborne opening ceremony. But the first Games in a century in France’s capital won’t be judged for spectacle alone. Another yardstick will be their impact on disadvantaged Paris suburbs, away from the city-centre landmarks that will play host to much of the action.
By promising socially positive and also less polluting and less wasteful Olympics, the city synonymous with romance is setting itself the high bar of making future Games generally more desirable.
Critics question their value for a world grappling with climate warming and other emergencies. Potential host cities became so Gamesaverse that Paris and Los Angeles were the only remaining candidates in 2017 when the International Olympic Committee selected them for 2024 and 2028, respectively.
After scandals and the Us$13-billion cost of the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Games in 2021, unfulfilled promises of beneficial change for host Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi tarnished by Russian doping and President Vladimir Putin’s subsequent land grabs in Ukraine, the Switzerland-based IOC has mountains of skepticism to dispel.
Virtuous Summer Games in Paris could help the longterm survival of the IOC’S mega-event.
SPREADING BENEFITS BEYOND CENTRAL PARIS
The idea that the July 26-Aug. 11 Games and Aug. 28-Sept. 8 Paralympics should benefit disadvantaged communities in the Seine-saint-denis region northeast of Paris was built from the outset into the city’s plans.
Seine-saint-denis is mainland France’s poorest region. Thanks to generations of immigration, it also is vibrantly diverse, counting 130 nationalities and more than 170 languages spoken by its 1.6 million inhabitants. For Seine-saint-denis kids facing racial discrimination and other barriers, sports are sometimes a route out.
The Games will leave a legacy of new and refurbished sports infrastructure in Seine-saint-denis, although critics say the investment still isn’t enough to catch up with more prosperous regions.
Seine-saint-denis got the new Olympic Village that will become housing and offices when the 10,500 Olympians and 4,400 Paralympians have left. It also is home to the Games’ only purpose-built competition venue, an aquatics centre for diving, water polo and artistic swimming events. Other competition venues already existed, were previously planned or will be temporary.
“We really were driven by the ambition of sobriety and above all not to build sports facilities that aren’t needed and which will have no reason to exist after the Games,” Marie Barsacq, the organizing committee’s legacy director, said in an interview.
Other Seine-saint-denis towns are also getting new or renovated pools — particularly welcome for the region’s children, because only half of them can swim.
PARIS GAMES’ COSTS COMPARE FAVOURABLY
At close to €9 billion ($13.2 billion), more than half from sponsors, ticket sales and other non-public funding, Paris’ expenses so far are less than for the last three Summer Games in Tokyo, Rio 2016 and London 2012.
Including policing and transport costs, the portion of the bill for French taxpayers is likely to be around €3 billion ($4.4 billon), France’s body for auditing public funds said in its most recent study in July.
Security remains a challenge for the city repeatedly hit by deadly extremist violence. The government downsized ambitions to have 600,000 people lining the River Seine for the opening ceremony. Citing the risk of attacks, it shelved a promise that anyone could apply for hundreds of thousands of free tickets. Instead, the 326,000 spectators will either be paying ticket holders or have been invited.
Privacy advocates are critical of video surveillance technology being deployed to spot security threats. Campaigners for the homeless are concerned they will be swept off streets. Many Parisians plan to leave, to avoid the disruptions or to rent their homes to the expected 15 million visitors.
Still, Olympics fans expect big things of Paris. They include Ayaovi Atindehou, a 32-year-old trainee doctor from Togo studying in France. The Olympic volunteer believes the Games can bridge divisions, even if just temporarily.
“The whole world without racial differences, ethnic differences, religious differences. We will be all together, shouting, celebrating,” he said.
“We need Games.”