Paris (AFP)
Place de la Concorde, in the center of Paris, is the favorite place to host five urban sports or disciplines at the Paris-2024 Olympic Games, including climbing, breakdancing and skateboarding, AFP learned on Tuesday. several sources.
Located at the foot of the Avenue des Champs Elysees, with the Eiffel Tower on the horizon, the place has aroused for several months the interest of the Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (Cojo) Paris-2024, but questions arise on the number of possible tests on the fortnight.
Among the sports or disciplines concerned are rock climbing, skateboarding, BMX Freestyle and 3x3 basketball, which will enter the Tokyo Olympics 2020, as well as breakdance events, a novelty in Paris-2024.
"It seems that everything can return, this is in any case what we were told" by Tony Estanguet, the president of the Cojo, Friday at an executive office of Paris-2024, told reporters Tuesday the President from the department of Seine-Saint-Denis, Stéphane Troussel.
Seine-Saint-Denis, who had declared a bid to host one of the sports, "remains available," he added.
Other participants in the executive office confirmed to AFP this position of the Cojo, which did not wish to comment, the files being "under study". According to one source, decisions could be taken at a Paris-2024 board meeting on 12 December, but the Cojo will have discussions with the International Federations and the International Committee by then. Olympic Committee (IOC).
According to the same sources, the Cojo confirmed during the executive office the maintenance, for budgetary reasons, shooting tests on a temporary site in La Courneuve (Seine-Saint-Denis), while the French firing Federation asks that they take place in Val-d'Oise, in Saint-Witz, where she already has a project.
Uncertainties have also emerged on the holding of mountain bike events on the hill of Elancourt (Yvelines), a site defended by elected officials of Yvelines, the Ile-de-France region, and the International Cycling Union (UCI) ), but which raises environmental issues, trees to be felled to develop the trail.
Finally, surfing also arouses greed, with five applications: three in the southwest, one in Brittany and the Polynesian island of Tahiti. Most other events will be held in Paris or Seine-Saint-Denis. The final map should be stopped by the end of 2020.
© 2019 AFP