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On August 9 and September 6, 2020, after the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Japanese will symbolically transmit the witness to the French capital. The Organizing Committee (OCOG) and institutional players are more than ever on the job to welcome the largest sports gathering on the planet. Here is an update on the preparations for Paris 2024.
Where is Paris 2024 a little less than five years from the Olympic and Paralympic Games which will be organized in the French capital? Main progress in 2019, the sports program and the site map are now almost finalized.
In fact, even if there is still a little time left (the final validation by the IOC of the choice of events and their location, not being planned until December 2020), there are only a few uncertainties. At the end of March 2019, the Organizing Committee (OCOG) had announced the four so-called "additional sports" which target the youngest: breakdance (completely new in 2024), climbing, skateboarding and surfing (already present, them, in Tokyo this summer). The first three sports will take place at Place de la Concorde.
Surfing in Tahiti, a controversial choice
Surfing will benefit from a dream location, but at the very least unexpected: Tahiti, 15,000 km from the heart of the Games, a site preferred to four others in France. Certainly, the competition wave is one of the most majestic in the world. But wouldn't crossing the planet for that be a bit of an exaggeration at a time of moderation of the carbon footprint? Tony Estanguet, President of Paris 2024, ensures that everything has been weighed ...
“ We realized, when we looked at the five candidates, that ultimately the concept proposed by Tahiti was not more impacting, including by accounting for air travel to return to Paris , says the former champion of canoe. Because on site there is already the infrastructure and the organization, with a world event which is organized at the same period. So, suddenly, we pool this organization. And so we manage to reduce the needs and the impact generated by this event ”.
It is with this same concern for respect for the environment that another site is still being studied, that of mountain biking (mountain biking). The candidacy file retained the hill of Elancourt, west of Paris. But its development would require shaving several hectares of woodland. Chamonix (in the Alps) is being considered as an alternative.
The construction site for the future Olympic and Paralympic village already launched
No doubt, however, about the site of the future Olympic and Paralympic village. The site has also been launched. The first building lots were awarded to real estate consortia in late November. More than 15,000 athletes and supporters will eventually be accommodated on a site straddling three municipalities in the Seine-Saint-Denis department (north of Paris). And the operations will be carried out according to a detailed schedule by Henri Specht, the project director at SOLIDEO, the public establishment responsible for delivering the works.
" The works started with the first deconstructions of buildings which were acquired by SOLIDEO ," he explains to RFI's microphone. The year 2020 will also see the start of so-called "infrastructure" works. It is therefore the creation of future roads, future public facilities in the Olympic village. But the works of the buildings as such, they will start in 2021 and will continue until the end of the year 2023. So, at the end of the year 2023, these are both the public spaces and the buildings that will be completed in order to be ready for 2024 ”.
However, operations carried out at the cost of expropriation and relocation of activities. Several companies, an engineering school, a hostel for young workers and a student residence, all located in the construction site, must find places elsewhere. And their move is not necessarily well accepted.
Welcoming delegations, another challenge
Furthermore, organizing the arrival of nearly 400 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) and Paralympics is not an easy task. Thirty-nine of them, from five continents, came to contact Paris in early July to share their needs and expectations in terms of accommodation, but also training, with different requirements, such as the explains Sophie Lorant, director of international relations at Paris 2024.
" The big NOCs have already spotted ," she explains. Americans traditionally like to have a base of life. They are therefore rather looking for a very large place, which can accommodate the whole delegation. Canadians were interested in training sites rather than a logistics base. On the other hand, we are going to have themes around sustainable development. Some NOCs, like Canada's, are exemplary and these practices may be of interest to us . ”
It is therefore through a co-construction approach with the countries that the OCOG intends to enrich its project of places of preparation and living for the athletes. This summer, it will also publish a guide where all the Games Preparation Centers offered to foreign teams will be listed.