(Paris) The athletes arrive safely and discover the sites, the delegations designate their flag bearers and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) began its traditional pre-Games session on Tuesday, on the eve of the kick-off of the first events.
While the highly anticipated opening ceremony takes place on Friday on the Seine, the first Olympic tournaments begin on Wednesday, with the French men’s rugby sevens team, led by Antoine Dupont, aiming to dethrone the double reigning champions Fiji.
Without Kylian Mbappé, but coached by Thierry Henry, the French football team will also begin their quest for a medal, just like Spain, which, after its triumph at the Euro in Germany, is aiming for a double in front of the first spectators.
Some 300,000 people will be there on Friday to greet the boats and the thousands of athletes embarked for an unprecedented parade, the first opening ceremony to leave a stadium in the history of the Olympic Games. It will be surrounded by an exceptional security presence.
In the meantime, an unusual silence has settled over the Rue de Rivoli, which runs alongside the Louvre Museum and the Tuileries Gardens, the tourist heart of Paris where visitors usually flock in their thousands. For a few more days, they are confined behind the gates erected to protect the banks of the Seine.
“The Olympics block a lot of things,” notes Catherine Samson, from Finistère, who was visiting the capital for two days with her family. She “doesn’t care” about the Olympics and explains that she “drove around for an hour” before reaching the Eiffel Tower.
Emmanuel Macron reiterated on Monday that France was ready to welcome the 10,500 athletes and millions of visitors expected for the world’s major sporting event, which will end on August 11.
PHOTO FABRICE COFFRINI, ARCHIVES AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Emmanuel Macron and Thomas Bach, Monday.
Three years after the Tokyo edition, which was subject to strict health conditions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly nine million tickets have been sold, according to the organizers, who are pleased to have broken the record set by Atlanta in 1996.
Reserves for 2030?
On Tuesday, the IOC members began their session for a final update on preparations for the Paris Games.
“Now the moment of truth has arrived: the competition begins, for the athletes and the organizers,” stressed their president, Thomas Bach.
In a geopolitical context marked by the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, the IOC members should congratulate themselves on having succeeded in bringing together “206 national Olympic committees”, preserving the Olympic promise of universality. Some thirty Russians and Belarusians will participate as individuals and under neutral banners, their committees having been excluded. The Palestinian Olympic Committee has requested the exclusion of the Israeli delegation.
But the IOC will above all have to prepare for the future, beyond the next two editions planned for Milan-Cortina in the winter of 2026 and Los Angeles in the summer of 2028: on Wednesday, the session is supposed to award the 2030 Winter Games to the French Alps and those of 2034 to Salt Lake City.
While the designation of the capital of Utah is not in doubt, “the political situation makes things a little more complicated” for the French case, admitted Mark Adams, the spokesperson for the body, on Saturday.
In the absence of a fully functioning government, France was unable to provide the guarantee of delivery of the Games signed by the Prime Minister, while Thomas Bach repeated last Thursday that there would be no “unconditional decision” without this document.
Disgruntled dancers
Two possibilities are emerging: a postponement of the vote, which would be easy for the IOC to organise but would have a bad effect on the host country, or a designation subject to reservations, unprecedented in the history of the Games.
“There will be no postponement of the vote, I am very positive,” a source in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, which is leading the French Alps project with the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, told AFP. “This vote will confirm the awarding of the Olympic Games to France,” “the IOC may express a reservation,” but “nothing is called into question,” insists this source optimistically.
Emmanuel Macron will go to the IOC on Wednesday to support France’s candidacy. He will also clarify his intentions after the legislative elections and define the “Olympic and political truce” that he is calling for, in the face of a left that is still demanding to govern despite its divisions and a right that is proposing a minimal agreement.
The pre-Games and in particular the opening ceremony will be an opportunity for numerous exchanges between heads of state and government. Prince Albert of Monaco, a sports enthusiast, was among the very first dignitaries to arrive in Paris on Monday under a cloudy sky.
According to Météo-France, scattered rain could hit Paris in the afternoon, but the opening ceremony should be spared, with possible clearings.
The organizers are to hold a new negotiation meeting on Tuesday with the union defending performing artists (SFA-CGT), which has filed a strike notice for Friday. The union denounces “glaring inequalities of treatment” (image rights, expenses) between the recruited dancers.