The countdown for the Olympic Games 2024 has started. France, which will hold the big event in less than 100 days, formally received the Olympic flame from Greece on Friday.
Paris is getting ready to receive more than 10,000 athletes and tens of thousands of spectators for the 33rd Summer Olympic Games. It marks the first time that the City of Lights has hosted the world’s biggest sports event in a century.
When and Where Will the Event Take Place?
The Summer Olympics will run from July 26 to August 11, with the participation of 10,500 athletes competing in 329 events. The Paralympics will start from August 28 to September 8, with 4,400 athletes competing in 549 events.
According to BBC, athletes will represent 206 countries at the Olympics and 184 at the Paralympics. Paris is expected to receive over 15 million tourists during the games.
The Stade de France, on the northern outskirts of Paris, will host the main athletics events. However, some events will be held in the city center, in 15 Olympic and 11 Paralympic venues. These venues will be cordoned off to the public with extensive traffic restrictions. Some Metro and railway stations will be closed for all or part of the event’s duration.
Swimming events will take place in the Seine in central Paris, but some events could be delayed or cancelled if the river’s water quality is affected by heavy rain.
The Opening Ceremony
For the first time ever, the opening ceremony of this year’s Olympics will take place outside a stadium setting. The plans for the spectacular event feature a 3.5-mile parade along the Seine. According to NBC News, 10,000 athletes will board more than 160 boats in front of over 300,000 onlookers on the river’s banks.
The Seine will be a central location throughout the Games, as venues along the river will host swimming, triathlon, 3-on-3 basketball, skateboarding and gymnastics competitions.
Security Preparations
France is deploying about 20,000 soldiers and more than 40,000 police officers to provide security. It will also get support from 2,000 troops and police officers from other countries.
Security services have been screening people related to the Olympics, including athletes, residents living nearby the Games venues, medical staff and volunteers. According to Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, intelligence services uncovered two plots against France in early 2024.
Hurdles in the Way
The Paris Olympics promise to be one of the world’s most sophisticated cultural ceremonies since Covid-19. During Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022, health restrictions forced the organizers to limit the scale of festivities and events were largely closed to the public.
Although the Paris Games organizers promised the event is going to be “magical” and insist the Games are on track, there are some challenges that may prove difficult to address, reported France 24.
Officials promised that Eiffel Tower will welcome athletes with a fresh paint of gold. But the painting process, which began in 2019, was delayed due to two reasons: the Covid-19 pandemic, which caused a 9-month delay, and the discovery of lead in previous layers of paint. The Eiffel Tower is not expected to get its new golden layer until 2025 or 2026.
Another hurdle is cleaning up the Seine, which flows through the heart of Paris, and make it swimmable before the Games. However, the still yellow-brown water that flows through the river has proved more difficult to clean than expected. The river’s pollution cancelled three pre-Olympics test events due to the excess amount of E. coli bacteria detected in the water.
Despite that, work is underway to add more pollution-preventing measures. By the end of the month, the Seine will be equipped with a new storm water facility, and boats are being equipped with new sewage connections.
Public Transport
With millions of visitors expected, Paris’ ageing Metro will be the main means of transport for many. To take in the large increase in the number of passengers, the city has sped up its Grand Paris Express project, which will add to the network four new lines and extend two existing lines. After technical issues and delays related to the pandemic, workers are rushing to finish the extensions of the existing lines.
However the Paris Metro will be under pressure from the huge increase in passenger numbers. Fearing congestion, the government launched a campaign under the banner “anticipate the Games” to urge people living and working in Paris to choose remote work when possible and consider other means of transport.
Geopolitical Challenges
The geopolitical background of the Paris Olympics raises security concerns about the big Games. The devastating war in Gaza and the Russia-Ukraine war have raised fears that these crises could come into play during the event in the form of protests and political demonstrations.
Russia and Belarus are banned from Paris Olympics 2024, due to Russia’s war on Ukraine and Belarus’ support for it. Competitors from both countries will only be allowed to participate as neutral athletes.
Could it be “the greenest-ever” Games?
Organizers have hailed the Paris Olympics as the “greenest” in history, aiming to halve the carbon footprint emitted by London in 2012 and Rio in 2016, and keep to a carbon budget under 1.58 million tons of CO2.
Paris has made strides towards limiting its carbon footprint in the construction of its sports venues and athletes’ accommodations. 95% of these venues already exist or can be reused. The Games will also allow for visitors to mostly get around by foot, bicycle and public transport, in addition to offering a wide range of vegetarian food options.
Carbon Market Watch, a non-profit environmental organization, published a report in mid-April praising Paris for becoming the first Olympic host in history to set such a carbon budget, but said it would be very difficult to assess because of a lack in transparency.
The report added that activities directly linked to the Olympics only account for a third of the greenhouse gases emitted, whereas the travel to and from the Games accounts for 40% of Olympic emissions.
