“Where is this money prioritized?”

A very large part of the eight million euro budget of the World Para Athletics Championships in France has not been reserved for the athletes’ toilets. The number of disabled toilets in the stadium can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

The World Para Athletics Championships will be held in Paris from July 8 to 17. will show the games from Tuesday 11.7. from Shipping information can be found here.

The World Championships in para-athletics started today in Paris. The Finnish team traveled to France earlier this week and has since encountered special challenges at the competition venue.

Along with logistical problems and an undersized warm-up track, the biggest challenge has been the lack of toilet facilities both on the main stage of the race at Charlety Stadium and on the practice field.

– Things that have been pointed out before have not been implemented. In a quick glance, the competition stadium has four or five accessible toilets, which is a completely insufficient number for the facilities of a thousand para athletes. Esa-Pekka Mattila tells Urheilu.

Mattila also shared her view on the situation on Twitter.

In Finland, Mattila serves as the chairman of both the Olympic Committee and the Paralympic Committee’s Athlete Committee. Although he feels it is his duty to raise grievances, the focus is above all on the race itself.

– We’re competing here and that’s what we’re trying to focus on. The media bandwidth achieved by para sports would much rather be used for sporting achievements than for problems like this.

– What annoys me the most is that the international federations hope that the World Para Sports Championships will be advanced elite sports events. However, that would require that the basic requirements are in order, Mattila downloads.

The budget for the World Cup is eight million euros. Mattila is openly considering the use of that sum of money.

– It’s surprising where this money has been prioritized and in what way. Especially when the problems have been known. There is still too much trust in the initiative of organizations.

Problems with toilets also plague the training ground. There are only a few bajamajas in use, which do not have running water.

– Normally it would be ok, but on the plus side, hygiene is more important. It’s a pity that there was no mention of this in advance. I think this is the wrong place to save money. Or the matter hasn’t even been thought about, Mattila sighs.

Finland will participate in the World Championships with a team of ten athletes. The four best by categories of the sports on the Paralympic program of the World Cup secure a place at the 2024 Paris Summer Paralympics.

The World Para Sports Championships and all Finnish performances can be seen on channels from Tuesday 11.7. from