Since the attribution of the 2024 Olympics to the French capital, the promises presented in the city’s candidacy file have sometimes had to be reviewed, or even completely abandoned. From competition sites to facilities, including the opening ceremony and ticketing, deciphering what was included in the initial project presented in 2017 and which will finally be realized or not on July 26, 2024.
• Competition venues
The promise of the Olympic Games organizing committee, the CoJo, was clear: the Paris 2024 Games will be held in or around the capital. But above all, the organizers of the event affirmed it during the presentation of the project in 2017: these Games will exploit the already existing infrastructures in Île-de-France and the inner suburbs.
It is clear that less than four months before the opening of the Olympic Games, the promise has been kept. The U-Arena, to the west of Paris, was built on time, as was Arena 2, located to the north, at Porte de La Chapelle. Even if this building, which can accommodate 8,000 spectators, was to be located to the south, near its big sister, the Arena-Bercy, Arena 2 is already the venue for numerous competitions since its opening this winter.
However, some adjustments had to be made by the CoJo concerning several competition locations. The Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris was to be the scene of the arrival of the marathon and road cycling events. Finally, the first will be at the Esplanade des Invalides, the second at the Trocadéro, opposite the Eiffel Tower. Another change concerns the shooting events: they will take place in Châteauroux (270 km south of Paris) instead of Le Bourget, where a large hall was to be created. The project had to be canceled due to soil pollution.
• The opening ceremony
The opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games will take place on Friday July 26, 2024 in a postcard setting, on the Seine, in the heart of the capital, in the form of a river parade. The fleet will cover six kilometers from Austerlitz to Trocadéro. It will be made up of 206 delegations on board 94 boats.
On the spectator side, several announcements had been made for this unique event on the Seine. At the start of 2022, the Paris town hall envisaged two million spectators on the quays and the banks of the river to attend this gigantic ceremony. This estimate was revised downwards in October 2022 by the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, who announced 600,000 spectators.
On March 5, 2023, before the Senate Law Committee, Gérald Darmanin reported a new number of participants: 326,000 people, for security reasons. Between the big announcements of 2022 and July 26, 2024, the number of spectators for the ceremony was divided by six!
Furthermore, the Games organizing committee had promised an event for everyone, the general public. Result: during the ceremony, a little more than 100,000 people will be welcomed on the lower quays of the Seine and certain bridges. These are paid tickets, between 90 and 2,700 euros per place. The rest of the spectators will follow the event on the upper part and the buildings overlooking the Seine. Access will be free, but you will need tickets which will be provided by invitation!
• Ticketing
The authorities and organizers of the Paris 2024 Games have constantly repeated it in recent years: they want popular Olympics, for the general public and accessible (financially) to all.
To do this, a draw has been set up to hope to be one of the lucky ones authorized to reserve a place. But those drawn very quickly noticed that tickets for various competitions were selling at a high price. You had to pay at least 525 euros to attend a final event of an Olympic sport. Popular disciplines, such as swimming or athletics, have generated strong demand. Prices therefore exploded.
To put an end to the controversy, the former Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, announced in May 2023 the “All at the Games” system. This is a free ticketing service launched by the State and the communities, who purchased 400,000 tickets. They will then be distributed free of charge.
The president of CoJo also denies this, affirming that 10% of places (one million) were sold at the promised price of 24 euros.
• Transport and facilities
This is the main challenge of these Paris Olympics: transport and access to the sites via the metro, bus and RER lines. In 2017, the authorities were even optimistic, affirming that the Ile-de-France network will have grown with new lines and extensions of sections. On the eve of the Games, this optimism and this ambition were confronted with the reality on the ground: (almost) no lines will be in service on time.
The construction of the Grand Paris Express lines, which were to radically improve mobility in the region, are facing significant delays, particularly due to the Covid crisis. Metro lines 15, 16, 17 and 18, which were to be put into service in June 2024, will not be put into service before, at best, the end of 2025. Only the extension of line 14, which serves the north, the center of Paris and Orly airport, was completed.
In the Paris 2024 bid file, a strong promise also attracted attention, that of free access to the entire Ile-de-France public transport network during the Games for ticket holders for the events. The promise will not be kept, quite the contrary, since the price of the ticket will double from July 20 to September 8, 2024. It will reach 4 euros each. The transport operator in the Île-de-France region explains this decision due to the additional cost of this project. Furthermore, access for people with reduced mobility is still very complicated in the region.
Paris City Hall had also committed to creating nearly 30 kilometers of cycling facilities between now and the Olympic Games. All these trails will also be equipped with dedicated signage. In October 2023, 20% of this cycle network was still missing. Regarding automobile traffic, the authorities announce it will be complicated, especially as lanes will be dedicated for the Olympics (delegation, organization, accredited) on the already saturated Paris ring road.
Finally, it was also a flagship project for the Games: the renovation of the Montparnasse Tower. Announced with great fanfare in 2017, this renewal of the emblematic 59-story tower will finally begin after the Olympics and will last four years.
There is therefore a lot of optimism in the Paris 2024 file when it is submitted to the IOC. If the competitions will take place on the initial sites, the promises regarding ticketing or access to transport are not kept. However, the authorities insist on this and are convinced that this will not affect the success of these Games in the French capital.
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