Paris — In the suburbs of Paris, there was a bright-eyed girl who longed for the Olympics and Paralympics to end.
That's because the swimming club where 10-year-old Laila Kebbi practices will be taking over the Olympic pool. After the Games, it will be dismantled and trucked from the Olympic race venue in Paris's high-rise business district to Severin, a town on the outskirts of Paris that is less glamorous and wealthy. So I bolted the parts back together. And voila! — Kebbi and her swim team will have a new Olympic-sized pool to play in.
“It's unbelievable!” she says. “I hope we have the best of luck,” her mother Nora added.
In 100 days, as of Wednesday, the Paris Olympics will open with a highly ambitious aquatic opening ceremony. But the first tournament in 100 years, to be held in the French capital, will not be judged solely on spectacle. Another criterion will be the impact on disadvantaged Paris suburbs, away from the city center landmarks where many of the events take place.
By promising a socially positive, less polluting and less wasteful Olympics, the city synonymous with romance is setting itself a high bar to make future Olympics generally more desirable.
Critics question its value to a world facing a warming climate and other emergencies. Potential host cities have become so averse to the Olympics that in 2017, when the International Olympic Committee selected host cities for 2024 and 2028, respectively, Paris and Los Angeles were the only candidates left.
The $13 billion cost of the 2021 Tokyo Games, postponed due to scandals and the pandemic, and the promise that 2016 hosts Rio de Janeiro and 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics will be tainted by Russian doping and subsequent Ukrainian land grabbing. After that failure, the Swiss-based IOC has a lot of skepticism to dispel.
A good Summer Games in Paris could help ensure the long-term survival of the IOC's mega-event.
Extending the benefits beyond central Paris
The idea is to run from July 26th to August. 11 Games and August 28 – September 8 It was built into the city's plans from the beginning that the Paralympic Games should benefit disadvantaged communities in the Seine-Saint-Denis region northeast of Paris.
Seine-Saint-Denis is the poorest region in mainland France. Thanks to generations of immigration, this country is vibrantly diverse, with 1.6 million residents speaking 130 nationalities and over 170 languages. For children in Seine-Saint-Denis who face racism and other barriers, sports sometimes provide an escape. World Cup winner Kylian Mbappé honed his smooth soccer skills during his childhood in the Seine-Saint-Denis town of Bondy.
The once highly industrialized Seine-Saint-Denis has lost many jobs and has become dark and frightening in parts. Riots rocked the city in 2005 and last year as well. Members of the Islamic extremist group that killed 130 people in the French capital in 2015 hid in an apartment in the town of Saint-Denis after the massacre and were killed in a gunfight with a heavily armed SWAT team. The drama unfolded just a 15-minute walk from the Olympic Stadium, where athletics, rugby and the closing ceremony will be held.
Specifically, the Olympics will leave a legacy of new and renovated sports infrastructure in Seine-Saint-Denis, but critics argue that investment is still not enough to catch up with wealthier regions with better facilities. ing.
Mamitiana Labarillaona grew up near the Olympic Stadium, which was originally built for the 1998 Soccer World Cup. He said it was not very encouraging for residents of Seine-Saint-Denis. She said the Olympics will be a “big party” and she believes she will join the 45,000 volunteers who will help, but that Olympic-related investments will magically make many of Seine-Saint-Denis I don't expect it to erase the difficulties of the world.
“It's like lifting the carpet and dusting it off underneath,” he says. “It won't go away.”
A new Olympic village has been built in Seine-Saint-Denis, which will become housing and offices for 10,500 Olympic and 4,400 Paralympic athletes after they leave. It also has the only dedicated competition venue for the competition, an aquatics center for diving, water polo and artistic swimming events. Other competition venues already exist, were previously planned, or will be temporary.
Marie Barsac, the organizing committee's legacy director, said in an interview: “We were driven by the ambition of abstinence and above all by the ambition not to build sports facilities that are unnecessary and have no reason to exist after the Games.'' ” he said.
Sebelan's hand-me-down 50-metre pool will be a major upgrade. The town of Seine-Saint-Denis, with a population of 51,000, was hit hard by factory closures in the 1990s. His existing 25 meter pool is nearly 50 years old.
Other towns in Seine-Saint-Denis are also building new or renovated pools, which are especially welcome for the region's children, where only half of them can swim.
“The ambition of the Olympic Games is to benefit everyone for as long as possible,” said Severin Mayor Stéphane Blanchet. Blanchett said the Olympics cannot “just pass by and move on without thinking about tomorrow.”
Paris prices are the same
Paris spends nearly 9 billion euros ($9.7 billion), more than half of which comes from sponsorships, ticket sales and other non-public funds.To date, Paris' spending has been the highest in 2012 since Tokyo and Rio. , less than the previous three Summer Games held in London.
France's public finance watchdog said in its latest study in July that the cost to French taxpayers is likely to be around 3 billion euros ($3.25 billion), including police and transportation costs.
Safety remains a challenge for a city repeatedly hit by deadly extremist violence. The government has scaled back its ambitions to have 600,000 people line the banks of the Seine for the opening ceremony. It has shelved a promise to let anyone claim hundreds of thousands of free tickets, citing the risk of attack. Instead, 326,000 spectators will either pay ticket buyers to attend or be invited.
Privacy advocates have criticized video surveillance technology being deployed to detect security threats. Homeless activists fear homeless people will be pushed off the streets. Many Parisians are planning to leave to avoid the chaos or to rent out their homes to the expected 15 million visitors. There is also a possibility of a strike as the union is demanding Olympic bonus payments.
And all this is against a blazing backdrop of geopolitical crises, including but not limited to the Israel-Hamas war and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. As a result, the IOC is not allowing athletes from Russia and its ally Belarus to parade with other Olympic athletes at the opening ceremony.
Still, Olympic fans have high expectations for Paris. Among them is Ayaovi Atindehou, 32, a medical intern from Togo who is studying in France. Olympic volunteers believe the Olympics can bridge the divide, even if only temporarily.
“A world without racial differences, without ethnic differences, without religious differences. We're all going to come together and shout and celebrate,” he said, adding, “We need the Olympics.”
