Olympics-Paris 2024 to be ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ says next Games chief

BEIJING: After two Games clouded by COVID-19 restrictions, Paris 2024 are looking to launch a new momentum for the sporting extravaganza, promising an Olympic “light at the end of the tunnel.” One hundred years after France last hosted the Summer Olympics amid the post-World War One Années Folles (crazy years) period, Paris aims to be the stage for carefree Games as they return to Europe for the first time in a decade. “We want to take the Games out of the stadiums, with a ceremony out in the city and a marathon open to the general public,” Tony Estanguet, a triple canoeing Olympic champion who was France’s flag-bearer at the 2008 Beijing Games opening ceremony, told Reuters.

Some 600,000 people are expected to attend the opening ceremony with around 160 boats setting off on the Seine on July 26 from the Pont d’Austerlitz for a six-kilometer journey to the Pont d’Iena. While the lower part of the river bank will be subject to ticketing, there will be free access to the upper part with spectators able to see holograms on the water, dancers on the roofs of nearby buildings and aerial shows.

“We are very ambitious, we want to break new ground and offer a popular and spectacular Games,” said Estanguet of the Paris Olympics. “With Milan-Cortina two years later, this is an opportunity for us to start a new cycle in Europe.” The Winter Games were last staged in Europe in 2014 in Sochi, Russia, after London hosted the 2012 Summer Olympics.

EIFFEL TOWER At Beijing 2022, crowds have been extremely limited as authorities sought to keep COVID-19 out of the country by segregating athletes and Games’ workers from the general public with a strict “closed loop” system. Just 97,000 people attended events at the Beijing Games, while