Editor at Large Louise Evans survives the stink, the crush, the heat and the lack of sleep across 16-days of Games competition to declare Paris one of the best Games ever.
For a Games to be great it has to crack what I call the www.olympics formula.
It has to have the three W’s. Everything has to WORK. The home team has to WIN. It has to have WOW factor eg the Queen parachuting out of a chopper in London | the Cathy Freeman moment in Sydney | the archer lighting the flame in Barcelona.
The Paris Olympics were my seventh Games. My favourite leading into Paris was my home Games in Sydney 2000 , followed by London 2012 and my first in Barcelona 1992.
So how did Paris fare on my WWW dot Olympics ranking system.
Everything did Work. The security, the transport, the venues, the schedule.
The security presence was the most intense I have ever experienced at any Games.
French security forces began locking down central Paris about 10 days before the start of the Games on July 27. During the Games there were an average of 30,000 security personnel on the streets of Paris daily and up to 45,000 at peak times.
It was omnipresent but it was not oppressive. The only time I got challenged was when I was interviewing dual Olympic laser champion Matt Wearn and the best sailor Australia has ever produced outside the Main Press Centre.
Four Gendarmes (they travel in packs) asked what I was doing. When I explained Wearn is Australia’s greatest ever sailor they asked for a photo. The things you do to avoid a diplomatic/security incident. Wearn found it très amusante. I found it rather drôle.
The sheer volume of almost two million Olympic tourists moving around Paris everyday bent the public transport system but didn’t break it.
It wasn’t the crush on the Metro out to the venues that was the hardest to bear – it was the smell of BO that made me gag.
It was just as bad at the venues in the media tribunes which are still predominantly populated by old, white, (stinky) men. Note to the 2028 Los Angeles Games organisers. Put deodorant in the press kits – please I beg you. Or nose pegs like those artistic swimmers wear.
The venues were almost always sold out and the atmosphere was contagious. The French love their sport and they’re a demonstrative lot, so there was plenty of explosive emotion in the stands.
Bravo to the thousands of cafes, bistros and restaurants scattered across Paris which did a fantastique job serving the hundreds of thousands of non-French speaking hordes who needed to be hydrated, caffeinated and carbo-loaded on an endless 24-hour cycle.
The Paris Chamber of Commerce released a hospitality campaign before the Games titled Do You Speak Touriste? It was designed to cajole the French hospitality industry into playing nicely with international tourists come Games time. It seemed a bit like telling them how to suck eggs but it can’t have hurt because the Paris hospitality was excellente.
Jolly maître d’s were conjuring pavement tables out of thin air at midnight to feed your tired and starving Sportshounds team. And they did it with a gusto.
So yes Paris ticked the first box – everything worked
The next big W is – the hometown has to Win for a Games to be great. If the home team doesn’t triumph, the national mood very quickly turns sour.
Why have we spent nine billion Euro ($A15 billion) on this 16-day circus? What a waste of money!
According to MarketWatch, the Dow Jones financial data website, nine billion euro was a cheap bill to stage 2024 Paris, considering Tokyo 2020 was the most expensive Summer Olympics at an estimated 18 billion euro, followed by London 17 billion and Rio de Janeiro 2016 at 15.6 billion.
The Games pushed visitor numbers in the first week to 1.73 million tourists in greater Paris with Tourism Minister Olivia Gregoire stating hotel occupancy across French cities hosting Olympic sports had risen 16 per cent year-on-year.
According to a breakdown of figures released by the Paris tourism board, 1.73 million first-week Olympic tourists represented an 18.9 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2023. Of these. 924,000 were international tourists, a 13.9 per cent rise from the previous year. Domestic tourism also boomed with more than 800,000 French tourists visiting Paris, a two per cent increase compared to 2023.
The number of people visiting Paris museums and spending money in the capital’s restaurants and bars also went up 25 per cent on average.
Visitor investment in food, accommodation and tickets was gold for the economy with Paris selling 8.6 million tickets – more than any previous summer Olympics.
The Bank of France reported that the nation’s economy was on course to grow at least 0.35 per cent in the third quarter aided by Olympic Games spending.
On the medal table France was also a big winner finishing fifth on the medal table with 16 gold medals and 64 overall. Australia went home with 18 gold and 53 overall for fourth – a record result for the green and gold.
So excited were the French with their success that they changed the words of the La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, to include the nation’s new Olympic hero, Léon Marchand.
The 22-year-old swimmer who won four gold medals and a bronze, almost single-handedly raised the nation’s well-being index and psyche to stratospheric heights.
“The whole country is united in the stunned and incredulous contemplation of this champion who came from nowhere,” the Midi Libre French daily newspaper said.
Before the Games started France was predicting a top-five finish on the medal table which seemed a big ask considering France had not finished inside the top five nations since London 1948, when it finished third.
Significantly, France’s best two performances came when it hosted the Olympics in 1900 and 1924, finishing first and third respectively.
French National Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF) President David Lappartient went further, setting a target of 20 gold medals while the French Sports Ministry, with the National Sports Agency (ANS), estimated a total haul of 100 medals in Paris.
So the host nation Won big time on and off the field of play.
President Emmanuel Macron got in on the act calling for 50-60 French medals at the Paris Olympics and Les Bleus delivered, banking the country’s biggest medal haul since 1900 as the Games came to an end on Sunday.
The final Big W is the Wow factor and Paris delivered on that big time.
Beach volleyball under the Eiffel Tower, equestrian at the Palace of Versailles, skateboarding and BMX at the Place de la Concorde, cycling and athletic road races that flashed past a stable of tourist icons. The light show at the swimming pool every night was mesmerising.
And then there was swimming and triathlon in the Seine. That’s where Paris 2024 could have come unstuck.
A clean-up that cost 1.4 billion Euro ($A2.25 billion) is a lot of money to spend to ensure the famous river that runs through Paris was free of sewerage.
But after a few days of rain that drenched the opening ceremony, the Seine was unswimmable causing a series of daily cancellations and delays.
But the sun came out, the levels of e-coli diminished and finally Paris said adieu to the poo and the athletes jumped in.
The high-risk opening ceremony could have been another overreach – the first time it has been held outside a stadium. The rain turned everyone riverside into drowned rats but the event still looked good on TV.
It was however lacking the big stadium boom that makes everyone’s heart race faster when the athletes enter the stadium at the opener.
But this is a small criticism in what has been an amazing Games. Everything Worked, the home team Won and it had a big Wow factor.
My verdict – one of the best Games ever and the best I have attended.
Heaven help Los Angeles in 2028 trying to match this. It sets a standard that is going to be even harder to match for Brisbane 2032.
Game On Brisbane
Louise Evans is an award-winning journalist who has worked around Australia and the world as a reporter, foreign correspondent, editor and media executive for media platforms including The Sydney Morning Herald (eight years), The Australian (11 years) and Australian Associated Press (six years in London, Beijing and Sydney).
A women sports’ pioneer, Louise was the first female sports journalist employed by The Sydney Morning Herald and the first female sports editor at The Australian. Louise went on to work at six Olympic Games, six Commonwealth Games and numerous world sporting championships and grand slam tennis events.
Louise is the Founding Editor of AAP FactCheck, the Creator of #WISPAA – Women in Sport Photo Action Awards and national touring Exhibition and the author and producer of the Passage to Pusan book, documentary and exhibition.
In 2019 she was awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) Queen’s Honour for services to the media and sport and named an Australian Financial Review Top 100 Woman of Influence for services to the arts, culture and sport.
In 2020 she won a NSW Volunteer of the Year Award plus the NSW Government Community Service Award for her women-in-sport advocacy work.
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