After a stormy year 2020 for the sporting world from a health and financial standpoint, the skies are clearing up for the organization of the Paris 2024 Games, which is gradually returning to sporting issues. “We’re finally talking about sport, it feels good”, exclaims Jean-Philippe Gatien, former table tennis silver medalist in Barcelona (1992) and now in charge of the athletes and the sports program.
Breakdance
On Monday December 7, the Olympic committee validated almost the entire program proposed by the Paris Organizing Committee. Attention was focused on the adoption of breakdance, officially renamed breaking, and on the maintenance for the Parisian edition of three sports invited to Tokyo: climbing, surfing and skateboarding.
→ Olympic Games 2024. Breakdance, first Olympic steps in Paris
The Paris Games will also be the first in mixed history, down to the point: the 10,500 athletes selected will be divided into 5,250 boys and as many girls. To prevent quotas from leading to the selection of athletes who do not have the level, it was decided to make the village mixed all events, and not event by event.. “There will not be as many girls as boys in all disciplines, specifies Jean-Philippe Gatien, a few rare disciplines remaining either male or female, like artistic swimming ”.
This essential data to thwart the macho reputation of the Olympic movement leaves in the background another essential data for the Parisian atmosphere: the modernization of the Games, considered outdated by a part of the youth who are not interested in them, to the chagrin of the sponsors and TV channels. “We have focused on urban sports and nature activities like breaking. It is essential to stick to the practices of the new generations ”, continues the former table tennis player.
Disappointed
There are still some adjustments to manage, such as the regret of the French handball players, twice covered in gold, who see themselves far from the heart of the Olympic celebration. In the cup game of the selected sites, the small ball was sent to the Pierre-Mauroy stadium in Villeneuve-d’Ascq (North). Nikola Karabatic’s teammates, if he is still there, will therefore not be accommodated with the other athletes. Not easy for them. “We will do everything to integrate them in another way, for example by allowing them to experience the ceremonies, or by bringing them to the village on rest days, explains Jean-Philippe Gatien. And in the process, they gain a magnificent stadium with 27,000 seats that they would never have had in Paris. “
In the category of losers, we find walkers (the 50 km is deleted), weightlifters (four events less) and medal merchants, since the Paris Games will have ten less podiums, 339 against 329. Among the seven candidate provincial towns – for six places – to host football matches, there will also be a disappointment. The final choice between Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Nantes, Nice, Saint-Étienne and Toulouse will be announced on December 17, at the end of the Board of Directors of the Organizing Committee.
An offshore racing event?
But there are also the possible winners such as ocean racing sailors, very popular in France if we believe the success of the Vendée Globe. The plan to include them in the program, which will be definitively acted on in May, will depend on the ability of the French to demonstrate the interest of this event contested in doubles (one man and one woman) off Marseille. “We believe in it, the IOC has given itself until spring”, continues Jean-Philippe Gatien.
Competition will be tough, for the few remaining places, with the International Athletics Federation, led by Sebastian Coe, one of the most powerful men in world sport. The boss of London 2012 is working on the project of a new mixed race event. In principle, it will therefore be sailing or athletics, because the maximum tonnage of 10,500 athletes is not negotiable.
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