It was intended to be a formality, a simple session to validate proposals and decisions already announced and detailed. But the COJO Paris 2024 Board of Directors, Tuesday July 12, began with some little-expected news.
It was delivered by the Minister of Sports and the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, present for the first time since her entry into government. The former general director of the French Tennis Federation explained in the preamble, before leaving the meeting to go to the government question session at the National Assembly, that the Head of State, Emmanuel Macron, will bring together the main players in the preparation of the Paris 2024 Games before the end of the month.
Coincidence or not, the meeting at the Elysée is scheduled for July 25, on the eve of the symbolic date of D – 2 years before the opening of the Olympic Games. Officially, it will be a “ detailed point the progress of preparation for the Games (security, transport, etc.), as well as the means to mobilize all French people around this important event and its legacy. » Around the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, will be the ministers concerned, plus Tony Estanguet, the president of the COJO, and Michel Cadot, the interministerial delegate to the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
A " detailed point", therefore, but which sounds like a form of recovery in hand by the public authorities, after the fiasco of the Champions League final at the Stade de France, on May 28, the fears of a budget slippage, and the still ongoing serial of the site map.
The map, precisely. Unsurprisingly, the board of directors gave the green light to the COJO, Tuesday July 12, to “ continue work with relevant stakeholders.” Tony Estanguet and his team can therefore move forward at the same pace, before presenting their new version to the IOC and the IPC for definitive validation.
Its details were already known. They are planning a basketball-hands exchange in the first week, the first of the two team sports going to Lille, at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy, while the second will take place in Paris, at Hall 6 of the Parc des Expositions at Porte de Versailles.
The International Basketball Federation (FIBA) still does not want to hear about such a scenario. She proposed her own alternative, Hall 4 of the Parc des Expositions de Villepinte, in Seine-Saint-Denis, a newcomer on the map of sites. An option that the COJO did not retain.
The only representative of basketball on the board of directors of Paris 2024, Tuesday July 12, Jean-Pierre Siutat, the president of the French federation and first vice-president of the CNOSF, abstained during the vote on the holding in Lille of the preliminary round.
The rest of the new map overhaul hasn't raised the same questions. The preliminary phases of boxing, sitting volleyball and the modern pentathlon fencing qualification event will share the Villepinte Exhibition Center. The shot, also initially planned in Seine-Saint-Denis, in La Courneuve, leaves Ile-de-France to land in Châteauroux, in the Indre department.
The OCOG assures us in its press release: “ reinforced site map guarantees optimal competition conditions, budget control, and preserves the legacy of the Games for residents and territories. » The formula is written in the present tense, yet it still remains conditional. Ultimately, the decision will be up to the IOC. He will have to arbitrate between the COJO and FIBA. Not easy.
The budgetary question is not simple either. Tuesday July 12, the Paris 2024 board of directors also talked about figures, with the presentation of the report from the audit committee, chaired by Jacques Lambert.
Two years from the deadline, the budget remains on track. But inflation is holding him at gunpoint. Tony Estanguet has been repeating it for several weeks: the inflationary risk, unimaginable a few months ago, before the start of the conflict in Ukraine, is very real today.
The OCOG denied at the beginning of the week, during a press briefing, that it had requested an extension from the IOC to cover additional costs. But the organizers make no secret of it: they are discussing with the Olympic body to alleviate certain constraints in the specifications.
