“In many ways, the Paris 2024 Games represent the culmination of our long journey together.”Thomas Bach could not have dreamed of a better exit. The IOC President will hand over the baton to Kirsty Coventry in June, feeling as though he has accomplished his duty. “The Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games mark a turning point in the history of the Olympic movement, he explained in Greece. These Games truly marked a new era. In Paris, we saw the Olympic Agenda come to life." Such a success that the IOC will bring together executives from Paris 2024 to form a team specifically dedicated to supporting the organizing committee for the 2030 Winter Games. A first.
Catch up on time
The IOC followed with some concern the late launch of OCOG, on February 18, just five years from the deadline. It has therefore decided to mobilize the resources of Paris 2024 to ensure that the ship quickly finds its cruising speed. "You have to imagine that by the end of the year, you have to have laid the foundations for a multinational organisation with a world exhibition, for the largest, most sophisticated, and most exposed event. The ecosystem is ultra-complex. When you don't need to redo an operational plan but adapt it, you're cutting out months and months of design time", justifies Christophe Dubi, executive director of the Olympic Games within the IOC, in the columns of Le Dauphiné.
Étienne Thobois, Director General of Paris 2024, will be part of this mission. "In less than a year, we'll be in Verona for the transfer of the Olympic flag to France. An organizing committee less than four years away from the Games must have super-solid foundations: vision, strategy, game plan. Vision is essential. The general idea is that by the end of the year, we must be on target. For that, it's only right to have Etienne as conductor", continues Christophe Dubi. "I think it's a blessing", commented Edgar Grospiron, far from seeing it as a form of supervision. The president of OCOG sees it as valuable help in implementing "our operational structure » et "have an extremely clear vision of all competition sites ». The same enthusiasm was expressed by the Minister of Sports, Marie Barsacq, who was at his side in Greece: "The French Alps will be able to benefit from tools that Paris 2024 has spent time developing. We'll save a lot of time. There are many questions, and this mission will allow us to move forward efficiently." »
Serving the Alps in 2030, but also Los Angeles in 2028
The presentation made at the 144th IOC Session provided a clearer picture of the funding for the 2030 Winter Games. The French government will contribute €362 million – almost three times more than for Paris 2024. The two host regions will contribute another €100 million, bringing the share of the budget financed by public money to 23%. To adhere to the established plan, the mission established by the IOC must lay the commercial foundations, "to provide a value proposition for partners who loved Paris 2024 and want to participate in another edition, or those who didn't and would like to be."Edgar Grospiron hopes to raise 600 million euros through partnerships, almost a third of the total budget of 2 billion. The perspective of Paris 2024 will be valuable, here again, since the OCOG ended with a surplus of 27 million euros.
Christophe Dubi also believes that the Paris experience should not be confined to the French territory, but should serve, among other things, Los Angeles 2028, to be “always a little better informed, always a little smarter. »He specifies: "Those who managed this complexity, this ambition, this sophistication at the Paris level, we can't do without them. Of course, the Americans know how to do it. I went to see an American football game at SoFi Stadium, it was incredible. Except that when you have to build a temporary pool, you're happy with what was done before in Paris. It's necessary to have this relationship. To push the analysis of the Paris Games as far as possible. It's by analyzing what worked and what can be improved that we will make the Games in LA live up to expectations." The legacy of Paris 2024 also depends on this.
