Paris ready for Olympics, say organisers

PARIS: Paris Olympics supremo Tony Estanguet said Sunday that the city was “ready” for the Games as he played down complaints from some residents and businesses about the impact of the event.

“We are ready as we head into the final phase,” Estanguet told a press conference in Paris, five days from the opening parade next Friday. He added: “For as long as the closing ceremony hasn´t finished, we need to remain vigilant. But today we are exactly where we would have dreamed of being a few years ago.”

Finishing touches are being applied to the venues across the City of Light and thousands of athletes and officials are pouring in, while the weather has also brightened up after months of rain.

In a further boost for organisers, the water quality of the river Seine -- which is set to be used for outdoor Olympic swimming events -- has also improved dramatically since the start of July. “All the indicators for the Seine are positive at this stage,” Estanguet added.

The river is set to host the opening ceremony next Friday which will see 6,000-7,000 athletes sail down it on 85 barges and boats. It will be the first time a Summer Olympics has opened outside the main athletics stadium, with up to 300,000 ticketed spectators set to watch from stands and on the river banks and another 200,000 expected to watch from the overlooking apartments.

Around 4,000 tickets are still available, Estanguet said. “We´ve always tried to maintain as high a level of ambition as possible so that these Games make France shine,” Estanguet added.

The vast security operation required for the opening ceremony is causing some friction, however, with large parts of central Paris along the banks of the river and around Olympic venues off-limits for most people.

Trade groups representing Paris shops, restaurants, bars and clubs complained on Friday that they were facing an “unprecedented slump in business and footfall”, blaming in part the “heavy security measures”.

“It always a choice made in full conscience that the success of Paris 2024 would mean having the Games in the city,” Estanguet explained. “That was the completely unprecedented concept for Paris 2024.”

As well as the opening ceremony in the heart of the city, much of the sport is set to take place at temporary venues around Paris, with beach volleyball at the Eiffel Tower, archery at the Invalides and skateboarding at the Place de la Concorde.

“We can´t do it without some disruption. We can´t do it without some restrictions,” Estanguet said. “We tried to anticipate these restrictions and we communicated them a long time in advance.”

He thanked “those who have understood this because it´s really to honour our country in the most beautiful way.” Around 45,000 members of the French security forces are set to be on duty on Friday evening when the Olympics kick off at 7:30pm (1730 GMT).

“Security was the number one priority for Paris 2024,” Estanguet said. Cybersecurity is also a major concern, with a global IT outage last Friday caused by an update to CrowdStrike software leading to temporary disruption to accreditation system used for the Games.

The International Olympic Committee said it was bracing for disinformation attacks targeting the sporting extravaganza following recent incidents blamed on Russia. Just 15 Russians and 17 Belarusians are accredited to compete as neutrals as most sports have banned Russians and their allies in response to the invasion of Ukraine.

“Clearly there is a campaign of some sort going on,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said Saturday. “It´s not the first or last time that the IOC will be targeted with misinformation. It´s getting more and more sophisticated.”

Adams was responding to a question concerning a feature-length fake documentary that emerged in 2023 titled “Olympics has Fallen” which used AI-generated audio to impersonate Hollywood star Tom Cruise. The film, falsely purporting to be a Netflix documentary, was apparently designed to erode global support for the Olympics.