Two years before the start of the Paris Olympics, after negotiations that are never easy, sometimes tense, the organizers have finally engraved in stone the map of the sites on Tuesday. The Paris 2024 Board of Directors “approved the solutions identified” by the Cojo to present a map of the sites “reinforced, which guarantees optimal conditions of competition, control of the budget, and which preserves the heritage of the Games for the inhabitants and the territories”welcomes Paris 2024. It has thus “gave Paris 2024 a mandate to continue the work with the players concerned before their official presentation to the IOC and the IPC (Paralympic Committee) for final validation”.
On the menu: it was necessary to decide for the preliminary phases of basketball, those of handball, for the shooting events, those of boxing, and to fix once and for all the place of each of them. In reality, it was a false suspense since earlier in the day, the leader of the Cojo, Tony Estanguet hinted at the microphone of France Info that the main point of tension had been settled, namely the choices handball and especially basketball sites.
The triple Olympic champion has indeed confirmed that the preliminary round of the basketball tournament, initially scheduled at the Porte de la Chapelle Arena then at the Porte de Versailles Exhibition Center, will finally be played at the Pierre-Mauroy stadium in Villeneuve. d’Ascq (North) the first week. Sport, on the other hand, goes “stay well in Bercy in the second week” where the quarters, semi-finals and finals will be played. The handball players, who were originally to play at Pierre-Mauroy, will play the first part of their tournament at the Parc des Expositions, Porte de Versailles in Paris.
Unnamed Bazaar
This switch therefore comes to close a beautiful imbroglio, punctuated by several passes of arms between the Cojo and French and international basketball, which had taken on stormy proportions in recent weeks, when several stars of the French basketball team went up to the niche to castigate the choice of hall 6 of the Parc Expos, unsuitable for practice at Olympic level. “How can we agree to see basketball, the most popular team sport at the Olympics, being sent to the Parc Expo? Ceiling too low, room unsuitable”tweeted in March the captain of the Blues, Evan Fournier. “I’m not going to play in a room where I hit my head when I shoot, so it doesn’t make sense”quipped four days later, the French pivot Rudy Gobert, 2.16m to the height.
The International Basketball Federation (Fiba) followed suit, refusing to keep the site. The body relied on the results of several technical studies – the lighting in particular did not give satisfaction, in particular because of the low height of this hall – which led Paris 2024 not to keep the site, incompatible with the specificities of basketball at the Olympic level.
Proof of the persistent distrust between the Cojo and the Fiba, “Fiba no longer even attends meetings on the subject”, recently assured a source close to the Organizing Committee. The International Federation had even tried another card by proposing, via the IOC (International Olympic Committee), to study the possibility of playing in a hall of the Villepinte exhibition center (Seine-Saint-Denis). An option that was not taken up.
Tired of this nameless bazaar, the State, via the Interministerial Directorate of the Olympics (Dijop), had made it clear that it wanted the card to take a definitive turn at the end of this CA. At the same time, handball took advantage of the windfall to write to the Cojo, and ask permission to use the room initially occupied by basketball in order to play there in the first week. Request accepted, therefore.
Shooting in Châteauroux, boxing in Villepinte
Another confirmed change: the shooting leaves Seine-Saint-Denis to land in Indre, at the National Center of the French Shooting Federation (FFTIR) in Châteauroux. In June, Paris 2024 had received a letter from elected officials of the agglomeration allowing the Cojo to present this option. The discussions now focus on the cost of renting the site to the Cojo. They are on the right track.
In compensation for the Ile-de-France department, which was promised an Olympic legacy and which has already seen swimming amputated in 2020 – one of the major disciplines of the Olympic Games – which will finally take place in Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine) , the preliminary boxing events leave Roland-Garros to go to Villepinte. The finals, on the other hand, remain Porte d’Auteuil. And the “Terrain des Essences” at La Courneuve, initially identified for shooting, “will be maintained as a competition site”and will host the start of the paramarathon, indicates Paris 2024.
If this question of sites is so complex, it is because it is intimately linked to that of finances, the new card being able to generate savings which seem more and more necessary. An aspect extremely followed in this year of budgetary review. The subject of budgetary tensions should also be mentioned at the same time as that of the sites during the meeting on Tuesday. “We have 878 competitions in 54 sports, we have more than 40 sites to operate. And like other organizing committees before us, two years before the Games, we are looking at the risks that there could be on certain sites. […] We have tried to offer alternative solutions that are less expensive.deciphered Tony Estanguet this Tuesday morning.
It remains to be seen whether these solutions will satisfy the IOC. The body has yet to decide on the final validation of these sites, in particular that of basketball “when all the technical studies will validate the compliance of the Pierre-Mauroy stadium with the specifications established by FIBA”. Which shouldn’t be a problem, the room having hosted the Euro 2015 basketball tournament.