Budget, ticketing and projects soon to be completed: Tony Estanguet confident 219 days before the Paris 2024 Olympics

2023-12-20 13:52:25

Now 219 days before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, Tony Estanguet, the president of the organizing committee (Cojo), drew up his 9th and final end-of-year report this Wednesday. “We are going to switch to a year of celebration, a year of sport,” enthuses the three-time Olympic canoeing champion. We look forward with desire, we have been working on this organization for 9 years. » A little over 8 months before the event, the boss of the Olympic Games underlines that “85% of the projects will be completed by December 31” and that the Cojo “has the guarantee that all the projects will be delivered before the Olympics” .

“There is no longer any alert,” insists Tony Estanguet, while some concerns remained, some time ago, on certain sites, notably the Grand Palais (fencing, taekwondo), currently under renovation. On the budget side, the President recalled that “100% of the organization of the Olympic Games is financed by private money” (in 2022, the State and the communities had however reinjected an additional 71 million euros, and not only for the Paralympic Games). 36 new partners have joined the Olympic adventure, bringing the number of more or less important sponsors to 58.

“There are still opportunities” for purchasing tickets

“We have secured 1.2 billion euros of our partner revenues,” underlines Tony Estanguet. To balance its budget (and in particular compensate for 196 million euros in additional costs linked to inflation), Paris 2024 increased its sponsorship envelope by 127 million, bringing it to 1.2 billion euros.

The boss of the Olympics also returned to the “unprecedented craze” of ticketing. 7.6 million tickets for the Olympic Games have been sold. “There are still opportunities,” Estanguet promises. However, success has been less evident regarding Paralympic ticketing: 2.8 million tickets are available, 830,000 have been sold, two months after the launch.

Another delicate point is security. “We have covered 70% of our security needs,” underlines the President of Cojo, who is responsible for securing inside the sites. “A final wave of calls for tenders has been launched to cover the 30% of lots which have not yet been awarded,” continues Tony Estanguet. “We maintain our level of ambition,” insists Tony Estanguet, recalling the major markers of Paris 2024: an opening ceremony on the Seine “which is not called into question”, open Games (in particular via a marathon for everyone whose bibs will all be allocated by January 31, 2024 and a volunteer program which made it possible to receive 313,000 applications), “spectacular and committed Games”.