2024-07-26 23:29:08
The Champ de Mars arena is not ready to host the first competitions at the Paris Olympics, the head of the French Judo Federation Stephane Nomis told AFP, Day.Az reports with reference to TASS.
The Olympic judo tournament starts on July 27.
“The carpets, which were too springy, had to be changed at the last minute,” Nomis said. “That has been fixed, but one of the biggest problems is cleaning because there is dust everywhere. There is too much dust here, and our judokas fight barefoot and in gis. There is too much dust coming in, we have to find a way to have less dust coming into the rooms by Saturday. The arena has to be ready for the first fights scheduled for Saturday.”
Nomis blamed the Olympic organizing committee for poorly preparing the arena for the competition. “They managed without us from the beginning, and now for the last 15 days they are calling us for help,” he said. “We have appointed a big team to help them. The International Federation saw that the criteria do not meet the requirements of the Olympic Games, they are putting a little pressure on everyone to make it work better and to make it more in line with the standards of world judo and also French judo.”
Nomis also expressed regret over the lack of cooperation between the local judo federation and the Games’ organizing committee.