The Paris bid for the 2024 Olympic Games has taken a step forward. A timid step, admittedly, not yet very confident, but a step nonetheless.
At the invitation of Bernard Lapasset, head of the French Committee for International Sport (CFSI), and Denis Masseglia, president of the CNOSF, journalists and observers were invited to discover the initial results of the feasibility study on the Paris 2024 project. A study launched with great fanfare last spring, and then conducted over the summer by fourteen working groups.
The result? Still kept secret, at least in its conclusions. And for a good reason, as the work is not yet fully completed. However, Bernard Lapasset and Denis Masseglia, accompanied on this occasion by the two French members of the IOC, Guy Drut and Tony Estanguet, lifted part of the veil. Above all, they united to reaffirm without hesitation the commitment of the French sports movement to rally behind this project.
The time has come for mobilization. With one fixed idea: to project a winning image. “Let’s stop continually dwelling on Paris’s defeat for the 2012 Games,” Tony Estanguet insisted. “The enthusiasm is intact, but the essential goal is not to participate but to win the bid for the Games,” echoed Guy Drut.
In detail, the conclusions of the feasibility study will be submitted in January to local political leaders and the State. Bernard Lappasset stated this. He reiterated it. And he specified, in response to doubts regarding the motivation of the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, who has been very hesitant to join in the general enthusiasm: “I met Anne Hidalgo. I am aware of the reservations of the City of Paris. But they are not obstacles.”
The document that the CFSI will present to political decision-makers will highlight “the project’s benefit to the nation, its technical feasibility and the national and international context.” It will have sifted through 250 proposals, some described as “innovative,” produced by the fourteen working groups.
Among this abundance of ideas is the creation of an Olympic school where young people who have left the school system would be trained for Games-related professions, and the organization of an “Olympic Tour” where some French champions would travel around the country with the ambition of rallying the population around the project.
Money? Denis Masseglia explained that the bid will not cost taxpayers a cent. It will be funded by the private sector and, another novelty, by a possible “Olympic Telethon” that could take place in June 2015 and be broadcast on the channels of the France Télévisions group. Comment from the president of the CNOSF: “Such a televised event around crowdfunding would be worth all the opinion polls.”
Not yet a major step, but the train is in motion. At this point in the story, it would be premature to expect more.
