Do The French Care About the 2024 Paris Olympics?

Sports Illustrated

Senior writer Jon Wertheim is taking a look at the atmosphere in Paris in anticipation of the 2024 Olympics and investigating how much the French actually care.

Transcript

00:00 I'm Jon Wertheim, my piece for Sports Illustrated is on the 2024 Summer Olympics, which will be held in Paris.

00:05 And if you did not know it was a year, literally to the day from now, you are forgiven.

00:10 These Olympics haven't gotten much buzz, but in this piece, I argue that's a good thing.

00:14 It's been a rough time for the Olympic movement.

00:16 We're coming off of Winter Games in authoritarian China.

00:19 Before that, we had the COVID-delayed Tokyo Games.

00:23 We had Olympics in Brazil that had big cost overruns.

00:26 And we had the Sochi Winter Olympics that Vladimir Putin used for a systematic state-run doping campaign.

00:33 The move to Paris won't be like that.

00:35 The cost of these games is very minimal compared to recent staging, less than $5 billion.

00:41 We don't have to build a lot of new venues and arenas.

00:44 This is not a state, not a country that needs these Olympics to validate itself.

00:48 It's the third time Paris will be hosting the games.

00:51 The big star this year will be the Seine, the river that runs through Paris.

00:54 That's where the opening ceremonies will be held.

00:56 That's where some events will be held.

00:58 These are going to be a quiet Olympics 2024, but this piece makes the case that that's a good thing.

01:04 [MUSIC]

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