“Welcome, Beautiful India.” That’s the first thing anyone landing from back home is likely to see, courtesy a man holding a placard outside the Charles de Gaulle international airport. India’s athletes are soaking in the warm welcome for the 2024 Paris Olympics, which will be declared open on Friday, while exuding quiet optimism.
Many from the country’s contingent of 117 athletes have trickled into the Games Village, and already ticking a few to-do boxes — selfies with Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz, for instance. They are here to do more than just that, though. Hockey goalkeeper PR Sreejesh — the photo of him sitting atop the goalpost after the men’s team won bronze was a standout moment of the Tokyo Games of 2021 — is eager to sign off on his international career with even finer memories.
“When we entered the Village, everyone was like ‘let’s do something better than last time’,” Sreejesh, gearing up for his fourth Games, told HT on Wednesday. “Earlier, we were there to participate in the Olympics. Now, every player here has some sort of motto!” That motto, from the larger Indian perspective on the back of the country’s best-ever seven-medal show at Tokyo 2020, would be to match that at least, or better, surpass it.
A double-digit medal haul in Paris would be an ideal extension to their “sau paar” (100-plus) Hangzhou Asian Games exploits of last year. It will, make no mistake, take some doing. Like it has for the Paris Games to reach this point.
The build-up was a tad shaky and a touch political. Snap elections in France, protests against staging the Games, and concerns around the safety of the River Seine, which will not only host some swimming events but also the opening ceremony, have darkened the countdown clock for the first Olympics of a post-Covid world. The banners and flags, and the increased presence of security give Paris the Olympics feel, though the buzz is yet to fully resonate across the French capital.
On most streets, it’s business as usual, and a fair share of Parisians (known, after all, to be grumpier than most) say they would rather leave the city for these two weeks. A dedicated traffic lane for Games-specific vehicles has frustrated the city’s cabbies. Even as the finishing touches are still being applied along the Seine for the opening ceremony, a college-going volunteer says reassuringly that it will work out just fine.
“Here in Paris, things take some time,” he said, smiling. Almost none of Olympics set-up has been built from scratch for these Games. From venues to the Village, refining, repackaging and repurposing have been the buzzwords to go with the larger green theme of Paris 2024.
Of the 35 venues put into action, from those in the heart of Paris to faraway cities of Marseille and Chateauroux, a majority were either pre-existing or are temporary. The Yves-du-Manoir Stadium, in which Sreejesh and his team mates trained on Wednesday, for instance, wears the rare badge of honour of playing host twice in Olympic history. In 1924, it stood witness to the glitz of the opening ceremony and speed of the Flying Finn (Paavo Nurmi swept to five gold medals in that edition) during the athletics events.
A century on, slick dribbles and ferocious flicks will be on show here. Some of Paris’s most iconic structures will also be in play. Beach volleyball will be held by the Eiffel Tower, and equestrian events will take place at the Palace of Versailles.
The Aquatics Centre hosting artistic swimming, diving and water polo is the only permanent structure built specifically for Paris 2024. In the summer of 2025, however, the 6,000-seat facility will become a massive multi-sports facility open to all in the neighbourhood. The green carpet extends to the design of the athletes Village, erected across three communes.
The 54-hectare space, which holds 82 buildings, will turn into office spaces and homes for thousands of people post the Olympics and Paralympics. Then, some existing structures have been revamped. The Halle Maxwell, a large gymnasium stacked with over 350 pieces of equipment for athletes to use inside the Village, is at a site that was an industrial hub which pumped in electricity to the heart of the city in the 20th century.
And the Cite du Cinema, a film studio founded by auteur Luc Besson, is now used as a training ground within the Village for weightlifters, wrestlers and fencers. So, as reel life makes way for drama in real life, this connection sums up the look and feel of the Paris Olympics. The city of art, culture and love is decorated with a distinctly sporting makeup.
And, within it’s glorious confines, India will look to paint the town rouge..
