The safety of athletes is the “number 1 priority” of the American Olympic Committee, its leaders declared Monday, ensuring that they were “not surprised” by Emmanuel Macron’s announcement on a possible change of location for the ceremony. opening of the Paris Games. “Every leader always has a plan A, B and C, at least in the back of his mind. I was not surprised,” said Sarah Hirshland, president of the American Olympic Committee, during a press conference which kicked off a three-day media gathering in New York.
The President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron was optimistic Monday in an interview about holding the ambitious opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games (July 26-August 11) on the Seine, while sketching for the first time plans B (at the Trocadéro) and C (at the Stade de France) in the event of a terrorist threat. “The number 1 priority is the safety and well-being of the athletes,” added Nicole Deal, head of security for Team USA. “For the French too, it is priority number 1. We worked in detail with the French authorities and the State Department to establish our security plan.”
“The opening ceremony is unique, the French have invested enormously (in this project), they have worked on this plan for a long time. We are reassured by what France wants to put in place. Everything is planned and it will be a very well conducted symphony that day,” she said. According to Ms. Deal, the American delegation will parade on one or two boats, and no American athlete has yet expressed the wish not to participate for security reasons.
Asked about the possibility that a country like Israel would decide not to march, Ms. Deal said she did not know if it “would have a domino effect. I met with the Israeli security team. Like us, they just wanted to know the plan in detail. Once we had it, many of us felt reassured by what was going to be put in place.”
The size of the opening ceremony has already been reduced to a total of 320,000 spectators. “They changed the number of spectators. I was delighted with that, because I think it shows that they understood that they had to remain flexible. It’s a balance to keep,” Ms. Deal continued. The American delegation will be escorted during the Olympic Games by 70 State Department agents. On the sensitive and vague question of the presence of armed agents in the Olympic village, Ms Deal assured that there would be “no firearms in the village: this is the norm”.
