205 days before the 2024 Olympic Games (July 26-August 11), Tony Estanguet, the president of Paris 2024, in an interview with L’Équipe, took stock of the situation: “I can’t wait, I envy. I know that we have been preparing for a long time and we are on target,” he summarizes before looking ahead: “The magic will happen during the Games. Everything that comes before, I don’t want to say that it doesn’t count because, in the same way that you can’t win an Olympic final in 90 seconds, if you haven’t worked for years, you won’t you have no chance. But the reality is that you are in the starting block and nothing is being done. If you’re not good in the next 90 seconds, you won’t be Olympic champion. And that’s really something I learned when I was an athlete: you have to work a lot, be very good in preparation but that won’t be enough.”
Looking at the calendar, Tony Estanguet recalls the major events: the revelation of the medals (in February), the handing over of the keys to the Olympic Village (March 1): “We are entering our home a little. The idea is to think about how we make it a little cocoon for the athletes, to welcome them in the best possible way. The athletes’ village is one of the great symbols of the Games and their particularity too with all the countries, all the sports in the same place. When we have been an Olympian, or a Paralympian, and we stay in the village, we all have a strong memory because it is something that we have never experienced in our career,” he says. still in L’Équipe.
Before discussing the lighting of the flame in Olympia (April 16), then the arrival of the flame in Marseille (May 8): “It will be a very strong moment for our country to celebrate the return of the flame Games in France, in Marseille. It is also a symbolic choice to bring back this flame of Greece by sailboat. We continue to make original decisions so that this project is not just a repetition of what has already been done.” Until the opening ceremony (July 26): “It’s going to be great, we have everything to offer a unique, exceptional moment. This project is wonderful, ambitious and daring. We have everything to succeed. Let’s enjoy! Let us let ourselves be carried away by this moment, this emotion, the link between sport-culture-heritage. It’s going to be a great moment (…) People explaining to me that it’s difficult and that it’s risky? I see them every day. I don’t need them to know there are risks. And I have the impression that all of this is well anticipated, well identified and that everything is put in place to limit these risks as much as possible. I also trust.”
