Lhe belief is widespread: journalists are not interested in trains that arrive on time. Well yes! In the case of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (OPG), some trains – in this case the delivery of key venues and equipment for this summer’s event – have been punctual. This deserves to be noted, the history of the Olympic Games being marked by setbacks and slip-ups in this area.
With just over a hundred days to go before the event, the main sustainable sites of the Games are available to the organizers of Paris 2024. In recent weeks, the inaugurations have followed one another. Sometimes with great fanfare, like Thursday April 4 in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis): the President of the Republic wanted to mark the occasion at the Olympic aquatic center, where the artistic swimming, diving and diving competitions will take place. water polo.
At the end of February, Emmanuel Macron had already been present for the handover of the keys to the athletes’ village, which, located in the communes of Saint-Denis, Saint-Ouen and L’Ile-Saint-Denis, will be the epicenter of Games. On April 2, the Marseille marina, which will host the sailing events, was also the subject of an official ceremony, as was, a week earlier, the media village in Dugny (Seine-Saint-Denis) , or the Adidas Arena, Porte de la Chapelle, on February 11.
If these constructions were carried out within the allotted timetable, it is, in part, because the organizers of Paris 2024 chose to reduce ex nihilo creations as much as possible. It is also because they have benefited from relaxations of town planning rules to speed up certain procedures.
Cold sweat
However, these projects have not been a long, quiet river. In addition to Covid-19, the outbreak of war in Ukraine at the start of 2022, which made certain supplies scarce, and the wave of inflation, which increased costs, gave the Delivery Company cold sweats. Olympic works (Solideo), one of the two structures – with the Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Cojop) – set up to prepare for the Games.
This was not without impact. Solideo had to revise its budget upwards: it stood at 3.8 billion euros for the works strictly necessary for the Games (4.4 billion taking into account additional work, not directly linked to the Olympic Games, required by communities), compared to 3.3 billion planned for 2018.
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