‘City of
Paris to be a big Olympic and Paralympic park’Paris 2024 hopes to ‘inspire a generation’ in way
London did notOn Sunday night, during the Paralympic handover ceremony, Tony Estanguet could be seen bounding on to a stage in Paris in a black polo shirt and stonewash jeans. Full of energy and boasting a big smile, like a radio DJ or Club 18-30 rep, he geed up a maskless crowd to get ready for the biggest experience of their lives: the Games were coming to
France.
Estanguet is the president of the Paris 2024 organising committee; his enthusiasm is understandable and the crowd around him a deliberate choice. At this point in the cycle possibility is limitless. It is when the next Olympic and Paralympic host can conceive of itself as the ultimate expression of those original values of ‘excellence, friendship and respect’. Reality begins to intrude later.