The Seine, security and stars: 10 questions about Paris Games answered
These are the Olympics the athletes deserve. Fans, too.
After back-to-back Games without spectators, families or friends and with COVID protocols so restrictive they exacted a toll on athletes’ mental health, this summer’s Paris Olympics offer a reset.
It would be dazzling enough to compete in the City of Light, with the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame and Les Invalides never far from view. That those famous venues will echo with the roar of fans again will make these Games truly spectacular, as will athletes being able to share their triumphs or nurse their disappointments with their loved ones on site rather than over a computer screen.
“It’s the moment after. Once I had the medal and I looked up and I realized no one was there, that was weird. So I’m really excited to share that moment,” said Gabby Thomas, who won silver with the U.S. women’s 4×100 relay and a bronze in the 200 in Tokyo.
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When initially awarded, these Games were meant to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the most recent Olympics in Paris and the last under the guidance of Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics.
After a COVID pandemic that shrunk our worlds, however, the Paris Olympics and Paralympics have become a testament to resilience. Of sport and of human spirit. The normalcy that seemed so far out of reach at the Tokyo Games, which had to be delayed by a year, and again in Beijing, which took place in an environment that was sterile in every sense of the word, has returned, and Paris will be a celebration of that as much as the amazing performances of the athletes.
The Olympics will be held July 26 to Aug. 11 and the Paralympics are Aug. 28 to Sept. 8.
“It’s going to be just an incredible setting, especially coming off of a weird Tokyo Olympics where no one could be there,” Thomas said. “Paris is so stunning. It’s going to be such a beautiful moment.”
Here are 10 questions surrounding the Olympics and Paralympics:
Which Paris landmarks are being used for the Games?
Organizers definitely understood the assignment, taking advantage of the many landmarks that make Paris one of the world’s most beautiful cities.
The Opening Ceremony will take place on the Seine, beginning just east of Notre Dame and passing by the famed cathedral that has been rebuilt after a catastrophic 2019 fire. Then the Louvre, Place de la Concorde, Les Invalides, the Grand Palais and the Eiffel Tower before finishing at the Trocadero.
Beach volleyball will be played at the foot of the Eiffel Tower while equestrian and modern pentathlon will take place at Versailles, the grand palace built by Louis XIV. The Grand Palais will host fencing and taekwondo beneath its spectacular green roof while archery will be held at Les Invalides, the magnificent golden-domed museum that houses Napoleon Bonaparte’s tomb.
Place de la Concorde, with its famed Egyptian obelisk and views of the Eiffel Tower, Les Invalides and Arc de Triomphe, will be home to 3×3 basketball, BMX freestyle, skateboarding and breaking. Tennis will be played on the clay courts of Roland-Garros, the iconic home of the French Open.
And the marathon, triathlon and road cycling events all will traverse the city’s picturesque bridges and cobblestone streets.
“We want to open the Games to everyone,” Tony Estanguet, a three-time Olympic gold medalist in canoe who is now president of the Paris organizing committee, said in 2022. “We will bring the various sports out of the stadiums and into the city, in the middle of its iconic landmarks.”
The Opening Ceremony is going to take place on the Seine?
The traditional parade of nations is now going to be a flotilla.
For the first time in Olympic history, the Opening Ceremony won’t be held inside a stadium. Instead, athletes from the 200-plus countries will board boats and barges and float down the Seine, with spectators able to watch the roughly 3½-mile parade from the river’s quays and embankments.
It’s an audacious plan, one that has sparked both awe and security concerns. To address the latter, organizers have cut access in half from the 600,000 spectators they’d initially hoped to have. About 100,000 fans with tickets will be on the riverbank while 220,000 residents of Paris and other cities hosting Olympic events will be allowed to watch from above.
“To manage crowd movement, we can’t tell everyone to come,” France Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said in March, according to the Associated Press. “For security reasons that everyone understands, notably the terrorist threat of recent weeks, we are obliged to make it free but contained.’
Though French president Emmanuel Macron has said there is a Plan B should the security risk become too great, he and other officials have insisted the Opening Ceremony on the Seine will be safe.
How big a concern is security?
It’s a concern with any large-scale event, but there are several factors that elevate the risk for Paris.
France has a history of terrorism by Islamic extremists, including coordinated attacks in Paris on Nov. 13, 2015, that left 130 dead and another 400 wounded. The war between Israel and Hamas has heightened tensions in France, as well as for Israel and the United States, its strongest supporter. And this is really the first Games since Rio where there are no barriers, geographical or COVID-related, to who can enter the host country.
Add in the very public staging of many of the Olympic events, and there are multiple areas of concern.
To secure the Games, there will be 45,000 police officers and 18,000 soldiers, along with 22,000 private contractors. There also will be tight security perimeters around venues and certain landmarks, and only those who’ve been pre-screened – athletes, officials, media, residents – will be allowed in.
“There’s a lot that the security professionals know and they’re doing on a bilateral level with governments and collaboration from allies, that the general public doesn’t know,” said Nicole Deal, head of security for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee.
“But I think that goes in place with every major event. There’s underlying security capacities and capabilities that the rest of the world has no clue of. And that’s just happening and that’s just part of doing security.”
Are there really going to be events in the Seine?
The swim portion of triathlon, along with marathon swimming, are to be held in the Seine, near the Eiffel Tower. Anyone who’s seen a public waterway knows they’re magnets for trash and debris − and that’s just the visible gross stuff! Bacteria and pathogens that can cause waterborne diseases lurk, too.
Cleaning up the Seine was a priority for the Paris Games, with regional and local governments spending $1.5 billion on the efforts. In addition to installing trash-catching devices in the Seine, a massive basin that can store excess rainwater and keep bacteria out of the river began operating in May.
Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo is so confident of the river’s cleanliness she took a swim in the Seine nine days before the Olympics. There have been several instances of dangerously high levels of bacteria, however, including since the storage basin opened.
The water will be tested each morning during the Olympics, and the sport governing bodies, World Aquatics and World Triathlon, will decide whether events can proceed as scheduled.
While the idea of diving into a “poo pool” might make most people gag, athletes have been non-plussed about it.
“I grew up in Los Angeles by the beach where you are told not to swim in the ocean after it rains, which I think is a given in any city,” triathlete Taylor Spivey said.
Besides, this isn’t a new problem. Remember the horror stories about the water in Rio de Janeiro in the leadup to the 2016 Games?
“The water quality is always a big hype or concern,” Spivey said. “All the athletes have come out of (those) races healthy, so I’m hoping that it’s the same for Paris as well.”
Speaking of diseases, will COVID be a factor at the Paris Games?
Given the painstakingly detailed “playbooks” that athletes, support staff and media had to follow in both Tokyo and Beijing, it’s a bit surreal to say no. No proof of multiple negative COVID tests to enter the country. No daily testing. No limits on where you can go. No masks or vaccines required.
And, best of all, no empty venues.
Just as it is throughout much of the rest of society, COVID is being treated like any other communicable disease. Athletes aren’t tested, or isolated, for a cold or the flu and it’s now the same with COVID. Vaccinations are recommended for U.S. athletes but not required.
“It was huge mental load because you had to start siphoning things out of your life prior to even going,” said Jordyn Poulter, part of the U.S. women’s volleyball team that won gold in Tokyo. “We had to limit time with friends, family … to both protect ourselves and our teammates. Because the last thing anyone would want is a positive test that would prevent you from competing.
“It will be a huge load off of the psyche. I’m really looking forward to just being able to focus on competing and being there with my teammates.”
What about the heat?
Paris has made sustainability a cornerstone of these Games, including an Athletes Village that doesn’t have air conditioning. Organizers say it doesn’t need it, thanks to a geothermal cooling system that runs cold water through pipes underneath the floors.
But rising temperatures around the globe, and extreme heat in France in recent summers, have participating countries taking matters into their own hands. The United States is one of several countries with large contingents that is bringing portable air conditioners to ensure athletes can sleep comfortably.
Who are the athletes to watch, by the way?
Just as four years ago, all eyes will be on Simone Biles in Paris.
Biles’ withdrew from almost all of the Tokyo Games with “the twisties.” Mental health issues, compounded by the isolation of the COVID restrictions for the Games, caused her to lose her sense of where she was in the air and continuing to compete would have jeopardized her physical safety.
Though her withdrawal shined a spotlight on the pressures elite athletes face and gave many the permission to say they weren’t OK, it took a huge toll on her. After returning for the balance beam final, and winning a bronze medal, Biles returned home not sure she’d do gymnastics again.
“That was the hardest part after Tokyo is I didn’t trust myself to do gymnastics,” Biles said.
Biles is in a much better place now – her weekly sessions with her therapist are a priority – and she looks as dominant as ever. Maybe even more so. Her five medals at the world championships last fall made her the most-decorated gymnast ever, male or female.
At the U.S. championships earlier this summer, she swept every event, including winning her ninth all-around title.
“I use the phrase, `Aging like fine wine,’” Biles joked.
Biles won’t be the only American shining brightly in Paris.
Katie Ledecky returns for her fourth Olympics, looking to add to her seven gold medals. Since winning bronze in the 200 meters in Tokyo, Noah Lyles has become the world’s top sprinter. He ran the third-fastest time in history in the 200 meters at the 2022 world championships, a 19.31, and swept the sprint titles – 100 meters, 200 meters and 4×100 relay – at last year’s worlds.
The U.S. men’s basketball team has amped up its star power, with LeBron James returning to Games for the first time since 2012 and Steph Curry finally making his first Olympic appearance. A trio of WNBA MVPs, A’ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart and the ageless Diana Taurasi, lead the U.S. women’s team seeking its eighth consecutive gold medal.
Will the Russians be in Paris?
I can hear the resigned tone in your voice and, trust me, I get it. For a decade now, the Russians have been caught breaking the rules and violating all sense of fair play, and the IOC did nothing. Bent over backward to make sure the Russians suffered as few consequences as possible, in fact.
But Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine was too much, even for the IOC. Russia is banned from the Paris Olympics and, this time, it’s for real. There will be no Russian team of 300-plus athletes. No teams of “Olympic Athletes from Russia” or the “Russia Olympic Committee,” either.
The few athletes who do make it to Paris – 15 from canoe, cycling, swimming, tennis and trampoline, as of July 16 – will be identified as “Individual Neutral Athletes,” or AIN in the French translation. They won’t be included in the parade of nations during the Opening Ceremony and can’t participate in team events. They’ll wear generic uniforms and gold medalists will hear an anthem created by the IOC.
Unlike with the previous “bans,” when Russian athletes just had to pinky swear they hadn’t trounced on the Olympic ideals, there was an actual vetting process for the AINs. They had to prove to both their individual sport federations and the IOC that they didn’t actively support the war, weren’t associated with the military and were in compliance with all anti-doping requirements.
They also had to qualify in their individual sports, which might have proved to be the biggest burden.
Is there another doping scandal?
Yes. And this one is particularly bad because it seems as if the World Anti-Doping Agency, the organization whose sole purpose is to ensure clean sport, was either in on the game or willing to turn a blind eye to doping in China.
The New York Times and German broadcaster ARD reported in April that 23 Chinese swimmers had tested positive for the performance enhancing drug trimetazidine, or TMZ, in 2021, ahead of the delayed Tokyo Olympics. China blamed the positive tests on contamination in the kitchen of a hotel where the swimmers were staying and WADA, saying its monitoring abilities were limited by China’s COVID protocols, went along with it.
The swimmers would go on to win five medals in Tokyo, three of them gold.
Then, last month, the Times reported that three of those 23, including one of the gold medalists, had also tested positive in 2016 and 2017, that time for the powerful steroid clenbuterol. Doping protocols would have required the athletes to be publicly identified, provisionally suspended and for an investigation to be done, but the Times said none of that happened.
WADA knew about the earlier suspensions, the Times reported. Which meant it knew in 2021 that this was the second bust for at least three of the Chinese swimmers, and it still allowed them to compete in Tokyo.
WADA has defended its actions, saying it did as much as it could with the information at the time. But many have been highly critical of what they see as preferential treatment for the Chinese, and swimmers have expressed frustration.
“I think our faith in some of the systems is at an all-time low,’ Katie Ledecky, who was on the U.S. team that finished second to China in the 4×200-meter relay in Tokyo, said in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning last month.
‘It’s tough when you have in the back of your head that it’s not necessarily an even playing field.’
Are there any new sports?
Dig out your track suits, jelly bracelets and anything neon because breakdancing is making its Olympic debut!
A dance genre that had its heyday in the last century might seem like a strange way for the IOC to shed its stodgy image and attract a younger audience. But if you’ve seen the dance battles on TikTok, it makes a lot more sense.
“It just seems like such an unlikely Olympic sport because it started in the streets and it also doesn’t have the same elegance or that elevated feel that some of the other sports do,” said Sunny Choi, or B-Girl Sunny, the silver medalist at the 2019 world championships.
“But it’s also why I’m super excited for the world to see it.”
Breaking athletes – they’re called B-Boys and B-Girls – participate in one-on-one battles, getting roughly a minute to perform a routine of steps, slides and moves that defy both gravity and cartilage. They’re judged on creativity, performance, technique, musicality and variety, and the athlete with the higher score advances in the round-robin event.
There’s a catch, though: Breakers don’t get to choose their music. They make up their routines on the fly, performing the moves and steps they think best correspond to the beat.
“It definitely adds a little bit of pressure,” Choi said. “But also it kind of adds an element of spontaneity that makes breaking so special and so interesting to watch.”