Paris Olympics 2024 Off To A Rocky Start

The Paris Olympics 2024 got underway with security concerns heightened ahead of the opening ceremony. For sports fans in India, 117 athletes will hold a place of pride over the next few days.

The Indian athletes are up against some of the world’s best in the business, as they look to go beyond their already record breaking haul of seven medals at the Tokyo Olympics of 2020.

Their worries might be more commonplace, as they are shared with over 10,000 athletes, given the cloud under which the Games are being held.

If the previous games were heavily affected by the pandemic and post pandemic paranoia, Paris seemed almost immediately embroiled in one controversy after another.

If Paris, France, their president Emmunuel Macron and the IOC (the International Olympic Committee) were looking for a blemish-free start. However, those hopes were quickly washed away by a crowd-marred football match in the lead up to the opening ceremony. There were also concerns about terror and sabotage in the hours leading up to it.

Just hours before Paris was set to host the opening ceremony, rather daringly on the river Seine, one of France’s worst fears came through. A coordinated arson attack, as confirmed by France, meant that the high speed rail sabotage on the day of the event cast concerns of safety, and the capacity of the French police to deter terror threats.

The French train network, particularly their high speed rail lines, being hit by coordinated attacks of sabotage meant that thousands of locals and tourist passengers looking to make their way around Paris on the official first day of the Olympics, were left to navigate their own way. The rail officials also went into overdrive mode to repair the damage done, as well as trying to unearth who was behind the attack in the wee hours of Friday morning.

This comes on the back of several controversies that have dogged France in the lead up to the Olympics, which returned to Paris for the first time in over a century. Snap elections called by President Emmanuel Macron had already created an atmosphere of uncertainty with the Left party first emerging shockingly likely to win, being thwarted at only the last minute.

With Macron hoping that the Olympics would form the backdrop of a brief political truce, this latest attack brought back into focus not only the worry that France faces of terrorist attacks but also, of the economic unrest within the country that has seen the country paralyzed by union worker strikes over weekends since the pandemic.

If heat warnings and how they would affect the athletes’ performances were not enough, questions of the water quality of the river Seine, which is set to host a triathlon was brought so much into focus that it took the sports minister had undertake a heavy and costly operation to clean up the river, and also, swim in front of the media and public to assuage concerns about the water that is generally the background of many a romantic proposal in the city.

While the intent to keep all of the disciplines at the Games within the city boundaries was commendable, there have already been questions raised not only about disgruntled residents and the economic fall outs post the events but also, of the ability of the city to manage the unusually larger crowds that would throng these events.

Paris already got a nasty taste when the first football match of the Games between Morocco and Argentina saw the Morocco fans invade the pitch protesting an Argentinian goal, which was later disallowed by the VAR (Video Assistant Referee) system but only after the stadium had to be filtered out and the game resuming only two hours later. Argentina eventually lost the match 2-1 but there were no fans to cheer for either side.

If nothing else, rain seemed like the possible forecast to cast a dark cloud, literally and metaphorically speaking, on the 7000 of the 10,500 athletes set to participate in the opening ceremony on boats across the 6 km stretch of the River Seine.

That, however, could not take away from the fact that more than a billion Indians fans’ anticipation have once again risen, as they tend to do, when such a historical sporting event comes around. A total of 112 athletes – 70 men and 47 women – will compete across 69 events.

Neeraj Chopra’s gold in javelin at the last Olympics has certainly whet the appetite of the nation as has P. V. Sindhu, badminton champion who will take her place as the proud flag bearer. Silver medallist in Rio and winning bronze at the Tokyo Olympics, Sindhu aims to go where no Indian has gone before, to win three Olympic medals which would be something against a tough line up.

Medal hopefuls, Nikhat Zareen in the women’s boxing 50kg category and Manu Bhaker lead the front for the shooting contingent, denied in a tearful farewell in Tokyo by a malfunctioning air pistol. She remains India’s best hope.

Eyes will also be fixed on tennis’ place of pride with hope revived as the Australian Open men’s double winner, Rohan Bopanna. He goes ahead to launch a bid for the gold with a relatively new partner, Sreeram Balaji.

Bopanna’s regular partner, Australian Matthew Ebden will represent his own nation. Sumit Nagal leads a tough front for India in the singles section, having made it to the cut off brilliantly despite injuries and financial constraints that have dogged his career.

India’s hockey, of course, will hope to keep the honeymoon alive. Though it has not had the kind of success as it would have liked to build on India's early days of glory at the Olympics, the men’s team did pull off a surprise at the Tokyo Olympics when they walked away with a bronze medal.

On a high from winning gold at the Asian Games in Hangzhou last year, which bought them the ticket and a berth to the Paris Olympics, they have their work cut out for them in the same group as reigning world champions Belgium.

Yet hope floats, as it did on the river Seine on a glittering night in Paris on Olympics’ opening ceremony, with the Indian contingent appearing on their own boat nearly half an hour into the commencement. Even though there were two other alternative venues in place, eventually the ceremony went off as planned along the 6 km stretch.

Briefly to be forgotten were the concerns and chaos, replaced by an unusual event that looked at times less like sport and more like an art exhibit and a rock concert and a pride parade all mixed in. While the unusual nature, not to mention venue, featuring some of Paris’ iconic landmarks and also, its fame as the city of love on the occasion of a sporting event might evoke mixed emotions, what mattered at the end of the day was that the Games are now underway.