Can Paris, as host country of the Olympic Games, revive enthusiasm for the Games?

Follow our coverage of the Olympic Games in Paris.

The Olympic Games have had a tough decade.

For many, the five multi-coloured rings, long synonymous with the pinnacle of sport, have over the past decade become a symbol of billions of dollars wasted, similar excesses of political and moral dissonance and a dismantling of the idea that the Games are simply a competition about spirit and country.

At each round, the Games have encountered a new set of problems: Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the use of a systematic doping program at the Sochi Games in 2014; the threat of the Zika virus and the unprecedented chaos in Rio de Janeiro in 2016; the threat of nuclear war in South Korea in 2018; the depressing scenes of empty stadiums due to the coronavirus pandemic in Tokyo in 2021 and Beijing in 2022.

Empty stands due to the COVID-19 pandemic tarnished the Tokyo Olympics, which were also postponed for a year. (Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images)

During those same Games in Beijing, the organizers and the International Olympic Committee were regularly questioned about freedom of expression and the treatment of ethnic minorities such as the Uighurs. The United Nations later called this situation crimes against humanity, which is at odds with the values ​​that the Olympic Games promote.

With every dent in television viewership in the United States, they dropped off, jeopardizing one of the Olympics’ biggest sources of revenue.

Now comes Paris. One of the world’s leading tourist destinations, a city that evokes a level of fascination and romance that few, if any, can match, will take on the task of restoring to the Olympic Games that mythical quality that has allowed it to exist for so long as something so much more than sport.

That quality was perhaps always more myth than truth. Gross commercialism helped transform the Olympics into a multibillion-dollar business, from the old-fashioned sports festival that Paris last hosted 100 years ago. Yet Paris has vowed to bring back its luster.

“I’ve been an athlete and I like the pressure,” said Tony Estanguet, a three-time gold medalist in canoeing and president of the Paris 2024 organizing committee, during a visit to New York last fall. “How can we push the boundaries and be more creative and innovative? The success of the Games depends on this ability to evolve and make the brand, this event, more attractive. It’s a constant battle.”

The IOC, the 100-member organization based in Switzerland that owns the trademark to the famous rings and awards the Games to cities vying to hoist them, has been losing that battle lately for a variety of reasons. One is the lack of geographic diversity, with the past three Olympics held in East Asia.

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To change that, the IOC has in recent years changed its bidding rules to take a more active role in targeting cities rather than simply selecting from whatever candidates come forward. After Paris, the Games will go to northern Italy; Los Angeles; the French Alps; Brisbane, Australia; and Salt Lake City. Organizers hope this will revive flagging interest in Western Europe and the Americas.

“There is no doubt in my mind that moving the Games to such an iconic European city as Paris, plus the fact that fans and partners will be there in person, will be a much-needed and welcome boost,” said Michael Lynch, a leading international sports consultant and former director of sports marketing for Visa, one of the main sponsors of the Olympic Games.

The French, for their part, have taken up the fight in the most French way possible: by showcasing their beautiful capital. Estanguet and his team decided years ago, when they first bid for these Games, to unite sport and culture like never before by hosting the Games in some of the most famous and recognizable locations in and around the French capital.

The move is a marked departure from the plan most cities have followed when hosting recent Olympics. That playbook typically involved finding a vast, undeveloped or long-abandoned area, building a huge park full of sports facilities, usually somewhere outside the city center, and putting a big fence around it.

Paris did a little of that with its Olympic Village, where athletes will live, in St. Denis, north of the city center and not far from the Stade de France, where athletics will take place. The aquatic center — host to diving, water polo and artistic swimming — is also nearby.

Almost everything else is on or just off the outer road that circles the main area of ​​Paris. This road can easily be covered on foot in an afternoon with a comfortable pair of shoes.

As the sun sets over the city on Friday night, the opening ceremony will unfold along the Seine, with some 10,000 athletes sailing down the river on boats rather than marching to a closed, secluded stadium. Beach volleyball will take place near the Eiffel Tower. Fencing will be held at the Grand Palais. Breaking, skateboarding and 3×3 basketball will take place at Place de la Concorde. The equestrian competition will take place in Versailles.

Beach volleyball in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower is set to be one of the visual spectacles of the Paris Olympics. (Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images)

In addition to making a two-week promo for Paris, organizers want to reimagine what the Olympics can be by bringing them closer to population centers rather than siloing them to remote areas. It’s especially poignant after Tokyo and Beijing, two successive versions of the Olympics that were locked down like never before, with COVID-19 prompting organizers to ban paid spectators.

The consequences have been dire, particularly in the United States, where the size of the TV audience has declined for NBC, whose media rights fees account for about 50 percent of Olympic television revenue. Coverage from Beijing in 2022 was down 40 percent from South Korea in 2018, which was lower than Sochi in 2014. Coverage from Tokyo in 2021 was down 42 percent from Rio in 2016.

Michael Payne, the IOC’s former marketing director, said audiences had grown elsewhere, particularly in host countries in Asia, but after a “challenging few Games”, in his words, Paris offers the chance for a “reboot”.

“It would be good to get back to normal,” Payne said in an Olympic understatement.

That is not guaranteed. As wondrous and novel as Friday’s opening ceremony may seem, clouds hang over the Games, as always in this era.

Russia, long a major player in the Olympic movement, remains a pariah nation due to its history of state-sponsored doping and its invasion of Ukraine. Athletes from Russia and Belarus will compete as part of a neutral group of athletes with no national affiliation.

Israel’s war in Gaza, a major response to deadly Hamas attacks last October, has led to calls to ban athletes from Israel, with protests also taking place during Israel’s first men’s soccer match on Wednesday.

The threat of a terrorist attack is high, especially because so many events are taking place in the centre of Paris.

The global anti-doping system, which relies on independent national organizations to test their athletes, has collapsed. COVID-19 rates are rising. As people from around the world flock to Paris, the city could become the ultimate breeding ground—particularly the Olympic Village, where the athletes will live, eat and socialize for the next 17 days.

David Wallechinsky, a leading Olympic historian, said he walked 10 miles through Paris this week looking for a pre-Games buzz. He couldn’t find it. Yet he knows that everything changes once the competitions begin, the stadiums fill up and the host country wins its first gold medal.

Wallechinsky also knows one thing for sure.

“It looks good,” he said of the Paris Games.

Estanguet wants more than that. He knows the world will be watching.

“The pressure is positive for me,” he said. “We have to succeed.”

Equestrian events take place in front of the Palace of Versailles, one of the many sporting events and an iconic location during the Games. (Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP via Getty Images)

(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletics; photo of the Eiffel Tower: Maja Hitij / Getty Images)