Etienne Thobois, Directeur Général de Paris 2024, point d'étape sur la livraison des Jeux

-Of course, the pandemic has affected operations at Paris 2024, but we felt it was very important to keep up momentum, enable people to continue working and shore up the fundamentals for Paris 2024. That’s why we conducted a full budget review. It was essential to revise all the hypotheses we’d been making since the bidding phase. We also had an opportunity to review the venue map, which we further optimised by concentrating 95% of operations at existing or temporary venues and doing away with two temporary venues. We continued to work with our sponsors to agree partnerships, securing over half of our partnership budget, and we further stepped up our environmental ambitions. This was really key to us. It remains one of our priorities to halve greenhouse gas emissions compared with London 2012, the current benchmark. It also gave us an opportunity to look more deeply into offsetting. Consequently, we will offset more emissions than we generate through international and national programmes over an extremely vast scope. For example, we will offset emissions created by travelling athletes and international spectators. We have also been very careful to maintain high levels of engagement as we believe it is very important that everyone in France gets involved and feels the benefit of this project. One of the ways we’re doing this is through the Terre de Jeux programme deployed through public sector institutions, which currently covers over 27 million people. In addition, the Paris 2024 Club has attracted 130,000 members, forming a community that regularly responds to our challenges and communicates with Paris 2024. As a result, we have over 84% of people who say they are fully behind Paris 2024. We were really keen to keep up this enthusiasm despite the difficult times we’re living in.

Three years out from the Games, we’ve sorted all the basics to deliver the event – our venue map has been approved and our budget has been secured. The next step is to continue financing the Games by looking for new partners. We’re now aiming to account for 2/3 of our partnership budget target by the end of 2021. In terms of the organisation itself, we’ve approved the security protocol with the French State, the responsibility assignment matrix that visually summarises "who does what". We’re now entering a more operational phase where we need to define the security perimeters around venues. Similarly, we’ve also put together the network of main Olympic transport routes, and we will now start looking into detailed venue routes in collaboration with our stakeholders and local authorities. In another matter close to our hearts as French people, we have selected the main catering provider for the Olympic Village and we are now developing our catering strategy, focusing in particular on suppliers among other things. Accommodation is also sorted, as we have booked all the rooms we need with hotels in Paris and the surrounding region. We now need to start allocating different tasks to different people. So as things stand today, we’re doing well. But we need to keep up the good work, in particular by ensuring everything goes to schedule with the construction of new sites – including the Olympic Village, the Aquatics Centre and the La Chapelle Arena – which is overseen by SOLIDEO.

At Paris 2024, we aim to transform the Games delivery model, which used to be organised by function, where for example the security function dealt with security issues for all venues. We are looking to leverage existing venues and existing skills. We’re using existing venues for 70% of the event needs, and in France we’ve got a lot of experience of organising major sporting events where the eyes on the world are on us. The idea is to look at things event by event, venue by venue, to deliver the Games, by working with people who organise sporting events day in, day out, to help us deliver Paris 2024. We believe it is a virtuous model as it enables the market, the people who are involved in delivering sporting events, to feel part of the Games. We also believe it is an efficient model, as we aren’t looking to reinvent the wheel and we’re not trying to find answers to questions people in the industry are used to dealing with. It will also enable us to leave a lasting legacy, as obviously we’re going to add our special Paris 2024 touch to the Olympic and Paralympic Games by delivering the event to a very high standard, striving for stretching ambitions that set the benchmark for major sporting events in France in the future. Of course, the buck stops with Paris 2024, we are the body organising the Games, but we will be looking to harness all this expertise, which in France is extensive.

Obviously, we’ll be in Tokyo to observe the 2020+1 Games. The programme to observe the preceding Games is an important moment for any organising committee, even though we know these Games will be very different to ours. We’ll be concentrating on areas that have not really been affected by the pandemic, such as the sporting events, operations in the Village, and technology. There won't be any public, so other operations, such as transport and managing spectators will clearly be very different, which is why we’ll be looking to take learnings from other events. We still have the 2022 Beijing Winter Games and the 2022 Commonwealth Games to go, which will also be a key source of information for us. And we’ll be able to look at certain specific processes. For example, we’ve spoken a lot about dealing with heatwaves, we know it will be hot in Tokyo and it will be even hotter in Paris over the summer, so it will be interesting to look at that. Also, we can take learnings from their approach to risk management, as obviously in these unprecedented circumstances, the way Tokyo manages and adapts to risks day to day will offer very useful insight. The Tokyo Games will therefore be very important for us as observers to identify best practice for Paris 2024.