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Posted

I've seen it before. There have been a number of comments since, most recently in 15 November 2012 by Denis Masseglia of the FOC.

It does seem that Paris is waiting to see who else will throw their hat into the ring as well as the outcome of 7 September.

I think if Tokyo get the award then Paris are in, Istanbul and it is 50/50 and Madrid rules them out. I do think that Paris are more fearful of Africa than the USA as contenders.

Meanwhile as a venue, they are slowly building up a number of appropriate world class venues including a new Velodrome, a new Aquatics centre, a new rowing/kayaking facility etc as well as having a sizeable area of land to the South West of the SoF vacant (Olympic Village??)

Add to this, the Stade de France, upgrades to a number of football and rugby venues including the Parc des Princes, and Roland Garros and the building of a new retractable roof 82,000 seat stadium by the FFR and I think Paris are waiting to launch with a huge BANG!! trying to blow other contenders away


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR20myJn8vE

Posted

Paris Aquatics Centre and velodrome? Any pics?

I remember what Paris was planning for 2012, but haven't really noticed what they've been doing since. Would be good to see.

Posted (edited)

For the velodrome:

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A9lodrome_de_Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:V%C3%A9lodrome_de_Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines

For the aquatics centre I don't know any such project right now.

That being said, I don't believe one minute Paris will bid. Especially on the year of the Presidential election in France (2017), this is really bad timing for a politician.

Edited by hektor
Posted

For the velodrome:

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A9lodrome_de_Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:V%C3%A9lodrome_de_Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines

For the aquatics centre I don't know any such project right now.

That being said, I don't believe one minute Paris will bid. Especially on the year of the Presidential election in France (2017), this is really bad timing for a politician.

Interestingly the year of the UK General Election and the vote for the 2012 Olympic Games was 2005 ... and it wasn't bad timing for the incumbent politician with the opposition also supporting the bid so not to appear killjoys

Posted

Interestingly the year of the UK General Election and the vote for the 2012 Olympic Games was 2005 ... and it wasn't bad timing for the incumbent politician with the opposition also supporting the bid so not to appear killjoys

Yeah. If a bid doesn't get bi-partisan support within any country, it's as good as dead anyway.

Posted

The awarding of the 2020 games makes it much more likely Paris will be involved.

Will South Africa even bid?

If Chicago or NYC aren't bidding can any other US city match Paris?

Posted (edited)

Even without indicating it's even thinking of bidding, Paris is the common city on just about everyone's list of early favourites. In the atmosphere after the vote yesterday, it definitely is one city that just has to say Oui and it would be installed to frontrunner status in many people's minds.

Every French member on this board though says it's not under consideration or has much popular support to go. We all probably hope they'll go for it, but I can see why they might be a bit gun-shy, and it's up to them to go for it or not.

Edited by Sir Rols
Posted

Even without indicating it's even thinking of bidding, Paris is the common city on just about everyone's list of early favourites. In the atmosphere after the vote yesterday, it definitely is one city that just has to say Oui and it would be installed to frontrunner status in many people's minds.

Every French member on this board though says it's not under consideration or has much popular support to go. We all probably hope they'll go for it, but I can see why they might be a bit gun-shy, and it's up to them to go for it or not.

If there’s one lesson we’ve learnt from previous experience it’s that bidding for a SOG is a filthy, dirty and brutal affair (2005 is the perfect example) with the prize, usually but not always, going to the filthiest, dirtiest and most brutal bidder.

Quite frankly it’s a bother we can well do without.

Besides, holding a SOG means three things:

- locking down a city for two months and turning it into a target for every loony terrorist on the globe

- handing the keys to a group of men and women, the ioc, who haven’t been the friendliest of people to us (Rogge gave an interview back in September 2005 to l’Equipe Magazine in which he basically spat in the eye of the French bidding team. We’re still reeling from that interview today….)

- and spending an inordinate amount of money for the privilege, money that will never be recouped whatever some might say.

It’s a ‘privilege’ we can well do without in the present climate.

There are also the domestic issues. François Hollande was elected with the smallest of majorities in 2012 and his only solutions to France’s economic woes were to increase taxes. So much so that after twelve months in office he has reached a level of unpopularity which it took Sarkozy four years to reach previously! With local and mayoral elections looming in 2014 the last thing the French elector wants is new spending. Any candidate who so much as mentions the word ‘Olympics’ runs the real risk of being voted out of office!

Neither is being a frontrunner or a favourite necessarily the cosy trip it’s made out to be as we well know. When you’re a favourite you seem to be spending more time fending off attacks than trying to put your message through to the ioc. Again, why bother?

It’s not like we really needed the games after all. We might be happy to host the games, even be proud to host them but don’t really need them. Paris is already the most visited city in the world. It’s the capital of style and glamour. It’s where every woman wants to be taken to! :wub: It’s the city that put the ‘A’ in A-list! So it’s not like we needed to be on the map. We’re already there!

If you add to the equation the fact that France already hosts a bevy of internationally known sporting events (TDF, Roland-Garros, 24h du Mans, le Vendée Globe, la Route du Rhum, Grand Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, etc, not forgetting our role in football, rugby, handball….) the argument for going through the mangle of bidding then hosting an event such as the SOG really starts to lose its attraction.

Then again, I may be completely wrong and Paris will be bidding for 2024!! :D

Posted

Certainly a well-reasoned post, Frenchy. It makes a great deal of sense.

I think several large American cities take a similar view. They might be "happy" and "proud" to host, but do not "need" the Games. When one considers the time, energy, expense, logistical headaches, political resistance, etc. the Olympic Games are not essential to the success of well-established cities and may, in some cases, be more trouble than they are worth. It's quite possible that NYC has a similar attitude to Paris, "We're the definition of the mega-city. Tourists flock to us from all over the world. We don't NEED the Games."

Posted

Certainly a well-reasoned post, Frenchy. It makes a great deal of sense.

I think several large American cities take a similar view. They might be "happy" and "proud" to host, but do not "need" the Games. When one considers the time, energy, expense, logistical headaches, political resistance, etc. the Olympic Games are not essential to the success of well-established cities and may, in some cases, be more trouble than they are worth. It's quite possible that NYC has a similar attitude to Paris, "We're the definition of the mega-city. Tourists flock to us from all over the world. We don't NEED the Games."

Paris certainly doesn't need the Games, but I think Paris clearly wanted them more than New York and were more bruised by their defeat in 2012. I don't actually remember many New Yorkers being too fussed about the 2012 result, but Paris was built up as a great favourite, invested a lot emotionally in them, and funnily enough (I don't know if you remember this Athensfan) their presentation actually concluded with the words "Paris NEEDS the Games".

Maybe Paris' attitude is closer to New York's now though. Maybe they've moved on and won't look back - and I wouldn't blame them necessarily but like Mainad would think it a shame. But if they're not bothered about landing the Games now it's because they've been spurned when they DID really want to host, not because they were never that bothered in the first place. There's the difference between NYC and Paris.

  • Like 1
Posted

Paris certainly doesn't need the Games, but I think Paris clearly wanted them more than New York and were more bruised by their defeat in 2012. I don't actually remember many New Yorkers being too fussed about the 2012 result, but Paris was built up as a great favourite, invested a lot emotionally in them, and funnily enough (I don't know if you remember this Athensfan) their presentation actually concluded with the words "Paris NEEDS the Games".

Maybe Paris' attitude is closer to New York's now though. Maybe they've moved on and won't look back - and I wouldn't blame them necessarily but like Mainad would think it a shame. But if they're not bothered about landing the Games now it's because they've been spurned when they DID really want to host, not because they were never that bothered in the first place. There's the difference between NYC and Paris.

I totally agree that Paris was much more invested in 2012 than NYC. I was speaking more about the present in my previous post. One could draw parallels to Chicago as well.

Posted (edited)

I fear that France has a kind of "Sion syndrome" right now. I have seen five failed bids from France so far. Three were expected (2004, 2008 and 2018) and two were painful (1992 and 2012) and quite frankly, 2012 was really extremely painful. Annecy was an idiotic bid, and I still fail to understand the intellectual process which led to the decision to commit to it.

I think that if France was to bid for 2024, we would be in the 1992/2012 area, not 2008. That means that France would be one of the favorites, but not a done deal. I can see very well Toronto or Rome defeating Paris.

So coming back to the French context, Frenchy is right, Hollande is a very weak president, who is despised by a lot of people in France. Sarkozy was considered as ruthless and arrogant, but never incompetent. Indeed it is the probably the first time in decades that the French have a president they consider as incompetent. The Presidential election is in May 2017, and this will be a negative element for French politicians.

I have no hope in Hollande, he looks like the guy who was asking the family doctor for a certificate to escape sport in high school. I had high hopes in Sarkozy, who loves biking and jogging, and is competitive to a fault, but clearly he was not interested in the Olympics. They did not seem to be on his radar screen.

The French media are very much anti-olympic. Most French media are left wing, including the state owned television channels, and the IOC represents more or less all what they hate: elitism, large projects, money. The French public is more and more convinced that the IOC is just a gathering of corrupt ploutocrats. This is a bit ironic, since I think that the IOC has indeed improved a lot these last years. French people are over taxed, as Frenchy said. So the public support in all this doom and gloom for the Games would be extremely low. The usual argument: there are better ways to spend the money than the Games.

To add to that there is the weak role of France in the IOC and in the IFs. We have three IOC members, but no one in the Executive Commission. There is only Killy who is chairing the Sochi commission. I think that 2024 is too early for France to secure all the supports which would give a French bid a very high probability of success. I do not think the current management of the NOC is top notch either.

The point with which I don't agree, is that France does not need the Games. France is an old country, a gloomy country, and is slowly turning into a kind of museum-country. I think that hosting the Games would inject a well-needed dose of dynamism and optimism to Paris and to the country.

I also think that other French cities than Paris could host the Games, but I doubt the IOC would believe that. But they would be wrong.

That being said, I love the Games, I loved London 2012, and I wish I could think Paris 2012 would have been better. But I don't think so.

France probably need new leaders, a true new generation of leaders. Fewer Hollandes and more Lord Coes. These things are cyclic, France is an old country, we'll bounce back.

Edited by hektor
  • Like 1
Posted

I fear that France has a kind of "Sion syndrome" right now. I have seen five failed bids from France so far. Three were expected (2004, 2008 and 2018) and two were painful (1992 and 2012) and quite frankly, 2012 was really extremely painful. Annecy was an idiotic bid, and I still fail to understand the intellectual process which led to the decision to commit to it.

I think that if France was to bid for 2024, we would be in the 1992/2012 area, not 2008. That means that France would be one of the favorites, but not a done deal. I can see very well Toronto or Rome defeating Paris.

So coming back to the French context, Frenchy is right, Hollande is a very weak president, who is despised by a lot of people in France. Sarkozy was considered as ruthless and arrogant, but never incompetent. Indeed it is the probably the first time in decades that the French have a president they consider as incompetent. The Presidential election is in May 2017, and this will be a negative element for French politicians.

I have no hope in Hollande, he looks like the guy who was asking the family doctor for a certificate to escape sport in high school. I had high hopes in Sarkozy, who loves biking and jogging, and is competitive to a fault, but clearly he was not interested in the Olympics. They did not seem to be on his radar screen.

The French media are very much anti-olympic. Most French media are left wing, including the state owned television channels, and the IOC represents more or less all what they hate: elitism, large projects, money. The French public is more and more convinced that the IOC is just a gathering of corrupt ploutocrats. This is a bit ironic, since I think that the IOC has indeed improved a lot these last years. French people are over taxed, as Frenchy said. So the public support in all this doom and gloom for the Games would be extremely low. The usual argument: there are better ways to spend the money than the Games.

To add to that there is the weak role of France in the IOC and in the IFs. We have three IOC members, but no one in the Executive Commission. There is only Killy who is chairing the Sochi commission. I think that 2024 is too early for France to secure all the supports which would give a French bid a very high probability of success. I do not think the current management of the NOC is top notch either.

The point with which I don't agree, is that France does not need the Games. France is an old country, a gloomy country, and is slowly turning into a kind of museum-country. I think that hosting the Games would inject a well-needed dose of dynamism and optimism to Paris and to the country.

I also think that other French cities than Paris could host the Games, but I doubt the IOC would believe that. But they would be wrong.

That being said, I love the Games, I loved London 2012, and I wish I could think Paris 2012 would have been better. But I don't think so.

France probably need new leaders, a true new generation of leaders. Fewer Hollandes and more Lord Coes. These things are cyclic, France is an old country, we'll bounce back.

I would love to rule France too :P. I think your completely right, France will re-bound but I guess 2024 is not possible. Speaking of the 2012 bid- does anyone have their pdf version of the bid book?

Posted

The point with which I don't agree, is that France does not need the Games. France is an old country, a gloomy country, and is slowly turning into a kind of museum-country. I think that hosting the Games would inject a well-needed dose of dynamism and optimism to Paris and to the country.

hektor,

You sound like Donald Rumsfeld and his dim-witted president back in 2003!! :D (remember “the French don’t have a word for entrepreneur” ? :lol: )

TGV, la carte à puce (smart card), ITER. . . .

Hardly the achievements of a museum country!

As for dynamism EDF, Vivendi, Orange etc are hoovering up utility companies the world over.

I fail to see, like most of my countrymen, what a SOG would add in the immediate future.

Posted (edited)

I disagree. We are always boasting about these things, TGV, Airbus, Ariane, but these are things which were decided, started in the 70s under Pompidou.

You talk about the TGV, sorry but this is hardly high technology. And by the way, there are fast trains in lots of other places in the world, including in PyeongChang. TGV is for France only due to the captive market, it is no longer exported, I can't remember a contract won by France to sell TGV to a foreign country these last ten years.

Our automotive industry is dying, we have left the European leadership in aeronautics and space to the Germans (what is the nationality of the CEO of EADS ?), we were completely out of the smartphones and the tablets revolution.

For the nuclear, maybe we have ITER, but first the technology is questionable and to add to the fun the present French government is anti nuclear, shutting down plants.

So yes, museum country, Eurodisney, Louvre Lens, Marseille Europe's capital of culture. Always commemorating, celebrating the past, ruminating the past, looking for victims and reasons to feel guilty. More excited to restore dusty castles than to develop new technology. Look at French television: how many shows about "patrimoine" and dead kings and how many shows about science and the most advanced fields of technology

After a long time in Texas and then back to France I moved to the Netherlands, working for the space sector.

Edited by hektor
Posted

It's sad to see that France thinks of itself like this

:( Surely an Olympics could do you a power of good, to show the world & yourselves that France is still relevant & modern, to give France a lift. :)

Posted

It's sad to see that France thinks of itself like this

:( Surely an Olympics could do you a power of good, to show the world & yourselves that France is still relevant & modern, to give France a lift. :)

To be fair, only a minority like hektor, who doesn't live here btw, think of France as he does.

The rest of us are quite proud of our country in spite of some of her failings.

As for doing good, I agree that organising a SOG would have been quite uplifting.

That's precisely why we bid in 2005 for 2012.

Unfortunately the ioc preferred playing politics and Russian roulette rather than giving the games to the only city who was genuinely passionate about its bid.

That was then.

This is now.

Today everyone here believes that the present political, economic and social climate isn't conducive to a successful bid for 2024.

Too bad........

Posted (edited)

I also love the Musee d'Orsay -- the best looking museum in the world; and I enjoy visiting more than the Louvre or the Marmottan!

Enjoyed the series SPIRAL very much which just wrapped up here in the US 2 weeks ago!! Am not too crazy about DOLMEN now.

I can serve if France needs me.

Edited by baron-pierreIV

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