Paris Olympics a 'clear success' despite initial reservations
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00:00Definitely. I mean, not only okay, but it was a clear success and a success that is appealing to
00:05the whole world. And some even say that those games are going to set up such a mark as a success,
00:11as a popular success, that it will be difficult for Los Angeles in 2028 to cope and to manage
00:19as good as it was the case in Paris. But keep in mind the constraints that were in place before
00:26the game. And it's quite normal that the French government was worried about those games. You
00:31had the security constraint with the security alert, terrorist alert and so on. You had the
00:37necessity of barricading literally the Seine River because the ceremony was taking place
00:42on the Seine for the opening. So the level of constraint was probably higher than ever.
00:48So now that we are at the end of the game, we can say, hopefully, luckily, that those
00:54constraints, those difficulties were rewarded by a popular success. But it was absolutely normal
01:01to be afraid and to be worried about those games beforehand. And Paris is unusual for an Olympic
01:09host in building relatively few new venues. They relied largely on either existing venues,
01:14such as the Stade de France or the Bercy Arena, or they constructed quite a few temporary venues.
01:20What will the game's legacy be for Paris and France?
01:24Well, the game legacy will be Paris, Paris, Paris and Paris, because we've got to accept those
01:32Olympics would not have been the same if the competition would have taken place in stadium
01:38outside of the city. The bet that was made was to transform Paris as a stadium and the games were
01:45inside the city. Again, that caused a lot of constraints, a lot of pain, a lot of difficulty
01:52for the Parisian people. We've got to remember that. But now that it's been done, we could see
01:57popular success, people happy not only to come to watch athletes and competition, but happy to come
02:03to Paris, happy to be there at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, happy to see the Olympic flame in
02:09the Garden of Tuileries and so on and so forth. So I think Paris was the main actor of this game
02:15and probably Paris today deserve a gold medal as well.
02:19And Paris has traditionally not been known as probably a great sporting city, you know,
02:24unlike others such as London, New York, Madrid, Sydney, Rome. Do you think that's about to change?
02:31Hopefully it may change. It's interesting that when I talked, it's a very personal experience,
02:38but when I talk to French fans who were flocking to the venue, for example, in front of the
02:44Trocadéro, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, you know, there is this champion's park where all
02:49athletes have been coming. When I talk to people, they say that, yes, they experience not only sport
02:54as a competition, but also sport as a lifestyle. And that was partly the bet of the government
03:00to make sport as a value in a French society, which does usually not pay much attention to
03:07sport. Now, luckily, again, I said Paris deserve a gold medal, but the athletes deserve a lot of
03:14medals because if they had not won so many medals, I think around 60 for France as we speak now,
03:21probably the success would not have been such. So success brings success. That's very well known,
03:27but it was true for the Paris 24 Olympics. That's looking up for Paris and sport. Thank
03:33you very much, Richard Verley, the France correspondent of the Swiss Daily Blick.