14 Sep 2017
Beach volleyball at the Eiffel Tower and more as IOC approves plans for Paris 2024 Olympics
BY Kim Megson
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has officially approved plans to transform Paris into an Olympic Park for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games – a decision which will see sporting events take place against the spectacular backdrop of the city’s historic buildings, streets and landmarks.
The Champs Elysees and the River Seine are among the 38 Olympic and Paralympic venues spread across the French capital, while beach volleyball will be held at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.
The concept to integrate sport into the very centre of the city is the brainchild of sports architects Populous and Egis, the Paris-based, international consultancy, engineering and operation group. The pair were chosen in 2016 to collaborate on the Paris 2024 bid, and were tasked with envisioning “the most sustainable Games ever.”
“Our mission was to understand whether each sport and discipline would best function in existing venues, new buildings when required for legacy, or temporary modular sites, and then identifying the best option in each case,” said Egis project director Diogo Taddei.
“One of the biggest challenges was to transform illustrious Parisian monuments into sports venues, adapting them to the requirements of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.”
Populous senior principal Ben Vickery added: “The city of Paris will be a magnificent Olympic Park and transforming some of the world’s most beautiful and historic sites into temporary stunning stages for sport will provide unforgettable images around the globe.
“Bringing people together to enjoy an unforgettable experience is the overriding ambition of Populous in all that we do and is at the heart of the Paris 2024 vision.”
The practice’s involvement with Paris 2024 takes its overall major events experience to 13 Olympic and seven Paralympic Games, including Sydney 2000 and London 2012 – for which it designed the main stadiums – and Rio 2016.
Egis have designed several French stadiums, in addition to the Baraki stadium in Algiers, Algeria; the Olympic stadium in Istanbul, Turkey; and venues in Morocco and the Middle East.
The decision to award Paris the 2024 Games was officially agreed by the IOC yesterday (13 September), with the committee, in a historic move, also awarding Los Angeles – which had bid to host the same tournament – the following Games. It brings to an end two decades of heartache for Paris, after the city lost out in the bidding for both the 2008 and 2012 Games.
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