Paris 2024 Olympics: Condoms for athletes, but no champagne – organisers hope Games can unite a world in conflict
Olympic chiefs hope a world divided by coronavirus and conflict can be united by cardboard and condoms.
In the city of love – with pandemic-era Olympic restrictions over – Paris 2024 is encouraging amour among athletes again.
After the keys were handed over, Sky News joined Games chiefs on inspections of the Olympic Village that will welcome 9,000 athletes in July.
In the accommodation we were shown the surprising bed frame – cardboard. Sturdy enough, apparently, to support 250kg of Olympian – or Olympians.
And we were told 300,000 condoms will be available in the Olympic Village – enough for almost two each for every day of the Games.
Mixing among nations is very much encouraged again with the creation of a Village Club, after social distancing orders at the last summer Games in Tokyo in 2021 and an intimacy ban from the International Olympic Committee.
A room prepared for athletes inside the Olympic and Paralympic Village
“It is very important that the conviviality here is something big,” Laurent Michaud, director of the village, told Sky News.
“Working with the athletes commission, we wanted to create some places where the athletes would feel very enthusiastic and comfortable.”
But while a French staple is off the menu in the village there will be plenty to ensure athletes are well-nourished and refreshed.
“No champagne in the village, of course, but they can have all the champagne they want also in Paris,” said Mr Michaud, who previously ran Center Parcs in France.
“We will have more than 350 metres of buffet with the world food… and I’m sure that the athletes will be very happy to have some French specialties made over here.
“But the variety will first respond to the athletes’ needs for their nutrition and their performance.”
The Olympic Village is the single costliest Olympic project at €2bn (£1.7bn) but largely funded by property investors.
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Inside the Paris Olympic village
Around €650m of public funds have also been used for the project that regenerates this deprived area of Saint-Denis near the Stade de France.
The size of 70 football pitches, the village is split by the River Seine with a bridge to link the accommodation blocks.
For the IOC it is about avoiding white elephant projects of the past – ensuring host cities are not left with vast infrastructure built for the Olympics that has little lasting legacy.
“It’s about a responsible Games delivering less complex Games, which means less costly Games, and that’s very important because we have to be cost conscious in today’s world,” IOC member Pierre-Olivier Beckers-Vieujant, the Paris 2024 Olympic coordination commission chair, told Sky News.
“It’s a project where 95% of the venues would be either existing or temporary. So in itself, Paris had to build a very limited number of venues and or infrastructure, all of them being needed by the region, like the various infrastructure of the village here.”
There are little signs yet across Paris the Games are coming – the most visible indicators are the additional CCTV cameras being installed.
Changes to the law were required to allow AI video surveillance to be used to identify potential threats with the security concerns heightened amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
But organisers are still determined to take events into the heart of Paris.
The opening ceremony will be staged down the River Seine with the athletes parading on a flotilla of boats, although the terror threat has curtailed ticket availability from viewing positions.
How the opening ceremony could look. Pic: Paris 2024
Pic: Paris 2024
Urban sports will be at Place de la Concorde at the end of the Champs-Elysees, including the debut of breaking, BMX freestyle and skateboarding.
And the city’s most iconic venue – the Eiffel Tower – will be a stunning setting for beach volleyball.
Olympic Games executive director Christophe Dubi told Sky News: “This incredible city backdrop comes with the challenge of having this concentration of people over what is in the end a pretty small footprint.”
But it is a welcome challenge after spectators were banned from Tokyo’s venues in 2021 due to the pandemic and Rio 2016 struggled to attract large capacities.
The crowds should be back in force for the first time since London 2012 and the most tickets outside of France have been sold to fans in Britain.
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“It has to be a celebration and it is a celebration – we’ve had many challenges in the past,” Mr Dubi said.
“In Rio we faced situations that were amazingly complex. But what you see is that with a bit of goodwill from everyone – starting with the organisers, but also as far as the Olympic community is concerned – meeting with the challenges and coming up with solutions… is in the greater interest that the Games represent.
“What we all want is for unity, peace and a celebration of the best athletes. This is how this creative family works together.
“Any challenge? We will win.”
The cardinals have arrived, the finishing touches are being made; Vatican City is preparing for an election like no other.
On Wednesday, the papal conclave begins and many visitors to St Peter’s Square already have a clear view on what they would like the outcome to be.
“I want a liberal pope,” says Joyce who has travelled to Rome from the US.
“My number one is Pierbattista Pizzaballa,” says blogger Teodorita Giovannella referencing the 60-year-old Italian cardinal.
Rome resident Michele Rapinesi thinks the next pope will be the Vatican’s secretary of state, Pietro Parolin, who was Pope Francis’ number two.
Joyce has travelled all the way to Rome from the US
Michele Rapinesi speaks to Siobhan Robbins
Although the job of selecting the next pontiff lies with 133 cardinal electors, Ms Giovannella and Mr Rapinesi are among 75,000 Italians playing an online game trying to predict who they’ll pick.
Fantapapa is a similar format to fantasy football, but teams are made up of prospective pontiffs.
Ms Giovannella has chosen three popular Italians as her favourites: Cardinals Pizzaballa, Zuppi and Parolin.
After 47 years she wants an Italian pope but believes an Asian or African would be a good “plot twist”.
Despite the growing speculation and excitement, for the cardinal electors the papal conclave is the serious and sombre process of choosing the next leader of the Catholic Church and its 1.4 billion followers.
Teodorita Giovannella is hoping the next pope will be a fellow Italian
To keep the vote secret, they are locked in the Sistine Chapel which has been swept for hidden cameras, recording equipment and bugs.
The windows are covered to keep the outside world out and to stop drones from spying.
Mobile phones are banned and signal jammers have been installed to help stop any information being leaked.
Ballots are burned after they are cast and a plume of coloured smoke shows people if a new pope has been chosen.
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Preparations inside the Sistine Chapel
The cardinal who is elected will become one of the most powerful men in the world and will set the course for the Catholic Church for years to come, making decisions which will affect the lives of millions of people worldwide.
Pope Francis’ 12-year reign pulled the church in a more progressive direction.
His fight for migrants and climate change made him a muse for Roman street artist Mauro Pallotta.
He met him five times and painted more than 30 pictures of him, celebrating his life on the walls of Rome.
Siobhan Robbins with Rome street artist Mauro Pallotta
One of Mr Pallotta’s artworks of Pope Francis
One shows Francis with a catapult shooting out hearts.
“It depicts the strong love he had for people,” Mr Pallotta explains.
In another, he wears a cape and is depicted as a superhero.
“I hope the new pope continues the way of Pope Francis and remembers the poor people of the world,” he says.
Whether the next pontiff is another pope of the people, a progressive or conservative will soon be decided by the cardinals.
Their choice will determine if the Catholic Church continues down the route set by Francis or takes a different path.
Israel has approved a plan to capture all of the Gaza Strip and remain there for an unspecified length of time, Israeli officials say.
According to Reuters, the plan includes distributing aid, though supplies will not be let in yet.
The Israeli official told the agency that the newly approved offensive plan would move Gaza’s civilian population southward and keep humanitarian aid from falling into Hamas’s hands.
On Sunday, the United Nations rejected what it said was a new plan for aid to be distributed in what it described as Israeli hubs.
Israeli cabinet ministers approved plans for the new offensive on Monday morning, hours after it was announced that tens of thousands of reserve soldiers are being called up.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far failed to achieve his goal of destroying Hamas or returning all the hostages, despite more than a year of brutal war in Gaza.
Palestinian children struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Khan Younis, Gaza. Pic: AP
Officials say the plan will help with these war aims but it would also push hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to southern Gaza, exacerbating an already dire humanitarian crisis.
They said the plan included the “capturing of the strip and the holding of territories”.
It would also try to prevent Hamas from distributing humanitarian aid, which Israel says strengthens the group’s rule in Gaza.
The UN rejected the plan, saying it would leave large parts of the population, including the most vulnerable, without supplies.
It said it “appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic – as part of a military strategy”.
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IDF reservists call for end to war in Gaza
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More than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed since the IDF launched its ground offensive in the densely-populated territory, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
It followed the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and saw around 250 people taken hostage.
A fragile ceasefire that saw a pause in the fighting and the exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners collapsed earlier this year.
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