Is a city known for its tourism ready for the biggest tourist event in its history? This weekend, the 2024 Paris Olympics will open with a spectacular parade on the Seine, led through the beautiful and historic landmarks of the City of Love. With the first Olympics opening ceremonies to be held outside of an arena and the expected return of world-famous athletes, the 2024 Paris Olympics promises to be historic.
But the preparations for the games leaves questions about the long-lasting impacts on the city. Moreover, as the United States and North America prepare to welcome multiple large international sporting events in the next four years, many Americans may be wondering the same.
In 2016, when the Olympic bid was first announced, promises were made to residents of Paris and outlying suburbs. While some of those promises have been kept, many were not because of time, available money, or logistical challenges. With the expected arrival of tens of millions of tourists — not to mention thousands of athletes, officials, and reporters — some Parisians are feeling the impact of the games on their everyday lives.
Transportation is always difficult in Paris but has become more and more disrupted while the city has been working on the promised updates and introductions of new lines. Despite assuring residents that four new lines would be opened, only one is partially ready. The others have been delayed until at least 2025. The bid also promised free transportation with the presentation of a ticket to the events but transportation fees will increase during the period of events.
Paris also needed to build more spaces and renovate existing ones to accommodate the number of competitions. Because of the size and density of the host city, many of those projects were delayed, changed, or ended up costing more than promised. However, the events to be held in arenas outside of the city seem to be ready, according to Paris resident Luce Morilhat.
The 24-year-old purchase and production coordinator at Spartner, a sports travel management agency, said that because of the city’s size, stopping traffic to build these structures was quite difficult and she feels like the whole town is under construction.
“The challenging part will be the flow of public transportation and tourists,” Morilhat said. “It will be something the city has never faced and that seems like the biggest challenge.”
Finally, the seemingly most successfully fulfilled promise was to clean up the River Seine to hold events on the water. The endeavor has been at the top of mind for media for months, debating the question, “Will the Seine be safe to swim in?” On July 17, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo swam in the Seine. But this was following a “poop protest” — Parisians threatening to defecate in the Seine, protesting the billions of taxpayer dollars spent on the cleanup effort — and months of unusually high levels of water in the river, due to weather conditions. President Emmanuel Macron promised to swim with Hidalgo but was nowhere to be found on the 17th. While testing proved it to be safe enough for Hidalgo to swim in, some are still apprehensive whether it will be safe enough for the athletic competitions to be held in that water.
Still, Paris achieved something that critics thought was impossible and could be a model for future environmental impacts of the games: to use the river in the games, Paris had to clean the pollution up and because of the Olympics, the Seine has definitively cleaner water for the first time in a century. Some are still concerned that the cleanse will be reversed following the Olympics and that the billions of dollars spent will have been for nothing.
It’s not just the Olympics’ impact on taxpayers’ wallets that has Paris citizens upset. The preparation and the games themselves have severely disrupted everyday life. Most people are deeply opposed to their cities holding the Olympics. “For the 2022 Winter Olympics, Oslo, Stockholm, Krakow, Munich, Quebec City, Davos, and Barcelona all dropped out of the bidding process because they did not have enough public support to justify continuing to compete to host,” wrote Kavitha A. Davidson and Jessica Luther in their 2020 book Loving Sports When They Don’t Love You Back: Dilemmas of the Modern Fan. Grassroots protests eventually even reversed the decision to hold the summer games in Boston this year.
People are concerned that their cities playing host to these Goliath events would prove risky to their homes. Los Angelans held protests against the 2028 bid to hold the games in California, Davidson and Luther wrote. City-dwellers’ concerns include environmental risks, financial impacts, political concerns, and community destruction. Cities spend millions and billions of dollars to ready their infrastructure but sometimes even that spending and promises aren’t enough, as seen with Paris’ preparations. And despite arguments that the Olympics are beneficial for the host cities and countries, Davidson and Luther assert that there is no real evidence of those benefits.
This is evident with the impact that the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics had on Rio and Brazil, as highlighted in Loving Sports When They Don’t Love You Back. Despite the massive amounts of money poured into the spaces, they were left in financial ruin after the athletes left — the huge arenas were left useless, and the events may have caused a recession for the country. Andrew Zimablist also wrote that any problems present before the events were exacerbated by the preparation.
As we turn from this summer’s Paris Olympics to 2026’s World Cup and 2028’s Olympics, Americans wonder what the impact will be on their homes.
The 2026 World Cup will function a bit differently; instead of being centered in one city like usual, the tournament will take place across North America, inhabiting 16 cities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Philadelphia is already gearing up for a busy year, hosting six matches of the Cup, the annual Major League Baseball All-Star Game, and the United States semi-quincentennial, the 250th anniversary of the founding of the country — important to historic Philadelphia as the birthplace of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitutional Convention. While Philly has not said many specifics yet, they are already thinking about how they will prepare for the descent of fans on the city and have hosted a few exhibition games over the last few years.
Theoretically, sharing the tournament with 16 cities, instead of putting the weight on only one, will mitigate negative fall-out. But the continent still needs to prepare for the intensity it faces in two years, especially with recent issues involving travel and cybersecurity.
Los Angeles, on the other hand, will be the sole city hosting the 2028 Summer Olympics. This will be the city’s third time as host, including games in 1984. Venues are almost finalized but the city still needs to determine answers to logistical questions, including how to hold the Opening Ceremonies in a stadium that has also been converted into a pool. Aquatic venues share the same issues that plague the Seine and transportation in LA is well-known to be dysfunctional, at best. Perhaps the games will help that, or could even turn a profit for the city, as the 1984 Olympics did. For Paris, this will not be the case, as the city spends more money to fulfill its original promises.
Because “[it’s] an event like no other,” Casey Wasserman, president of LA28, said in an interview, “there is no way to prepare for what happens on July 14, 2028, except to do all the work we can to put ourselves in the best position to be ready.”
Only time will tell if LA is ready for the 2028 Summer Olympics, and only time will tell if the Olympics will have a positive or negative impact on the city itself.
In just a few weeks, we’ll have those answers about the city of Paris, as well. Luce Morilhat, the Parisian sports travel coordinator, is excited. “Working in sports and having been a fan forever, I am happy we can welcome such a huge event,” she said while countering with worries about the challenges, the crowds, and conflicts between tourists and Parisians — they’re “not known for being the nicest.” While things escalated almost a year ago as Paris ramped up for this month’s events, Morilhat can feel the influx of people and anticipation building.
Despite those challenges, “in the end it will be a celebration,” Morilhat said. “And I hope France breaks the medal record!”
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