Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo supporting her city’s 2024 bid at Rio 2016 (GamesBids Photo)
The city of Paris has committed 145 million euros (USD $162 million) to carry out work ensuring the city wins the bid for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games.
Reports suggest about 30 million euros will be used to build a second stadium in Bercy, and 21 million euros on an aquatic centre near the Stade de France in the north of the city. Another 25 million euros is planned for training sites, 12.5 million for a swimming pool in Seine Saint-Denis and 6.5 million on the Pierre de Coubertin Stadium.
Paris will also reportedly guarantee four million euros to set aside for the future Olympic Village. The overall budget for construction work on the Games is estimated at three billion euros, including 1.5 billion of public money.
Paris City Council will meet next week to vote on a resolution that will formally giving Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo the power to sign guarantees required by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to host the 2024 Games. The guarantees are due into the IOC by October 7 when stage 2 documents are to be submitted.
This guarantee process is largely academic for Paris as Hidalgo and the city council are strong supporters of France’s Olympic bid, however it has become a roadblock for at least one competitor in the race – Rome.
Rome’s Mayor Virginia Raggi was elected on an anti Olympic-bid platform after the campaign launched last September. She is not likely to sign any guarantees, an omission that would force the Italian bid to withdraw from the competition.
Euro 2016 fans celebrate at Eiffel Tower in Paris (Paris 2024 Twitter Photo)
Jean-Francois Martins, Deputy Mayor of Paris responsible for Sport, told AFP, “it’s a formal stage but at the same time extremely important.”
Martins said, “we have gambled on a simple concept, relying on existing sites. This is the first time in the history of the Olympics that a city has decided that residents will have their say and be able to choose some of the amenities around the Olympic venues”.
Budapest, Los Angeles and Rome are competing with Paris for the 2024 Games. The IOC will elect the host city in Lima, Peru on September 13, 2017.
