Paris 2024 Olympics chief: “We are ready”

Paris 2024 Olympics chief: “We are ready” | Global Stage

Eight months ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Tony Estanguet says Paris plans to offer “a fantastic moment of celebration.”

Estanguet serves as President of the Paris 2024 host committee and led the hard-fought battle to bring the Games back to the city for the first time in 100 years.

The three-time Olympic gold medalist, a canoeist, is one of the most decorated French athletes and the first to win gold in three different Olympiads. In 2022, he served as his nation’s flag-bearer at the Beijing Games.

“I lived (my) first life as an athlete and my life completely changed, thanks to the Olympics and sport,” Estanguet told GZERO’s Tony Maciulis.

On the sidelines of the recent Paris Peace Forum, Estanguet said Paris is ready to host an estimated 10 million spectators across 41 venues in and around the city. The city recently had a spate of bad publicity over bed bug infestation, a story Estanguet says is “ridiculous.” “People will criticize,” he said, but “we are ready to welcome the world.”

France is not, however, prepared to welcome the Russian flag. President Emmanuel Macron said in September that Russia has no place at the Games due to war crimes committed during its ongoing war in Ukraine. While the International Olympic Committee will ultimately decide, Macron wants Russian athletes to compete under the Russian Olympic Committee flag instead.

“Definitely there is impact on political side, but what is really important for me to protect and to preserve is the fact that the decisions are made from the sport movement,” Estanguet said.

The 2024 Summer Games begin on Friday, July 26.

More from GZERO Media

A Russian army soldier walks along a ruined street of Malaya Loknya settlement, which was recently retaken by Russia's armed forces in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict in the Kursk region, on March 13, 2025.

Russian Defence Ministry/Handout via REUTERS

The Russian leader has conditions of his own for any ceasefire with Ukraine, and he also wants a meeting with Donald Trump.

Mahmoud Khalil speaks to members of the media about the Revolt for Rafah encampment at Columbia University on June 1, 2024.

REUTERS/Jeenah Moon

The court battle over whether the US can deport Mahmoud Khalil, the 30-year-old Palestinian-Algerian activist detained in New York last Saturday, began this week in Manhattan. Khalil, an outspoken activist for Palestinian rights at Columbia University, was arrested Saturday at his apartment in a university-owned building at Columbia University by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, and he is now being held in an ICE detention center in Louisiana.

The Israeli Air Force launched an airstrike on Thursday, targeting a building in the Mashrou Dummar area of Damascus.
(Photo by Rami Alsayed/NurPhoto)

An Israeli airstrike destroyed a residential building on the outskirts of Damascus on Thursday in the latest Israeli incursion into post-Assad Syria.

Lars Klingbeil (l), Chairman of the SPD parliamentary group, and Friedrich Merz, CDU Chairman and Chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, talk at the end of the 213th plenary session of the 20th legislative period in the German Bundestag.

Germany’s government is in a state of uncertainty as the outgoing government races to push through a huge, and highly controversial, new spending package before its term ends early this spring.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, a Republican, speaks as the U.S. vice president visits East Palestine, Ohio, U.S., February 3, 2025.
Rebecca Droke/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

On Wednesday, Environmental Protection Agency chief Lee Zeldin redefined the agency’s mission, stating that its focus is to “lower the cost of buying a car, heating a home, and running a business.”

Paige Fusco

Canada has begun thinking the unthinkable: how to defend against a US attack. It suddenly realizes — far too late – that the 2% GDP goal on defense spending is no longer aspirational but urgent. But what kind of military does it need? To find out, GZERO Publisher Evan Solomon spoke with retired Vice Admiral Mark Norman, the former vice chief of defense staff in Canada and currently a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

The energy transition is one of society’s biggest challenges – especially for Europe’s largest economy – according to a survey commissioned by the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt and undertaken by the Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion Research. Sixty percent of those polled believe the energy transition is necessary but have doubts about how it is being implemented. A whopping 63% would like to be more involved in energy-transition decisions affecting their region. The findings strongly suggest that it’s essential to get the public more involved in energy policymaking – to help build a future energy policy that leads to both economic prosperity and social cohesion. Read the full study “Attitudes Toward the Energy Transition” here.