Paris’s legacy

Paris made history by hosting the first-ever opening ceremony outside a stadium, with athletes arriving on boats along the River Seine as Lady Gaga and Celine Dion performed in the rain. The Paris Organising Committee prioritised sustainability, repurposing existing venues like the Stade de France and La Défense Arena. 

However, the Seine River, central to the Games, sparked controversy due to water quality issues, causing delays to the men’s triathlon event and media coverage of illness among athletes. 

Here, Dr Stuart Whigham, Senior Lecturer in Sociology of Sport at Oxford Brookes University, discusses the potential lasting legacy of the Paris Games, examining its environmental initiatives, the political climate in France, and the impact on future Olympics. Dr Whigham’s expertise encompasses the links between sport, national identity, and the politics of major events.

What lessons have been learned from past Olympic Games to ensure a successful legacy for Paris 2024?
“I think that Paris 2024 has learned a number of lessons from past hosts such as London in 2012 and Rio de Janeiro in 2016 who have harnessed the Games as an opportunity to ‘image brand’ the host city on a global platform. Paris has similarly drawn upon its established status as a ‘global city’ within its strategic framing of the Games, not only through its elaborate opening ceremony which showcased a number of world-renowned landmarks (despite the torrential rain!), but also through the location of various events throughout the city. In many ways, this strategy mimics the lessons from past Games about the opportunities to leverage the event for economic benefits through tourism and inward investment to the nation – a return to an established pattern which was disrupted for the previous Games in Tokyo due to impact of the Covid-19 pandemic for Japan’s hosting. 

“Elsewhere, the use of a number of pre-established sporting infrastructure to minimise the expenditure on new facilities for the events draws lessons from other major sporting events which have used similar approaches, such as the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.” 

What will be the legacy of the Paris 2024 Olympics? 
“In terms of the positives of the legacy, the Paris Organising Committee have strategically used the locations of the Games venues to showcase Paris’ numerous landmarks to a global audience – similar to the strategy used by London 2012 as part of their image branding and ‘soft power’ strategy. It is therefore possible to see some emergent benefits for Paris and France in terms of the economic legacy.  

“However, in terms of Paris’ attempt to signpost the environmental and sustainability legacy of the Games as a benchmark for future Games, the pattern is more mixed. Whilst the Games have successfully minimised their carbon footprint by making more use of existing sporting infrastructure and avoiding the ‘white elephants’ of unused sporting stadia experienced by past Olympic hosts, the ambitious attempt to use the River Seine for the triathlon events after a significant investment in cleaning the river has been undermined by media coverage on concerns about the water quality, postponements of the events, and coverage of athletes becoming ill following participation in the event.” 

How much of an impact does the political scene in a country at the time of hosting an Olympic Games have on its legacy?
“It’s fair to say that the political climate of a host country can have a significant impact on both the success of the Games and the framing of the Games by the global media. Whilst in theory the Olympics should be an apolitical event in line with the Olympic Charter, it is naive to say that political considerations can be separated from a global event such as the Olympics – and also the significance of the host state’s investment of public funds in the event.  

“This made President Macron’s decision to call a snap election in July 2024 a significant surprise given the possibility of this in terms of destabilising the political climate in France at a pivotal period so close to the start of the Games – and I’m sure the 2024 Organising Committee would have not been pleased about the additional disruption to the last-minute preparations, particularly given the risk of the rise of right-wing political parties such as Marine Le Pen’s ‘Rassemblement National’.  

“However, the eventual result of the July elections – which led to a hung parliament with no clear control for either Le Pen’s right-wing alliance, Macron’s centre-right party, or the left-wing ‘New Popular Front’ bloc – perhaps helped to ironically provide some stability for the Games as an event.”

Can hosting an Olympic Games ever damage the image of a country or host city?
“There are indeed significant risks associated with hosting the Olympic Games for host countries and cities. It is a fine line between an event which is deemed to be a ‘success’ or ‘failure’ in the eyes of the global press. Indeed, in order to avoid the possibility of reputational risks for a host, a Games has to proceed with very few hiccups – any more than three  or four significant events which disrupt an event, and the narrative of an event quickly turns towards a story of ‘organisational failure’ by a host city.

“As witnessed during one of the more troubled periods of the Olympics history in the 1970s and early 1980s, major incidents – such as the terrorist atrocities at the 1972 Munich Olympics, the financial plight which befell the 1976 Montreal Olympics, and the Cold War tit-for-tat boycotts effecting the 1980 Moscow and 1984 Los Angeles Olympics – remain in the long-term memory of those events for years to come.

“For Paris 2024, it perhaps remains too soon to see if the host nation has successfully avoided these risks – at the time of writing, the negative press around the failure to achieve sufficient water quality in the Seine has not snowballed into a major controversy in the eyes of the global press. The aforementioned risks of political turmoil after the July election appears to have been avoided – and the overall narrative of the Games to this point is generally positive.”

How might the Paris 2024 Olympics influence future Olympics?
“As it stands, Paris 2024 has raised the benchmark in terms of image branding back to the levels of success seen at London 2012 and Rio 2016. The respective Organising Committees for Los Angeles 2028 and Brisbane 2032 will therefore have their work cut out to re-enact the strategies used by these cities, given that Los Angeles and Brisbane represent more modern cities which do not necessarily possess all of the historic landmarks of Paris, Rio, or London.  

“The emphasis on environmental sustainability in the Paris 2024 legacy strategy will also be challenging for the hosts of the 2028 and 2032 Games to deliver. Firstly, Paris struggled to achieve their lofty ambitions of achieving environmental improvements to the Seine through the hosting of the Games – the ability to turn rhetoric into reality in this regard remains questionable. Secondly, the USA and Australia’s macroeconomic strategies both depend upon a greater reliance on industries which have a greater carbon footprint – so mimicking the approach of Paris in contrasting economic and political climates will be challenging.

“The juggling act of achieving economic, environmental, diplomatic and sporting legacies evidenced by the relative successes and failures of Paris 2024 will therefore influence the future confirmed hosts in 2028 and 2032, as well as host nations and cities contemplating bids for the 2036 and 2040 iterations of the Games.”