PARIS: International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach praised Paris 2024’s preparations for the next year’s Olympics after visiting the athletes’ village on Friday.

Bach and members from the IOC executive committee completed a four-day visit in Paris with a visit of the village in the Seine Saint-Denis department, just north of central Paris, strolling through the 86 buildings that will feature more than 14,500 beds for the athletes.

“It’s always a great moment to be in an Olympic village because once the Games are over, the athletes will speak about the village,” Bach told reporters.

“This is where the heart of the Olympic Games will be and the athletes will have great conditions. From what we would see here it’s compact, very pragmatic, but also a wonderful scenery.

“I could continue to praise the preparations. It’s not only me, but the entire IOC executive board is very happy, very satisfied with the stage of the preparations.”

The Village covers the equivalent of 70 football pitches and will go on to host 9,000 athletes for the Paralympic Games that follow the July 26-August 11 Olympics before becoming “a part of the surrounding city, for people in Seine-Saint-Denis”.

Paris 2024 president Tony Estanguet said preparations were on track.

“The athletes’ village is being finalised,” he said. “As scheduled, it will be delivered in early March so the organising committee will be able to prepare it for the athletes upon their arrival on July 15.”

The visit went as normal despite a gas leak on the construction site in the morning.

Bach batted off criticism by Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo who said that, while the Games infrastructure will be ready, “there are two things for which we will not be ready”, namely transport and also the problem of homelessness.

“Our partner is the organising committee and there’s been no split with them,” he said.

In a separate address to media, the head of the Paris region’s transport authority, Valerie Pecresse, said almost doubling the price of metro tickets during the Paris Olympics was “fair”.

Single tickets will be sold for four euros ($4.37), compared to 2.10 euros now, and 10-ticket blocks for 32 euros, compared to 16.90 currently.

The cost, Pecresse added, is “not borne” by people living in the Paris region, with the transport chief estimating that additional expense to the authority at 200 million euros.

Looking ahead to France’s potential performance on home soil, Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera underlined her “obviously demanding” goal of the country finishing in the top five in the overall medal table.

“It would be premature to predict a [more precise] rank in the medal table because many uncertainties remain,” she added.

France finished eighth at the Tokyo Olympics, delayed a year from 2020 to 2021 because of the Covid pandemic, with 10 golds, 12 silvers and 16 bronzes.

Published in Dawn, December 2nd, 2023