LAST UPDATE | 27 Jul
BEHOLD THE RINGS of power and glory and heartbreak and heroism and brilliance and cheating and grubby dealings and corrupted nobility.
If not all of humanity, the Olympic Games are all of humanity’s instincts. But whatever those five interlocking circles mean to you, the main point is that those rings keep on turning.
That’s not to say they have been turning smoothly. The city of London is not alone in mourning with nostalgia the 2012 Games: it’s been all downhill for the IOC and the Olympic movement since.
A quick precis. 2014 brought the $55 billion Winter Olympics in Sochi, during which Vladimir Putin invaded Crimea and after which the scale of the Russian state doping programme came to light. The 2016 Olympics in Rio were overshadowed by concerns around the Zika virus and became a financial disaster, costing around $14 billion – almost twice what was projected – and left a suite of white elephant venues.
Not even the IOC could tame Covid, of course, and while the official costs for the Tokyo Games came to $13 billion for a party to which not even the locals were invited, the actual costs are reported to be twice that.
Some of these are black swan events of course, but the scary reality for the IOC is the Games’ image has been scuffed over the last couple of decades by the repeating cycle of spiralling costs burdened by taxpayers in return for a bunch of esoteric and ultimately abandoned venues. Add to that falling TV viewership in the USA – where NBC pay approximately a fifth of all of the IOC’s broadcast revenue – and we run into existential questions as to how much longer the Olympic Games can continue in their current guise.
All of these worries were made tangible by the fact Paris and Los Angeles were the only bidders for the 2024 Games, with nobody expressing much of an interest in 2028. That problem was addressed by rewarding both cities, but evidently for the IOC, something has to change.
And so enter Paris, the city staging a Games aimed at redeeming the entire notion of hosting them. They have kept costs (relatively) cheap: roughly $9.7 billion in absolute terms, but adjust for inflation and these are the cheapest Games since Atlanta ’96. That’s partly because there has been so little new construction. The only new builds have been an aquatics centre and the athletes’ village, both of which are in the underprivileged district of St Denis. The aquatics centre will be handed over to the public after the Games, while the village will be converted into a mix of affordable housing and office space, all with a view to re-generating the area.
Otherwise the use of venues are acts of re-purposing. Equestrian, for instance, takes place at the Palace of Versailles, while a temporary beach volleyball venue has been set up at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.
Trust Paris to assume it should be the real star of these Games.
Paris is also eager to accentuate environmental sustainability, and so 80% of food sold at the Games is sourced from France to cut down on transport, and the athletes’ village was built without air conditioning. (It is instead to be cooled using a more efficient geothermal system, though this isn’t good enough for some, with Team USA insisting on equipping their rooms with AC units. Ireland have the option of using AC if they want, but haven’t done so in the days leading up to the opening ceremony.)
Of course these green claims are undermined by the fact so many people are flying to the event, with the sheer variety of events necessitating the travel of competitors far bulkier than even the weightlifters. “Who’s taking the horse to France?”, Greenpeace might be minded to ask.
The Games have also triggered a clean-up, with the Seine river – due to hold the open water swimming competitions – now supposedly safe for a dip for the first time in a century. Mayor Anne Hidalgo last week jumped into the river to prove the point.
This was a rare instance of political action in a country whose governance is effectively frozen. Emmanuel Macron’s snap elections at the start of the month and the subsequent rallying call to block the far-right RN from taking power has led to a parliament fractured across three parties among whom compromise and coalition appears impossible. The Prime Minister, Gabriele Attal, has tendered his resignation, but he remains at the head of a zombie government.
The international political situation is fraught. Russian and Belarussian athletes are not allowed to compete under their nation’s flag following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, though some are here under a neutral flag. Ukraine flirted with a boycott but have decided to compete, though are under national instruction not to engage with Russian and Belarussian athletes.
Israel, by contrast, are not banned, in spite of repeated calls by the Palestinian officials to have them barred from the Games. The Palestine Olympic Committee say that more than 350 athletes, coaches and sports personnel have died in Gaza, including Majed Abu Maraheel, who was Palestine’s first-ever Olympian runner at the Atlanta Games. There are eight Palestinian athletes at the Games, only one of whom qualified via the established criteria. The rest are here under special invite from the IOC.
There are 88 Israeli athletes here, and the Israel Olympic Committee say they will be surrounded by an unprecedented security force.
As for ourselves: it is neither bombastic nor tempting fate to say that this should be Ireland’s most successful Olympics ever. The current record stands at the six medals won at London 2012, but we land in Paris with a higher number of genuine meal hopes.
Let’s start with Rowing Nation, capital Skibbereen.
Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy are back to defend their lightweight double sculls gold medal from Tokyo, with O’Donovan seeking to become the first Irish athlete to defend an Olympic gold medal since Pat O’Callaghan in 1932. The duo are favourites to retain their title, but will face serious pressure from all of Italy, Switzerland, and France.
O’Donovan’s success has been an, er, rising tide, and rowing has been the best-funded Irish sport throughout this Olympic cycle. Hence we have further medal prospects: Daire Lynch and Philip Doyle should contend for a podium in the men’s double sculls, as should Aifric Keogh and Fiona Murtagh in the women’s pair, both of whom won bronze in Tokyo in the women’s four.
Like O’Donovan, Kellie Harrington is seeking to defend a gold medal, and her biggest rival is likely to be Brazil’s Beatriz Ferreira, whom she beat in the Tokyo final. Seedings mean the duo must meet before the final. Harrington is part of Ireland’s largest-ever Olympic boxing team, with Aoife O’Rourke the highest-seeded Irish fighter and a legitimate medal hope at 75kg.
Rhys McClenaghan suffered heartbreak with a fall off the pommel horse in Tokyo three years ago, after which he said the disappointment only made him more dangerous. He has since won back-to-back world titles and will medal in Paris if he can finish error-free.
Daniel Wiffen is another double world champion, winning the 800m and 1500m freestyle gold medals in a Doha pool earlier this year. He won those medals in a diluted field, however, given the championships proximity to the Olympics. That said, he remains among the medal favourites in both events.
Ireland’s showjumping team won the all-star Nations Cup a few weeks before the Games and are ranked at number one in the world, a fact which stirs medal aspirations in both the team and individual events.
Meanwhile, Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy have beaten stronger fields than they will face in the men’s golf in Paris, while Leona Maguire has won recently on the European Tour and is the grand old game’s prototype of a Big Game Player. Lara Gillespie is also being talked about as a potential bolter for a medal in the velodrome.
And this is all before we consider the track, where Ireland are bidding for their first Olympic medal since Sonia’s silver in Sydney 24 years ago. Rhasidat Adeleke will take the greatest share of national hope in the 400m, but she is competing against a stacked field. She will renew battle with Poland’s Natalia Kaczmarek, who pipped her to European gold earlier this summer, and then must also contend with world champion Marileidy Paulino and Jamaica’s Nickisha Pryce. If she is to medal, Adeleke will probably have to run beneath 49 seconds for the first time in her career.
Ireland also have medal chances in the women’s and mixed 400m relay, although Adeleke must run if Ireland are to clamber up a podium. The schedule clash with the individual 400m means her running the early rounds of the mixed are unlikely, though not yet ruled out, but the women’s 400m looks Ireland’s best bet.
Beneath the glint of metal, though, will be innumerable tales of mettle; the triumph that comes from battling against adversity, poor funding and meagre public interest to ascend to the status of Olympian. It is those stories that are most difficult to preview, but will be embraced once they emerge.
It is the central contradiction of the Olympic Games, and it’s ultimately what keeps us coming back for more.
Everything has a price to everyone but the athletes, whose brief parade in the sun is priceless.
Written by Gavin Cooney and originally published on The 42 whose award-winning team produces original content that you won’t find anywhere else: on GAA, League of Ireland, women’s sport and boxing, as well as our game-changing rugby coverage, all with an Irish eye. Subscribe here.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say