The Games are a disaster, until they’re not: 10 things Brisbane can learn from Paris

Now that Paris 2024 is done and the Olympic torch passed on, Brisbane’s time in the sunlight of the sporting world is, cripes, still eight years away. Nonetheless, there is plenty for Brisbane organisers will take from Paris as they start shaping how the Games will look in 2032.

To sift through the lessons from Paris, I caught up with Brisbane 2032 Organising Committee President Andrew Liveris, who has spent the past two weeks in daily briefings with IOC and Paris 2024 leaders, meeting people who run national olympic committees and Olympic sports and of course, watching Australian athletes win a truckload of medals.

Olympic events can be staged anywhere

We all thought that Paris’ use of temporary venues at some of the world’s most famous landmarks would be spectacular. It’s been magic. South-east Queensland doesn’t have an Eiffel Tower (RIP Park Road’s Rue de Paris) or a Grand Palais, but it has great beaches, stunning outdoors and a lush tropical vibe, which all offer new possibilities for staging Olympic events. The first rule of Brisbane 2032 should be that when it comes to venues, there are no rules.

Says Liveris: “If you take one of the big attributes of Australians, Queenslanders, Brisbane and all our regions, we love our sports. Put them in places where people are, get people to those places and create activations – fun things to do, things for kids.”

The domed ceiling above Paris’ Grand Palais provided a stunning backdrop for Olympic fencing.Credit: Getty Images

When it comes to athlete comfort, don’t skimp on the paté

An Australian team official who’s been to many Olympic Games privately described the provisions for athletes in the Paris Olympic Village as the worst he had encountered, with long lines in the cafeteria to get it substandard food, thin mattresses and inadequate cooling.

Things got better as the Games progressed, particularly once Paris 2024 ditched their ambition of turning hungry athletes vegan and let them eat meat. The Brisbane, Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast athletes villages don’t need to be five-star, but the stars of the show do deserve full stomachs and a good night’s sleep.

Says Liveris: “It was a rough start. You have got to make the athlete experience the very best. They have trained all their lives. This is their village. I have been in the village, I have seen the beds and I’ve seen the spectacular job of remedy the AOC [Australian Olympic Committee] did. But in those first four or five days, that was the big discussion.”

Extra security is worth the extra cost

With due respect to floaters in the Seine, the biggest question hanging over these Games was whether a city in the sights of Islamic terrorists and Russian saboteurs could keep people safe at the Games. Thankfully for everyone here, the answer was an emphatic Bien Sur!

The French national government set a security budget of €320 million ($531 million), which bought an additional 45,000 soldiers, police and private security on the ground for the opening ceremony and 35,000 throughout the rest of the Games. You couldn’t walk two blocks in Paris without coming across an armed patrol and the city had never felt safer.

Members of the BRI, France’s elite counter-terrorism brigade, were part of the security presence in Paris.Credit: Eddie Jim

Brisbane is unlikely to need soldiers armed with automatic weapons on its streets but, unless the world is a very different place by 2032, it should take a long, careful look at how France approached its most important task at these Games.

Keep calm when things inevitably go wrong

In the first 24 hours of these Games, pouring rain drenched the opening ceremony, sewage run-off polluted the Seine and forced the postponement of the men’s triathlon and militant, left-wing activists launched a co-ordinated attack on France’s high-speed network. It was a shaky start to the Games but French authorities, including Paris 2024 organisers, quickly restored public confidence.

Says Liveris: “Those fires on the train line on the first day were a bit of a concern, but they jumped on it. I think they have done a spectacular job and I take so much from their organising committee. This was a very calm, get the job done culture.”

Every Games is a disaster – until they are a spectacular success

As Paris 2024 was in its final preparations, the city’s deputy mayor responsible for the Olympics, Pierre Rabadan, was nonplussed at the negative portrayal of the Games in the local press. “We have, as usual, in all the Games, negative things in the media, questions, sometimes logical, sometimes a little bit exaggerated,” he lamented.

It is the same story at nearly Games.

What Brisbane needs to remember is that once the Games start, sport takes over, the gloom lifts and so long as organisers have done their jobs, it’ll be a great show. If at any point doubt they doubt this, they should remember Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s triumphant declaration to Le Monde: “F--- the reactionaries, f--- this far right, f--- all those who would lock us into the war of everyone against everyone!”

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo takes a dip in the Seine to show it is safe for swimming.Credit: AP

An opening ceremony should inspire, not offend

You don’t have to be Israel Folau to understand that inviting drag queens and Papa Smurf to what looked like the Last Supper was going to put noses out of joint. The artistic director who arranged Paris’ wildly idiosyncratic opening ceremony, Thomas Jolly, says he never intended to offend. But the morning after the Olympic cauldron was lit, Paris 2024 organisers felt the need to apologise to people who were.

Once the rain and smoke had cleared, it became apparent that the near-naked blue fellow at the centre of this imbroglio wasn’t an off-colour depiction of the son of God but rather, the Greek god of wine featured in a 17th-century painting by Jan van Bijlert. At any rate, Jolly’s admirable determination to eschew cultural cliches – there wasn’t a beret or baguette to be seen – lays down a challenge for Brisbane’s creative minds to look beyond budgie smugglers and shrimps on barbies.

A depiction of the Greek god of wine at the opening ceremony was mistaken for the Last Supper.

The Games don’t deliver a bonanza for local businesses

One of the best meals I’ve had in Paris was a delightful lunch at Le Mesturet Bistro, a traditional brasserie in the 2nd arrondissement (if you ever stop by, try the soupe froide).

The restaurant owner who served it, Alain Fontaine, also delivered a message that Brisbane hospitality businesses hoping to get rich off the Games would do well to remember. “As citizens, we are proud; as restaurateurs, we are disappointed.”

While Games venues have been packed, Paris has experienced its quietest summer in memory beyond the COVID years. Brisbane 2032 needs to spread the economic benefits of the Olympics beyond the coffers of Games sponsors. That will require a significant investment in transport so that people can easily get from sporting sites to other things the host cities have to offer.

Says Liveris: “We have got to get that right. Look at the numbers here – 9 million tickets sold, 2 million people going to the celebration sites. We should want those numbers for the economy and the growth of the state and the city and the country. I don’t want us to have the hobbling notion that we can’t handle the numbers because we don’t have the infrastructure.”

Decathlon and heptathlon can stay – spendathon out

Brisbane will also have to sink some serious money into sporting infrastructure but when it comes to the operational costs of an Olympics, Paris shows it is possible to be cost-neutral on the public purse. It will take a while for France’s Cour des Comptes to tally up the bottom line of these Games.

Says Liveris: “We clearly have to look to and follow our financial commitments under the [IOC] New Norms. We have to, I have to, deliver the Games at no cost to the taxpayer.”

La joies des jeux

After the organisational failings of Rio and dour circumstances of Tokyo, Paris has put the joy back in the Olympics.

Despite the heavy security presence, there was a refreshing openness about these Games. The Olympics took up residence at some Paris’ best addresses but didn’t take over the entire city.

The organisers never looked harried, the volunteers were helpful and the grumpy Parisians you normally run into left the city for the mountains or the coast.

Brisbane, like Paris, needs to keep it fun.

Winning hosts are happy hosts

Leon Marchand, the brightest star of the Paris pool, celebrates one of his four gold medals.Credit: Getty Images

Les Bleus didn’t quite have the Olympics they’d hoped for, with pre-Games predictions pegging them third on the medal table. But between the march of Leon Marchand at the La Defense Arena, Teddy Riner confirming his status as a legend of judo and a dramatic face-off between two French women for a fencing gold medal, the locals had plenty to cheer for. Team Australia meanwhile, simply had a ball.

Says Liveris: “We are so good at this. I mean, look at our golds – what an achievement by these athletes. Brisbane 2032 is certainly going to bottle that up and release it.”

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