At the close of the Paris 2024 Games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was more than happy to praise itself.
Writing on its website, it said the games “were younger, more inclusive, more urban and more sustainable” than those that went before them.
They were also the first Olympic Games with full gender parity as the IOC “allocated 50 per cent of the quota places to female athletes and 50 per cent to male athletes”.
The numbers, say the IOC, were impressive. Nearly one million people came out into the streets to watch the two Olympic cycling Road Races on August 3rd/4th.
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Almost 10 million tickets were sold with the Rugby Sevens attracting 530,000 spectators over the course of the women’s and men’s events, including a world record for women’s rugby with 66,000 attending the opening day at the Stade de France.
There was a European record for women’s basketball with 27,000 in Lille and a record attendance of 26,500 for women’s handball. Over half the world’s population, they claim, engaged with Paris 2024 via broadcast or digital channels, while more than 32 million new followers joined Olympics social media, more than tripling the growth seen during Tokyo 2020.
The Olympic legacy includes an Aquatics Centre strategically located in Seine-Saint-Denis, a disadvantaged area to the north of the city which lacks sports facilities and where one in every two 11-year-olds cannot swim. The athletes Olympic Village is to be turned into a new residential and business eco-district.
But there are other legacy issues about which the IOC would be less pleased. Although the Games closed in Paris on August 11th, the spillover always takes on a life of its own. The Olympics barely stops at all every four years.
The case of US gymnast Jordan Chiles somersaulting into the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) where the rightful owner of a bronze medal was hotly contested already looks to have the legs that will keep a feud running.
Romania’s Ana Barbosu was the original bronze medal winner until the USA made a protest about the marks given to their athlete.
That intervention successfully changed the score, just as the celebrating 18-year-old Romanian was dancing in the hall with her national flag draped across her shoulders. Looking up in shock, she saw the American’s name replace hers on the board.
An apoplectic Romania then complained, taking the case to CAS, who had set up shop in Paris, and won the dispute. So, the medal bounced back to Romania..
Why? Because the original protest from the USA was four seconds outside gymnastic’s 60 second challenge deadline. The USA said they have proof that they were inside the 60 seconds. But CAS said their rules don’t allow for an arbitral award to be reconsidered even with new evidence.
Switzerland’s highest court, the Swiss Tribunal, has been mentioned. And the European Court of Human Rights. Mental health pinball for a Romanian teenager and the 23-year-old American. Legacy.
And not forgetting Dutchman Steven van de Velde, who was convicted of raping a 12-year-old in 2016. He and Matthew Immers reached the quarter-finals in beach volleyball. They played four matches under the watchful gaze of the Eiffel Tower to a soundtrack of constant booing and whistling from the stands.
Speaking to the Dutch national broadcaster NOS after the competition, Van de Velde was asked if he had thought about quitting Paris.
“I thought: ‘I don’t want that. I’m not going to give others the power to decide they can bully me away or get rid of me,’” he said. Wrong answer, but in keeping with a breathtaking lack of remorse.
Some detail. When Van de Velde (now 30) was 19 he raped a 12-year-old British girl who he had contacted via social media. He travelled from the Netherlands to Milton Keynes in England and plied her with alcohol. He raped her once that night and twice the next day. He was sentenced to four years in prison in England. Transferred to a Dutch jail, he served 13 months.
The judge at the time told Van de Velde: “Your hopes of representing your country [in the Olympics] now lie as a shattered dream.”
How wrong he was. The IOC said it was powerless to stop the Dutch Olympic team from sending a child rapist to Paris 2024 if he had qualified in the normal way.
In boxing, whatever it says on the passport was the IOC’s attitude to gender eligibility. Theirs was a legal solution to a biological question.
“As with previous Olympic boxing competitions, the gender and age of the athletes are based on their passport,” it said in a statement on August 1st.
The IOC have left such issues as XX or XY to the federations to sort out. But as they do not recognise the International Boxing Association (IBA), the passport was their solution to an Olympic Games problem, which resulted in an ugly witch hunt for which they were partly responsible.
That is also part of their legacy, an unwillingness to throw their arms around fairness, health and safety in women’s boxing and protect all their athletes.
So, for all the IOC’s self-praise, perhaps too, in memory of the winners and the wounded, a moment of self-reflection for the legacy of Paris 2024.
