At the headquarters of the Paris 2024 Games, televisions predict the future. On one screen, Olympic athletes are travelling along the Seine in a huge flotilla, cheered on by close to half a million people in a mocked-up version of what organisers promise will be the most spectacular opening ceremony in history. On another, breakdancers are spinning at dizzying speeds on the Place de la Concorde. A third video mashes action with whooping crowds, tricolour flags, and more of Paris’s greatest landmarks.
The message is stirring and direct: after all the problems that blighted the Rio and Tokyo Olympics, from spiralling costs to corruption and Covid, the Paris Games – which start a year on Wednesday – will be a glorious reboot. Even if the threat of strikes, civil disobedience and terrorism still linger uneasily over the French capital.
