The French logistics giant is currently deploying nearly 900 people to ensure that there is no trace of the 35 Olympic sites by the end of October. A titanic project.
Forklifts here and there, workers with yellow vests on their backs, hard hats on their heads and safety shoes on their feet, seats stacked on top of each other, trucks filled with goods ready to leave… Welcome to the sites that were called the Eiffel Tower stadium and the Arena Champ de Mars during the Olympic and Paralympic Games. This is where the French judoka, Teddy Riner, won his third gold medal. This is where the French blind football team won the title. This is where the public got excited about beach volleyball and its festive atmosphere. Today, the cheers have died down. In the Eiffel Tower stadium, you still have a breathtaking view of the Iron Lady and you can catch a glimpse of the Olympic rings that are still hanging there.
But the sand on which the beach volleyball matches took place has disappeared. And a few workers are tearing up the last rolls of synthetic turf on which the blind football players played. In the large temporary Palais where Teddy Riner and his teammates from the French team won ten medals, the ground is no longer a tatami. Raw concrete has taken over the place. And the cables are exposed. The work of the Marseille shipping company CMA CGM, responsible for assembling and dismantling the temporary infrastructure for the Olympic Games. We started the deconstruction on the Sunday of the Paralympic Games Closing Ceremony. The first week, our teams worked 3X8 seven days a week “, says Wagner Covos, director of the Paris 2024 project at Ceva, the logistics subsidiary of CMA CGM.
Second life
A titanic project: the company is currently deploying nearly 900 people to ensure that there is no trace of the 35 Olympic sites by the end of October. The Arena Paris La Défense, where French swimmer Léon Marchand won four gold medals and a bronze, will soon become a multi-purpose hall that hosts concerts and rugby matches. There is no more water in the pool “, smiles Wagner Covos. On the Champ de Mars, there are about thirty companions who are busy. With very clear instructions: first remove the furniture (chairs, parasols, etc.). Then take care of the heavier equipment (electrical equipment, light pylons, etc.). A gigantic operation that requires pharaonic means.
Fifty truck drivers will make multiple trips to transport all the elements (tarpaulins in the colors of Paris 2024, tatami, lighting, etc.) used on the Olympic sites during the events. In total, they will transport 26,000 pallets of products which, before being dispatched in early 2025, will be stored in four warehouses in the Paris region as big as fourteen football fields. Because, as part of the fight against global warming, most of this equipment will have a second life. The rolls of synthetic turf will be donated to two blind football clubs, one in the Paris region, the other near Strasbourg. And two beach volleyball clubs in Seine-Saint-Denis will receive the Olympic Games sand for free. “, explains Auguste Nechad, director of the Tour Eiffel and Champ de Mars sites at Paris 2024. The ETI (mid-sized company) Gerflor, which has supplied the floors for many indoor competitions, will reinstall around forty of these courts throughout France. As for the swimming pool, the swimming club in Toulouse where Léon Marchand took his first swims is a candidate to take over this pool. In the shorter term, consumer items (volunteers’ outfits, players’ towels, cups or tarpaulins with the Paris 2024 logo, etc.) will be put up for sale at around twenty flea markets in France between mid-September and mid-October.
Ad hoc software
Given the complexity of this operation, CMA CGM spent seven months last year developing software to organize the ballet of trucks that come to load or unload equipment. Carriers can register on our platform the time and day of arrival of their vehicles. And this allows us to preposition the right number of handlers to load or unload the goods. “, explains Wagner Covos. The group also has software with which it knows at a glance where the tens of thousands of items are in its giant warehouses. A sophisticated mechanism that CMA CGM deployed for the first time at the Olympic Games on a very large sporting event. ” It is a way to show our know-how in a prestigious environment.says Wagner Covos. This helps to strengthen our brand. » Incidentally, this allowed CMA CGM to pay partly in kind for its sponsorship of Paris 2024, estimated at around fifteen million euros.
And, if the world’s third largest shipping company had never handled the logistics of a major sporting event before, its successful experience at the Olympic Games makes it want to go further in this area. Especially since, in addition to its partnership with the organizing committee of the Games in Paris, the blue-white-red company has won other contracts: it handled the logistics of American, Chinese and Brazilian TV channels that broadcast the competition. But also the transport and return to the Land of the Rising Sun of the 17,000 beds installed in the athletes’ village by the Japanese brand Airweave. We are considering responding to calls for tenders for other major competitions or tournaments. “, summarizes Wagner Covos. Football World Cup in the United States and Canada in 2026, Rugby World Cup in Australia in 2027, Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028… CMA CGM will be spoiled for choice if it finally decides to go on the offensive in this area.
