A final party for the athletes of the French team after the successful summer of the Paris Games. The athletes will parade this Saturday on the Champs-Elysées and the medalists will receive, as tradition dictates, their official decoration before a giant concert on Place de l’Etoile.
“I think it’s really over, we’re having a bit of trouble taking it in,” said the head of the Paris 2024 Games, Tony Estanguet, on Friday, to the press gathered at the headquarters of the organizing committee in Saint-Denis. So to rediscover some of the Olympic fervor, “meet up” for “a highlight on the Champs” and “celebrate the athletes of the French team,” he said.
The principle of this parade of athletes was announced by Emmanuel Macron during the Olympic Games.
Some 300 of them, Olympians and Paralympians, will parade on the top of this legendary avenue in Paris. In total, between 8,000 and 10,000 people, artisans of the Olympic Games as well as volunteers, members of the organizing committee (Cojo), public agents, will join the athletes.
On the Place de l’Etoile, they will receive their insignia from the hands of the President of the Republic or their peers already decorated with the Order of the Legion of Honor or of Merit.
With his third individual gold medal, judoka Teddy Riner will be elevated to the rank of Commander of the National Order of Merit. It has been a tradition since the Innsbruck Winter Games in 1964 that medal winners are decorated, and this meets very specific criteria.
After the Paris Games, 170 were eligible (compared to around 150 in Tokyo in 2021). When he received the Tokyo medallists at the Elysée Palace three years ago, Emmanuel Macron urged them “to do much more” in Paris. On that occasion, he set the goal of appearing in the Top 5 of the nations ranking. It was achieved: with 16 titles and 64 medals, France had the best Olympic Games in its history on home soil.
– “Spirit of concord” –
Among the French stars of the Paris Olympics, we expect the man who started the gold medal count for France with rugby sevens, Antoine Dupont. The four-time gold medal swimmer Léon Marchand, the fencer Manon Apithy-Brunet and the triathlete Cassandre Beaugrand will also be there.
While the Games offered respite and joy to the French after a month of June of shock following the surprise dissolution of the National Assembly and the elections that followed, the President of the Republic explained in an interview with Le Parisien published Friday: “We must live up to this spirit of the Games and this national harmony that was expressed.”
He wanted September 14 to become a national sports holiday every year.
After the award ceremony, a giant concert will take place on Place de l’Etoile, with some of the artists who have marked the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, such as Marc Cerrone, the singers Chris (Christine and the Queens) and Lucky Love, the duo Amadou and Mariam, and the mezzo-soprano Axelle Saint-Cirel, who sang the Marseillaise during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on July 26.
France Télévisions will broadcast the parade and the concert.
To secure this final Olympic celebration, more than 4,000 police officers and gendarmes will be mobilized, according to the resigning Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin. “Traffic in the Paris West zone” will be “very complicated tomorrow (Saturday),” warned the Paris police prefect, Laurent Nuñez, calling for people to avoid the area. Shops will be closed on the Avenue des Champs-Elysées, he added.
Once the soundtrack has been turned off, it will be time for the organizers to spend several weeks poring over the last invoices and accounts. The Cojo has also specified that the cost of this parade-concert will be shared between the various stakeholders of the Games and the partners.
dec/hpa
Related News :