Not a single athlete’s tracksuit in sight, nor a green volunteer’s outfit or a blue member of the organization. Just a few puddles of mud left over from the previous day’s storms. The Champ-de-Mars site in Paris now belongs to the COJO agents and the teams of CMA-CGM (with its subsidiary Ceva Logistics), the company in charge of setting up and dismantling the 32 Olympic sites.
We climb the steps of the stadium that saw the exploits of blind football: part of the stands have already been topped. At the bottom, only a few square centimetres of the playing surface remain. The rest has been rolled up and tagged so that it can be reassembled in the right order in Strasbourg, where this pitch will have a second life. Under the wooden formwork, there is the sand of the beach. The workers in orange vests stack the blue armchairs in an uncertain pyramid. These operations began on Sunday 8 September, the day of the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games. Augustin Nechad, director of the Tour Eiffel-Champ-de-Mars site, explains: “First phase, the move out: the site is emptied by the workers. We cut off the water, the electricity, no more wifi. Second stage, the bump out: when you turn the site over, all that falls is this, the tables, the chairs, all the furniture. Third stage: this is what we call dismantling.”
Everything must be completed by October 31st
There are safety issues, timing issues too. As with construction, there is no room for any delay. The final spadework must be done on this site by October 31 at the latest. But Parisians and tourists will not have to wait until that date. By mid-October, 70% of the site will be accessible again. They will find gravel, all the trees and the view of the Eiffel Tower. No right to damage a single plant in the space with a bad maneuver of a truck or a forklift.
The two arenas welcomed nearly 800,000 spectators for 94 sessions in total, from daybreak to the apotheosis of blind football. “We put almost 900 people, on all sites, for this final dismantling, insists Wagner Covos, director in charge of the Paris 2024 project at CEVA Logistics. “We have more than 100,000 m2 spread across four warehouses in Ile-de-France. During the bump out phase, we made 26,000 pallets. Our peak is at 78 trucks per day.”
The COJO has demanded that there be as little waste as possible. The equipment purchased can be donated to communities or even sold. Even the sand used for beach volleyball will have a second life. The bar is 80% recycled. In the Arena du Champ-de-Mars, the judo tatamis have disappeared. The statue of Marshal Joffre on his horse watches the ballet of the dismantlers.
850 temporary and fixed-term workers as reinforcements
The same goes for the Olympic Village, which is the largest temporary site. CMA-CGM quickly sent 300 employees there. One of their missions: to dismantle the furniture in the rooms, such as the famous cardboard origami bed. A work line was even set up for greater efficiency on the 17,000 beds.
“The Olympic Games are four weeks long. Our group has been working on this project since December 2021 to plan and put in place a good job. You haven’t heard of any delays, we’re proud, we’re on schedule for the dismantling,” boasts Wagner Coves. Then, the warehouses will have to be vacated before December 31. The group has called on nearly 850 temporary workers and fixed-term contracts for this immense task. Some will be rewarded with contracts, their own medal after this titanic work.
- RMC Sport
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