When, on July 26, at the end of the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games, Tony Estanguet came to give his speech in the pouring rain, we knew he had won. Sheltered under the umbrella held by a volunteer, unlike a flushed François Hollande during his inauguration in 2012, the president of the Organizing Committee (COJO) showed his ability to get through the drops to ensure the success of the Olympics and the his.
At that moment on July 26 when Tony Estanguet, 46 years old, diamond enamel smile and elegant stature, joyfully launched the Paris Games, the famous opening ceremony, the first outside the stadium in history, had triumphed over the rain like , for months, doubts, the challenge of ensuring security, despite a gauge reduced by the increase in the terrorist risk.
It took courage and malice to maintain the promised momentum, resist pressure and controversies
Paris magnified
The success of this ceremony says a lot about Estanguet's reputation. Dare, break the codes. Follow your idea, resist the increasingly pressing intrusion of politics and controversies as the planetary event approaches.
You really needed a background as a triple Olympic canoe-kayak champion (1) to use the current, go around it or not be afraid to face it. With Emmanuel Macron speaking first about a plan B at this ceremony in the city when the COJO was making all its efforts to bring A to life, with this same president evoking the role of Aya Nakamura on the evening of the 26th, while a whole The team wanted to maintain the great magic of secrecy, with also book sellers, motorists, associations, rushing against the privatization of the quays and roads.
It was necessary to keep the promised momentum, to realize the principle of these Games: to magnify the historic setting of Paris, when often the backgrounds of the Olympic Games are similar one edition after another. “He blew me away. He’s a hard worker, precise, meticulous,” Bernard Lapasset, former president of the French and international rugby federations, said of him in 2017, who named him co-president of the candidacy committee and future boss.
Dream seller
Tony Estanguet's smile and confidence wonderfully sold Paris 2024, the Olympic spirit, the harmony between peoples and the popular fervor around the Blues and sport in general. Down to the tongue-in-cheek, if necessary, the Béarnais is an ideal son-in-law of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), since 2012 and his entry into the body's athletes' commission.
Good organizer, good seller of the balance sheet too, to the point of creating illusions about certain promises. The ceremony outside the Paris stadium? Like the others, it was made for TV and 1.5 billion viewers, for the public close to the nerve center, at the Trocadéro, as in a stadium. Elsewhere, on the platforms, we mainly watched on giant screens. But the image has changed from an entire city to the stands.
Tony Estanguet didn't change the world, but he accomplished his mission as a creator of magic
The inheritance? The COJO is not responsible, but the proclaimed emergence of sport for all, already at school, took a hit from the start of the school year. What is the return on the Saint-Denis swimming pool plan, with several pools from the Olympic Games, if school hours and club resources plunge first? “I prefer not to address these questions” he replied on November 23 to “Sud Ouest” during a trip to Pau.
Games for all? Not when the social cleansing of neighborhoods has struck nor when the event remains an increasingly private business and sends inflation soaring.
Tony Estanguet did not change the world, but he flawlessly accomplished his mission as a creator of magic. There are five ongoing investigations and one complaint being analyzed by the National Financial Prosecutor's Office on the activity of the COJO, but it is unlikely that they will lead to major scandals, with prison sentences, of the Tokyo 2021 Olympics. or Rio 2016. The additional costs of Paris will not reach those of London or the Beijing slate. Its COJO – part of the balance sheet – even made a small profit.
The magic of the moment will remain, with dreams for the children, for the crowds gathered along the public races (marathon, cycling), at the Parc des Champions or running the marathon for all, two very successful innovations from Paris.
“We experienced Games like we had never seen before. Overnight, time stopped, Paris became a party again, France found itself […]. A wave rose and swept away the whole world,” solemnly solemnized the COJO boss at the closing ceremony.
There was magic, illusionism no doubt, but we believed in it, with Tony Estanguet as an icon, star. Honored to the point of being invited to set off the Christmas lights in Paris, of being offered the Ministry of Sports. He refused. No doubt his knowledge of spotting the right current. We will see in 2025 what his new trajectory will be, it will be sporty, he said it!
(1) 2000, 2004 and 2012, in canoe slalom.
