Being the first Olympic Games fully planned and delivered under Olympic Agenda 2020 brought a number of great opportunities and resulting challenges. First of all, the concept of co-creation reached a level simply never seen before.
All stakeholders of the Olympic movement and of the french authorities joined forces to co-create the event with the Organising Committee. For the coordination commission, this meant that we had to play a big ambassador’s role, listening to each views and needs and leading people to make the best possible decisions.
Paris 2024 were by far the most urban Games ever. This approach opened the doors to magnificent views and iconic stadiums, but made each event delivery and operations much more complex than if the Games had taken place in sport places outside the City.
Let us simply mention challenges of security and transport. Agenda 2020 stated that the Games needed to be more useful and more sustainable. Our coordination commission was involved from the start in making sure that environmental commitments and legacy projects defined by Paris 2024 would be real, supported by clear and quantifiable KPI's and fully documented.
Finally, a goal was also that these Games be more financially responsible, i.e less expensive to organise. This meant that we were involved in countless budgetary meetings throughout the 7-year period, but also, and more importantly, that all possible optimisations be discussed with key stakeholders like NOC’s and IF’s to make sure that the core of the Games, the fields of play and sport celebrations would be maintained. Judging by the result, I can safely say that opportunities were indeed seized and challenges successfully met.
