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Paris 2024: here's what's behind the success of the greenest Olympics in history

France celebrates the first sustainable Olympics in history. Little waste, shared ideas, urban regeneration, thought for the suburbs. Not just Paris

Paris 2024: here's what's behind the success of the greenest Olympics in history

The dive into the Seine, two days before the opening of the Olympics, the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo sent the powerful message of cleanliness and environmental protection to the world. Nothing is impossible if you want to do it, too clean up the Seine. It's a shame that the Triathlon race was canceled because the water quality is not yet adequate for competitions. But let's get to the substance: Hidalgo's message meant that Paris and France they faced the Olympics as as green as possible. A record? Why not, given that it is already being talked about in universities and we have been able to directly see what we are talking about.

They were made along the Seine cleaning interventions to present to the whole world. The complications for the International Olympic Committee and the athletes had not, however, completely disappeared. After all, to those who pass by the banks right o left it is not lost on us that the river is very busy, continuously crossed by bateaux mouche and that boats-homes have been stationed close to the Quai for years. But the French, as we know, don't give up turn situations around even more difficult. The Olympics - the third here - is an opportunity to measure sustainability as an idea of ​​the future, of the entire nation, not just of the symbols of the Capital. A card that needed to be played. Emanuel Macron he took on the role of hidden director of this trend too, but all the public administration apparatus were committed to winning the challenge. Even cost-effectiveness and no one has taken into account political attacks from Marine Le Pen, also because the patriot doesn't mind the event.

A measured budget

THEFrench pride it spread across the territories as the date of the event approached. We have seen in the field how Paris2024 was built as a universal event with low environmental impact. Politics and state apparatus have made it a kind of secular commandment. Why on earth create 60 km of cycle paths for athletes, staff and tourists? Not just to watch the Tour or walk the boulevards, evidently. And Hidalgo swimming in the Seine is the same Mrs. which makes us travel at 30 per hour in the car or punishes us on the cost of parking. The 8,8 billion euros allocated for the event will certainly be more in the final balance. But not many more. To organize 329 races in 32 disciplines with more than 10 thousand athletes from 205 countries, that slightly higher figure is fine.

Furthermore, two universities - Unicusano and Oxford - have analyzed the budget carefully. 1200 imprintsand in and away from Paris they worked with little waste, lots of manpower and imagining public thanks. This is no small thing for the national economy. Typically at the end of the competitions, Olympic budgets almost always exceed the initial figure by 50%. Here, thanks to the choices of sustainability in structures, in transport and energy, expenses will be the least expensive from 1988 onwards. “A record that is heartening” writes Unicusano if you consider that Russia spent 2014 billion euros in 50 and China 2008 billion in 41. The tourism budget and business for sponsors are separate.

Cities and villages, between past and future

THEelectric energy ensured by nuclear plants has been integrated by millions of kW produced from renewable sources, retractable electrical terminals, self-produced structures. We have not seen or heard of people against nuclear power. Whether the turbo-environmentalists are behind the sabotage of trains and fiber optics remains to be seen. The olympic village in Sant Denis with around 3 thousand apartments, it has 50 hectares of pedestrian areas, green spaces and is the synthesis of a mini-city of the future. The country has taken the opportunity to come to terms with a complicated and expensive past for banlieu rude in debt of civilization. Sant Denis is a multifaceted lung of the Parisian belt where the State will allocate those homes to the population. Will there be new life? Meanwhile the village was designed and built with low environmental impact materials, less expensive on the market, also reusing old furniture in the athletes' accommodation.

“Do we have something to fix for the Olympics” asked Macron? It's at Monsieur le President a list of structures to be regenerated was presented: done. An extraordinary choice of recovery of 95% of buildings where athletes compete for medals. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) was perplexed at first, then they followed the work and also became convinced that major sporting events can focus on the revitalization of what already exists. 5 thousand new facilities have, however, been created in the cities hosting the races and will be for the citizens. Observing the construction sites, the abandonment of the Flaminio stadium in Rome, designed by, came to mind Pier Luigi Nervi, icon of the 1960 Rome Olympics, sad memory of a capital and of an improvised and fleeting mayor who didn't understand much about international events. The lesson of Paris 2024 is that with a strong state and winning ideas, sport also becomes a means to achieve goals that are not unattainable as that horse racing on the Seine showed us on the opening night.

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