PARIS: With exactly one year to go before the start of the Olympic Games Paris 2024, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Wednesday officially invited the National Olympic Committees (NOCs) and their best athletes to take part in the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad, which will take place from July 26 to August 11, 2024.
During a ceremony held at Paris 2024’s “Pulse” headquarters, IOC President Thomas Bach symbolically presented invitations to the presidents and representatives of the NOCs of Greece, the birthplace of the Olympic Games, and the host countries of recent and upcoming Olympic Games and Youth Olympic Games, as well as the IOC’s Refugee Olympic Team.
Speaking at the ceremony, President Bach expressed his excitement at welcoming the world to Paris for what will be a “new era” for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, as the first planned and delivered in line with the reforms of the Olympic Agenda 2020. The Paris Games will serve as a blueprint that will help shape future editions of the Olympic Games and inspire other major events, the IOC informed in a release on Wednesday.
“Today, one year from the Olympic Games Paris 2024, we are celebrating a new stage in this great Olympic history that is ours,” IOC President Bach was quoted as saying in the release.
“With the Olympic Games Paris 2024, we can truly look forward to the advent of a new era of the Olympic Games. These Olympic Games will be more inclusive, younger, more urban and more sustainable. These will be the very first Olympic Games held with perfect gender parity. In this way and many other ways, we can expect an Olympic Games that conforms to our Olympic Agenda from start to finish,” he said.
The Paris 2024 Games will be recognised as the first Games that are fully adapting to the reforms of the Olympic Agenda 2020, Paris 2024 has minimised construction. The Olympic and Paralympic Games will be held in 95 per cent of existing or temporary venues, he said.
Paris 2024 is also targeting a 50 per cent reduction of carbon emissions compared to the average of London 2012 and Rio 2016 to become the first Olympic Games aligned with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, which the governments of this world signed in 2015 in Paris. The Paris 2024 will be the first-ever Olympic Games with gender parity. The IOC has allocated exactly the same number of quota places to female and male athletes.
“The mission of the Olympic Games is to unite the entire world in peaceful competition,” added President Bach during the invitation ceremony. “In our fragile world, with conflicts, divisions and wars rising, we need this unifying power more than ever. The Olympic Games must always build bridges of understanding and friendship,” IOC President Bach said.
The National Olympic Committees (NOCs) that got the invitations were from Greece, Japan, China, Italy, the United States, which will host the next Olympic Games in Los Angeles 2028, the Australian Olympic Committee, hosts of the Olympic Games Brisbane 2032, the Senegalese National Olympic and Sports Committee, hosts of the Youth Olympic Games to be held at Dakar in 2026, French National Olympic and Sports Committee and the IOC Refugee Team. These invitations were handed to representatives of these NOCs.
In total, invitations have been sent to 203 eligible NOCs. This excludes the NOC of Guatemala, which is currently suspended, as well as the NOCs of Russia and Belarus.
The IOC has previously announced that it will take its decision on the participation of individual, neutral athletes with a Russian or Belarusian passport, in line with the recommendations for International Federations and international sports event organisers on the participation of athletes with a Russian or Belarusian passport in international competitions, at the appropriate time, the release said.
Before receiving their invitations to the Games, the NOC representatives present in Paris joined President Bach on a tour of the Olympic Village, before experiencing a special celebration with athletes and other key stakeholders on the River Seine.
The invitation ceremony, which featured several performances celebrating French culture, also saw the IOC’s Paris 2024 Coordination Commission Chair, Pierre-Olivier Beckers-Vieujant, and Paris 2024 President Tony Estanguet outline the latest progress that has been made in organising next year’s Olympic Games while expressing their excitement and anticipation as preparations enter their final year.