The world’s grandest sports show in your living room!

YES, the world’s grandest sports show in your living room! The wait is over…

With only less than 50 days away, the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris, France, would be open to you, albeit indoor, to watch and enjoy only in your living room on your television set (hopefully multiple Indian TV channels will arrange the shows). The Olympic Games is probably the most ancient, and uniquely global sports panoramic, a once-in-four-year show, that interests each and every game lover, player or a sports enthusiast. The age is not a factor, believe me!

But first, a brief on the Olympics’s birth story: The Olympics’s origin is said to go back to Greece several centuries ago though the global sports records have it that the modern Olympic Games were innovated in the late 19th century by a Frenchman, Pierre de Coubertin, who revived this ancient grandiose sporting event of all times, and was held in Olympia, a Greece city.

It was Pierre de Coubertin who initiated and set up the International Olympic Committee (IOC). According to the Olympic Charter, the goal of the “Olympism movement is ‘to use sports to promote a peaceful society that values human dignity and the harmonious development of humanity. The Olympic Movement aims to achieve this by educating young people through sports that are practised without discrimination and in the Olympic spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play. The Olympism also aims to show how sports can help people become better citizens by combining their mind, body and spirit. It can help promote better relationships between communities and nations and readily demonstrate how indeed sports are a universal human right that everyone should be free to practise. The Olympics are not just about winning, but also about participating, making progress towards personal goals, and striving to do one’s best in daily life.”

Over the years, Olympic core values – excellence, respect, friendships and camaraderie -- have inspired, cultivated, encouraged, and inculcated young people’s interest in variegated types of sports, promoting individual choices, any one from archery to wrestling or yachting. The primordial intent of this global gargantuan razzle-dazzle spectacle was to impel, motivate the youth was to abhor and shun indulgence in unhealthy, harmful, destructive activities and help support their own active involvement in socially constructive engagements. There were no other enigmatic winsome gigs on their mind.

Therefore, as the D-date inches closer, as The New York Times reported, that for holding of the 2024 Paris Olympics, the French Olympic Committee has been fiercely pursuing creating modern-design grounds and structures, and also renovating the old ones iconic like the Grand Palais, the plaza known as the Concorde and others of the 1924-era, for venues of several sports.

Estimated over 11,000 athletes and players (men and women), from over 200 IOC-member countries are expected to participate in nearly 329 events in 32 sports, spread over France’s 35 different sporting venues, including France’s largest stadium, Stade de France. Of these events, 32 will be held in Paris, and eight in Milano Cortina in the Winter Olympics. Entry to certain specified events will be ticketed (priced rather high); the Opening Ceremony, however, will be free for everyone. As the games proceed until August 9, the most irresistible attraction, nearly 3,000 medals-- gold, silver, bronze – will be the greatest allurement.

The Opening Ceremony will be free to accommodate some 220,000 spectators, as per media reports. A single-entry price varies between Euros 98 and $300. Overall expected cost of organizing the 2024 Olympic Games has been estimated at $11 billion. While a major portion of the cost will be met by electronic media advertising, as also the IOC-member countries.

Meanwhile, according to a recent media report, Russia is scaring people of dangers emanating from the Russo-Ukraine war. There are risks warnings also from the ongoing Israeli-Hamas armed conflict. Keeping in mind the 2018 incident of likely attack, reportedly from North Korea’s Pyeongchang, (though it did not occur), for the 2024 Olympics Russia is said to be a cybersecurity-attack suspect. Thus, Russia is ‘’once again the biggest focus.’’ American television channel NBC has reported (June 6) that “Russia aims Cyber Operations at Summer Olympics’’, and that two “Russian state-aligned threat actors have been carrying out online influence operations designed to undermine the July 19, 2024, Paris Olympics.’’ As per an NYT report, “Russia has been barred from the Olympics following the country’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, although a small group of individual Russians will be permitted to compete as neutral athletes.’’

Also, the France-Russia relations have ‘soured so much that the French President Emannuel Macaron recently accused Moscow of attempting to undermine the Olympics through a disinformation campaign.’ The International Olympic Committee is also said to have ‘pointed the finger at attempts by Russian groups to damage the games. An AI-generated ‘Defamatory fake news posts’ by Moscow about the Games are also suspected to have put out on some social media platforms.

It has recently been revealed the during the 2021 Tokyo Games, two members of the Chinese swimming team were among the 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive, but the World Anti-Doping Agency reportedly covered up the incident.

Besides the French Government is footing the cost though part of the costs will come from private sources such as electronic media—tv broadcasting companies…Tickets cost $6 (archery) to $94 wrestling, attending ceremonies $96.

It’s learned that 2021 Olympic gold medalist Abhinav Bindra will lead the nearly 200-member Indian troupe to the 2024 Paris Games.

With a view to delivering the Olympic-infrastructure on time when the Games bugles sound, every building, every venue and above all the several thousand of players, games managers and all other personnel will be whistle-ready to kick-in-and all set to start. After around two years of drudging and construction of the Olympic Marina is ready to sail-in, French President Emmanuel told a media recently. It all seems to be set come July 26…

R. Dua, former professor-head, journalism department, Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), New Delhi, and an ex-faculty Journalism, California State University, US.