Observations on the 2024 Paris Olympics

In September 2017, Paris presented an ambitious vision to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in a formal session in Lima, Peru. At the time, this was in competition with Los Angeles for the rights to become the host city in 2024, but the IOC made the first-time decision to award both cities sequential Games.

A Games for France

Paris delivered on this vision. Despite heavy rain at the opening ceremonies along the Seine, this approach – 100,000 fans watching the athletes travelling down the river on boats – reflected Paris’s commitment to the ambition, and also the project management challenges to the delivery.

To balance the complexity of delivering the vision, Paris 2024 showcased the future of the Games, where the event is tailored to the city and existing infrastructure, rather than the traditional model of megadevelopments and new sporting venues to cater to the Games.

Event delivery model

The project management benefit of the traditional model for the Games typically spaces the capital expenditure across multiple years, as was seen with London 2012. The multi-year delivery process allowed for greater control of cash flow and procurement.

Paris adopted an event delivery model, which reduced the timetable and delegated more control to individual projects, which had many benefits, including a stronger partnership between the organisers, venue operators and international sports federations.

This allowed for some of the venues to continue their normal operations well into June, before pivoting to the needs of the Games.

High pressure delivery

The impact, though, was significant pressure on the delivery timetable. The challenges included cost impacts, commodity availability, procurement capacity, as well as access to construction teams. These issues are not unique to Paris, but it is a lesson for future cities to consider.

There must be a careful balance between reducing the build of new venues, balancing exclusive use periods for existing venues and the impact of the scale of temporary construction and overlay. The solution rests in early adoption of a project management team to monitor each of these key considerations and a methodology with comprehensive responsibility to track risks, opportunities and cost impacts, and implement solutions.

Bigger economic considerations

A specific consideration of the Games is the timing and impact of the global economy. The Games must be delivered on a four-year cycle, and this does not always coincide favourably with market conditions. Consider London 2012 and Rio 2016.

London’s contracts were bid during the economic crash of 2008 and the resulting projects were the largest in Europe and therefore were competitively priced. In the lead up to 2012 and the decade following, the global economy grew and delivered a successful legacy for London.

For Rio 2016, the economic impact was the opposite. In 2010 Brazil was in ascendance and was pushing towards seventh in the world GDP ranking. The following years saw the country mired in political scandal and economic implosion after the contracts had been awarded. It is only now that the legacy promises are being delivered with Mayor Eduardo Paes back in government.

Passing the baton

Paris 2024 had to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, the subsequent delay of Tokyo 2020 and the impact of the war in Ukraine. This highlights the importance of establishing a project management team as early as possible to manage risk.

Every Games provides insights into delivery and lessons learned, but it is equally clear that every host nation must adapt to its specific requirements and the economic context. Paris 2024 provided an amazing Games and an evolved delivery methodology.

As with every paradigm shift, there are elements to be perfected, and it’s up to the future Games to learn from Paris and deliver the next iteration of this new project management model.