The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
PARIS, GERMANY | TASS | The cost of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, which kicked off in Paris on Friday, is estimated at 11 billion euros (almost $12 billion), about twice as much as originally planned, French daily Ouest-France reported on Friday.
According to the daily, when Paris put in its bid to host the Olympics, “the budget for the Games was estimated at about 6.2 billion euros [over $6.73 billion], but eventually it almost doubled.”
Ouest-France reported that the government has spent 4.6 billion euros [almost $5 billion] on the Games, compared to the 2.3 billion euros ($2.5 billion) it planned. The opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics alone will cost France 122 million euros ($132.5 million).
Earlier this week, the IOC gathered for a session and voted in favor of organizing the 2030 Winter Olympics in France and 2034 Winter Olympic Games in the United States, Salt Lake City.
Salt Lake City is located in the US State of Utah and it previously hosted the Winter Olympic Games in 2002. The IOC announced that it awarded France with the right to host the 2030 Winter Olympic Games in the French Alps.
Given the IOC decisions on July 24, both the United States and France will be hosting each two editions of the Olympic Games over the next decade starting with the 2024 Summer Games in Paris.
The US city of Los Angeles is set to welcome the 2028 Olympics, Italian cities of Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo will host the 2026 Winter Olympics and Australia’s Brisbane will organize the 2032 Summer Games.
The 2024 Summer Olympic Games are hosted by the French capital of Paris between July 26 and August 11.
IOC’s regulations against Russia
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board convened for a meeting at the Olympic House in Lausanne, Switzerland, on March 19-20 and following the opening day it decided to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in the Parade of Athletes and also exclude them from the 2024 Olympics overall medal standings.
The IOC, however, ruled that Russian athletes, cleared to participate in the upcoming Olympics, would not have to sign anything denouncing their country’s special military operation in Ukraine.
On October 12, 2023, the IOC suspended the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) until further notice after the Russian organization included the Olympic councils of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), the Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions as its members.
The Swiss-based CAS registered on November 6, 2023 an appeal from the ROC against the IOC’s decision on the Russian governing Olympic body’s suspension.
The suspension means that the ROC cannot act as a national Olympic committee or receive financing from the Olympic movement. The IOC however reserved the right to clear Russian athletes to take part in the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024 as neutrals. Later, IOC President Thomas Bach said that Russian athletes should have no affiliation with the ROC if they want to compete at the Olympic Games.
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SOURCE: TASS
