PARIS — Although the taxpayer tide has turned against hosting mega events in many jurisdictions, British Columbia is still going at it big time in hosting seven games at B.C. Place in the 2026 FIFA World Cup after hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics, 2015 FIFA women’s World Cup final and the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria.
Not everybody is for the big event, however, as typically-jaded Parisians seem more resigned than giddy about the fact their city will host the 2024 Summer Olympics for nearly $10-billion US beginning Friday with the opening ceremony on the Seine. After all, much like 2012 and 2016 hosts London and Rio and benighted Tokyo for the pandemic delayed 2020 Summer Games — and upcoming 2028 host Los Angeles — the City of Lights hardly needs the Olympics to flash its ample credentials as already a setting of world-wide fame and renown.
Many of the 10,500 athletes from around the world, including the 338-athlete Canadian team that has several Island or Island-based performers competing, have arrived in the Athletes Village in the French capital, where the flags of many nations billow proudly from balconies. The athletes, however, are overmatched almost five fold by the nearly 55,000 security personnel gathered here. And yet if form holds, the cynicism and skepticism will melt away Friday when the Games begin. It almost always does.
That was brought home Sunday night at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in Montreal, when it was announced on the PA that several Canadian Olympians would be on a flight just boarding for Paris. The whole area around the departure gates erupted in loud and sustained applause.
“That was incredible,” said Dan Proulx of Victoria, head coach of the Canadian Olympic cycling team.
“The entire airport departures area was clapping. It was exciting and loud. That’s really exciting to hear people’s pride. And I hope we can do them proud in Paris.”
The Canadian team did last time with a credible top-11 medals finish in the 2020 Tokyo Summer Games, which were delayed a year due to the pandemic. That Canada is an all-time top-five nation in the Winter Olympics is a given, considering geography, but Canada is a serious player in the Summer Olympics as well with the likes of swimmer Summer McInthosh, sprinter Andre De Grasse, decathlete Damian Warner, the defending gold-medallist women’s soccer and North Cowichan-based women’s rowing eights teams, and world hammer-throw champion Ethan Katzberg of Nanaimo examples of athletes to watch out for in Paris among others.
“We are right there. We are really knocking on the door for Paris,” said Charity Williams of the world No. 5 Langford-based Canadian women’s rugby sevens team.
“We are looking really good and feeling confident,” added Williams, the last connection to the 2016 Rio Olympics bronze-medallist Canadian team.
The numbers may wax and wane over the years, but broadcasters like NBC and CBC know that enough people are still interested and care enough to tune into the big, splashy sporting spectacles.
