The incredible story behind the Paris 2024 Aquatic Centre
Last Thursday, President Emmanuel Macron inaugurated the Olympic Aquatic Centre, but behind the flashes and smiles of the opening ceremony was a complex story that saw the budget increase by more than €115 million and the number of events reduced.
The Olympic Aquatic Centre was inaugurated in Seine-Saint-Denis, northern Paris, a facility built specifically for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
So far, just another opening story for politicians to use for photo ops, speeches and attempts to improve their public image. Of course, like everywhere else in the world, problems are swept under the carpet and “everyone is happy”.
Well, this story wasn’t just swept under the carpet, because the problems were so numerous that even the sawdust carpet (which set a Guinness World Record at 3932 metres in Tlaxcala, Mexico) couldn’t contain them.
There was a lot of juggling on the part of the organisation. Just over seven years ago, in the bid dossier, the Olympic pool was supposed to cost less than €70 million, but when the final project was presented in September 2017, it quickly rose by 20% (to €90 million), ultimately more than doubling the original budget (€175 million).
So far, this is one of the many times that the original budget has not been respected for events of this magnitude (150% more than the original, which could have caused a scandal in other societies).
The most curious thing of all is not the huge difference in the budgets, but that in the end it will not host the Olympic swimming events, simply because it is too small for such events.
Some €175 million have been spent on an Olympic pool, instead of the 70 million originally budgeted, and it will not host one of the pioneering sports of the Olympic Games (it has been contested for men since Athens in 1896 and for women since Stockholm in 1912).
Finally, although it may seem unbelievable, the stadium built will not host swimming and its place will be taken by the La Défense arena in Nanterre, at the other end of the French capital, which will host the swimming events with two removable pools that will be moved to Sevran and Bagnolet, two suburbs of Paris, after the Games.
There were few rational explanations. “This pool story is an unprecedented originality in the Games. Something has been set up to find a financial balance and in the end France will be left without an Olympic pool,” summarised Armand de Rendinger, a specialist in the Olympic movement, when asked by AFP.
According to this specialist, you have to go back more than 20 years to understand what happened.
In 2001, during the bidding process for the Beijing 2008 Games, France submitted a bid in Moscow “with no chance of winning, but rather to prepare for the 2012 bid”, which it eventually lost to its rival, London. It was then that the project was born to build an Olympic swimming pool, a facility that France needs, but which remains a ghostly idea every time the French capital bids for a Summer Games.
“Except that when it came to Lima in 2017, the promises had to be taken more seriously, including that of the pool,” recalls De Rendinger. Everything was quickly distorted and the original project mutated. In 2018, a report by the Financial Inspectorate warned of a probable and significant cost overrun, valuing the construction at €260 million,” the expert explains.
This budget, which was almost four times higher than the original budget, could not be met due to budgetary constraints. “So the cost of the pool had to be reduced,” recalls De Rendinger.
Several scenarios were considered. Two contractors, Vinci and Bouygues, were in the running, and in April 2020 the latter was chosen for the project, estimated at the time at €175 million, but with one major modification to the original design: it could not have a capacity of more than 5,000 seats.
This capacity, which may be overlooked by many, is not for World Aquatics, which requires a minimum of 15,000 for top-level swimming events, so France will not be able to host a World Championships unless it builds a new pool with this capacity, which is unlikely to happen for at least several years.
As a result, the Olympic Aquatic Centre (CAO), linked to the Stade de France by a footbridge over the A1 motorway, will eventually host the artistic swimming, diving and water polo qualifying events.
“It’s obviously a fiasco, but the problem was there from the start,” says David Roizen, an expert at the Jean Jaurès Foundation, a think tank. The 20,000-square-metre wooden building has four pools: one for learning to swim, another for recreation, a third for competitions and the last for diving.
“This is a huge step forward for Seine-Saint-Denis, one of the least equipped départements,” says a local elected official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
😍😍😍😍 #Paris2024
https://t.co/zXzr6aLSrP— World Aquatics (@WorldAquatics) April 4, 2024
A handful of new pools and other renovated ones will also be the legacy of the Games in France’s poorest department, where one in two children cannot swim by the time they reach secondary school (12 years old), according to the authorities. The story seems to have come to an end, but it doesn’t, because during the inauguration it was announced that the entire sports infrastructure had a slightly higher budget than expected, which is clearly uncertain given the original budget of €70 million.
However, if we consider the €175 million budget (150% higher than the original), they wouldn’t be far off the amount spent on the construction of the pool, which was handed over to the organising committee a month ahead of schedule.
Last week, Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castera told French television that the organising committee’s budget could be overspent by 15 per cent, compared to the 200 per cent overspend at London 2012. “Let’s take a bit of perspective and look at the history of previous games,” she said. “Let’s remember the excesses of spending four, eight or twelve years ago. It’s nothing like this.”
Well, if we look just at the construction of the aquatic centre, with an initial budget of €70 million and the final cost of construction, beyond the make-up that politicians may want to put on to show successes where there are none, anyone can do the mathematical calculation (Simple Rule of Three) that gives a difference of over 167%.
In short, the cost of the Games will not be known until they are over. The taxpayer, who ultimately foots the bill, has the right to know exactly where the money they so painstakingly pay into the Exchequer is going, not to be made up or hidden under the carpet.