A resounding ‘Oui’ for Paris Olympic bid?

The three leading candidate cities for the hosting of the 2008 Games are expected to make a final push for their respective bid as D-Day looms hard on the Olympic horizon with the final verdict to be announced in Moscow next month before an assembly of the International Olympic Committee.

Although reportedly lagging behind frontrunners Beijing and Toronto, Paris hopes to gain grounds on its rivals in the next few weeks for its bid to clinch a revival of the Games in the French capital which last hosted it in 1924.

There are major considerations that may elicit a favorable response. Foremost of these are the popular support for the staging of the Games, with 90 percent of the French populace, including a built-in force of 12 million volunteers, in favor of the Olympic bid and the formal commitment of the French government to ensure the staging of the Games even with a change in political leadership.

And it will be one Games in the heart of the city with all its splendid historical backdrop — the Eiffel Tower, the Invalides, the Trocadero, the River Seine and the Grand Palais, among the sites to behold.

"Of course we are also coming in steep in Olympic history since a Frenchman, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, was responsible for the revival of the Olympic Games in the modern era," said French ambassador to the Philippines Gilles Chouraqui before the local media recently.

There may be some sentimental reason for the Philippines whose IOC representative Frank Elizalde is a member of the evaluation commission which went through the credentials of the five candidate cities, Istanbul and Osaka having virtually dropped out of the race.

The Filipinos first competed in the Olympics in the 1924 Paris Games with a lone athlete in David Nepomuceno who competed in the sprints. The nation would consistently participate in the Games except in 1980 Moscow following a US-led boycott.

So going back to Paris would give the country a full cycle of sort in its involvement in the Olympic movement.

The entire two-week run of the 2008 Games would cost the Paris organizers some $4 billion although some 60 percent of its high-level sports facilities already exist like the Stade de France, venue of France’s greatest World Cup triumph, the Paris-Bercy Multisports Complex, the Pierre de Coubertin Stadium, the Charlety and Jean Bouin Stadiums and the Roland Garros, venue of the on-going French Open. The cost also includes the post-Olympics Paralympics.

Three other factors going for the Paris 2008 bid, said Chouraqui, are the ideal geographical location with the city a short flight away from other European nations, good weather condition with temperature ranging from 18 to 25 degrees centigrade during the Games and favorable time zones permitting television viewers from Asia, Africa, Europe and America to follow the games in virtual prime time.

It was reported that TV ratings for last year’s Sydney Olympics were lower than expected because of the time difference between Australia and the United States. But it was one rare minus factor for Sydney which staged probably the greatest Games ever.

The Paris bidders also vow to construct an ideal Olympic Village that would be an architectural breakthrough with ideas coming from 12 of the world’s leading architects and a media center for over 3,000 foreign journalists equipped with facilities that will incorporate all the aspects of cutting-edge technology.

" We’re confident we can put up a very memorable Olympic Games, " said Chouraqui.