Tony Estanguet calls for "ambition to the end" in organising Olympic Games

Paris (France), Jan 25 (EFE/EPA) - (Camera: Edgar Sapiña Manchado/ Joan Valat) Six months before the cauldron is lit for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Tony Estanguet, the heart and soul of the organisation, assures that "everything is going according to plan", but in an interview with EFE he warns against any relaxation that could ruin ten years of work and demands "to maintain ambition until the end".

The triple Olympic canoeing medallist and current president of the Organising Committee has enough experience to know that "training well does not guarantee victory, but if you don't do it you can't win", which is why he believes that Paris "will be a party and that France will shine in the world".

"We're not ready yet, but that's normal. I don't want us to be too early because then there would be a risk of relaxing, of losing concentration", says Estanguet, who is convinced that, as the Olympic flame approaches the French capital, the enthusiasm of the population will increase.

INTERVIEW WITH TONY ESTANGUET, PRESIDENT OF THE PARIS 2024 OLYMPIC AND PARALYMPIC GAMES ORGANISING COMMITTEE.

Translation:

1. "What I often tell my teams is that in order to succeed, you have to be ambitious, demanding and rigorous, and be in action right up to the finish line. Because even if all the preparations go well, what really counts is the Games. And it is during the Games, when we have to be perfectly effective, when all the preparations, the tests, prepare us for crisis situations, for the worst that can happen.

The reality is that, for the moment, we have to give our best to celebrate the Games. And it's true that I go back a lot to what I experienced when I was an athlete. There is no point in being the best in the world 6 months before, not even a month before, not even a week before. What you need is to be ready for the big day and then to have the energy to really do things".

2. "From the beginning, we have made firm decisions. We have never taken the easy way out. When we chose surfing in Haiti, when we chose Breaking, when we chose to hold ceremonies in the city, when we chose to hold sports in cultural and heritage venues that are not sports venues, we are committing ourselves to a very ambitious vision. We have demonstrated our ability to deliver on this ambition. But it all comes down to the details.

3. "We tend to look at what is wrong. We tend to focus first on the concerns and criticisms. Well, at some point, that's the way it is and you have to accept it, you have to accept it. My role is to rebalance and to say that we are on schedule, that we continue to balance the budget. In 2015, when we presented our bid, I was told that 6 months before the start of the Games I would have a 97% privately funded budget and that it would be stable, but we have increased by 15% compared to 2015. In other words, when we said in 2015 in our bid that we were thinking about it, we still didn't have all the studies, did we? Because in the application file, we don't have the opportunity to have all the studies. We think it is going to cost such and such a price. Today we are at +15%, which is less than the inflation level of the period. So, in a way, it also shows that this is a project that is under control".

4. "There is a target coming up that is going to be exceptional. We are not ready yet and that is normal. And I don't want us to be too early, because there is always a risk that we relax and lose concentration. So we have to keep moving forward. We're on schedule and we're not going to give up.