Paris 2024 invites the world for the official handover from Tokyo 2020

Two days before the Closing Ceremony and the handover from Tokyo 2020, Tony Estanguet, the President of Paris 2024, and Anne Hidalgo, the Mayor of Paris, took the opportunity to share Paris 2024’s ambition at a press conference in Tokyo.

They also gave a preview of Paris 2024’s artistic segment that will be broadcast during the Closing Ceremony of the Tokyo Games, whilst thanking the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee, its partners and the Japanese people for “offering us these Games as a message of hope and optimism”.

One hundred years after their last appearance in France, in 1924, the Summer Games are making their comeback in Paris, and will open a new chapter in the Olympic story. “Each edition of the Games contributes, in its own way, to enriching the Olympic experience. Our ambition for Paris 2024 is to offer Games that will be open to people like never before,” said Estanguet.

The Paris 2024 Games will be open to the city with spectacular, temporary competition venues at the foot of some of the most beautiful French landmarks, such as the Eiffel Tower, the Grand Palais and the Château de Versailles. The Paris 2024 Games also have the ambition of staging the first Opening Ceremony in the city, thus allowing hundreds of thousands of spectators to participate in a unique experience along the River Seine.

Paris 2024 aims to promote Games that will be open to everyone, especially through the first mass participation events in the history of the Games – the marathon and road cycling events – staged on the same courses and on the same day as the elite races.

Finally, Estanguet and Hidalgo shared the ambition of Games that are open to society, and provide tangible responses to major social challenges. Paris 2024 has an ambitious environmental strategy, aiming to halve the carbon emissions of the Games compared to previous editions.

The Paris 2024 Games have also already given impetus in France to the fight against the sedentary lifestyle of many young people, by working with the Ministry of National Education to implement a daily 30-minute programme of physical activity in primary schools that will be rolled out by 2024.

After 19 days of competition, where emotions of sport have triumphed, the official handover between Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 will be one of the highlights of the Closing Ceremony on Sunday 8 August at the Tokyo Olympic Stadium. The Governor of Tokyo, KOIKE Yuriko, will hand the Olympic flag to the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo.

Speaking about this, Hidalgo said: “It is with great emotion that I will bring home the flag from Tokyo in the company of the victorious French athletes and the Olympic values of openness, excellence, effort and fair play. The prospect of gathering in 2024 for Games that are respectful of invited nations and which carry the ambition of a more sustainable city will motivate all our efforts.”

True to its desire the rethink each key element of the Games to inject audacity and creativity, Paris 2024 will give a unique dimension to this moment, which will symbolise the arrival of the Games in France. A giant flag bearing the Paris 2024 emblem will be displayed on the side of the city’s most famous landmark - the Eiffel Tower.

This flag will be in the image of the Paris 2024 Games: spectacular by its size (5,000m²), making it the largest flag ever flown in the world; audacious, with the challenge of transforming one of the world’s most famous landmarks into a giant flagpole; and shared, as this flag will be visible throughout Paris and the surrounding area.

Paris 2024 also used the press conference to invite the world to gather on 8 August for the handover ceremony in the company of France’s Tokyo 2020 medallists. They will be present at the “Live des Jeux” at the Trocadéro to celebrate the handover on Sunday.