Olympics
France rejected many Paris Games accreditation requests over security fears
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French security services rejected more than 4,000 applications for Paris 2024 Olympics accreditations, including over espionage and cyberattack concerns, the country’s caretaker interior minister said on Sunday.
Gerald Darmanin said French authorities have so far checked close to one million accreditation requests for the Games that kick off on July 26 and had rejected 4,340 people, some over radical Islamist connections or suspicion of being foreign spies.
Close to one hundred were rejected over espionage fears or concerns they were agents trying to get an accreditation using a different profession.
“They are probably not there to carry out attacks. But in addition to intelligence and traditional espionage, there is the possibility of accessing entry points into computer networks to carry out a cyberattack,” Darmanin told the weekly Journal du Dimanche.
He said they had applied as journalists or technical staff and their countries of origin were Russia and Belarus, among others, which he did not name.
“For example, we refused a large number of ‘journalists’ who claimed to cover the Games. On the other hand, we accepted the presence of Russians who work for the International Olympic Committee (IOC). We apply the precautionary principle,” he said.
Russian journalists have been allowed to get accredited for the Games and have already arrived in the French capital.
Paris will be deploying 45,000 security personnel to guarantee the safety of the Games and its unique opening ceremony along the river Seine where athletes will float on barges past hundreds of thousands of spectators.
Organisers have reduced the initial number of spectators from 600,000 to around 300,000.
“To our knowledge, we have no known threat to the security of the Olympic Games,” Darmanin said.
“In the past days I did a new reconnaissance by boat on the Seine with the police. I confirm that the ceremony will take place in the format announced by the President of the Republic.”
“Apart from the flow of the river and the low risk of bad weather, there is – to date – no identified threat to the Games. Neither our intelligence services nor the foreign services with which we coordinate have detected any foreign threat. But you have to stay very humble and focused.”
-Reuters
Olympics
Paris to name sports venue after dead Ugandan Olympian Cheptegei
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The French capital will pay tribute to Ugandan Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei, who was set on fire by her boyfriend, by naming a sports facility in her honour, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced on Friday.
The marathon runner, who competed in the Paris Games last month died on Thursday, four days after she was doused in petrol and ignited by her boyfriend in Kenya, in the latest attack on a female athlete in the country.
The 33-year-old, who finished 44th in her Olympic Games debut, suffered burns to more than 75% of her body in Sunday’s attack, Kenyan and Ugandan media reported.
“She dazzled us here in Paris. We saw her. Her beauty, her strength, her freedom, and it was in all likelihood her beauty, strength and freedom which were intolerable for the person who committed this murder,” Hidalgo told reporters.
“Paris will not forget her. We’ll dedicate a sports venue to her so that her memory and her story remains among us and helps carry the message of equality, which is a message carried by the Olympic and Paralympic Games.”
Cheptegei is the third prominent sportswoman to be killed in Kenya since October 2021. Kenyan Sports Minister Kipchumba Murkomen described Cheptegei’s death as a loss “to the entire region”.
“This is a critical moment— not just to mourn the loss of a remarkable Olympian, but to commit ourselves to creating a society that respects and protects the dignity of every individual,” Uganda’s Athletes commission Chair Ganzi Semu Mugula said on Friday.
-Reuters
Olympics
Row over plan to keep Olympic rings on Eiffel Tower
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Engineer’s descendants say French capital landmark ‘not intended as advertising platform’
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has triggered a heated debate by saying she wants to keep the Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower after the summer Games are over.
“The decision is up to me, and I have the agreement of the IOC [International Olympic Committee],” she told the Ouest-France newspaper over the weekend.
“So yes, they [the rings] will stay on the Eiffel Tower,” she added.
Some Parisians backed the move, but others – including heritage campaigners – said it was a bad idea and would “defile” the French capital’s iconic monument.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has triggered a heated debate by saying she wants to keep the Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower after the summer Games are over.
“The decision is up to me, and I have the agreement of the IOC [International Olympic Committee],” she told the Ouest-France newspaper over the weekend.
“So yes, they [the rings] will stay on the Eiffel Tower,” she added.
Some Parisians backed the move, but others – including heritage campaigners – said it was a bad idea and would “defile” the French capital’s iconic monument.
The five rings – 29m (95ft) wide, 15m high and weighing 30 tonnes – were installed on the Eiffel Tower before the Paris Olympics opened on 26 July, and were expected to be taken down after the Paralympics’ closing ceremony on 8 September.
But Ms Hidalgo said she wanted to keep the interlaced rings of blue, yellow, black, green and red, symbolising the five continents.
She added that the current rings – each one measuring 9m in diameter – were too heavy and would be replaced by a lighter version at some point.
The Socialist mayor also claimed that “the French have fallen in love with Paris again” during the Games, and she wanted “this festive spirit to remain”.
Some Parisians as well as visitors to the French capital supported the mayor.
“The Eiffel Tower is very beautiful, the rings add colour. It’s very nice to see it like this,” a young woman, who identified herself as Solène, told the France Bleu website.
But Manon, a local resident, said this was “a really bad idea”.
“It’s a historic monument, why defile it with rings? It was good for the Olympics but now it’s over, we can move on, maybe we should remove them and return the Eiffel Tower to how it was before,” he told France Bleu.
Social media user Christophe Robin said Ms Hidalgo should have consulted Parisians before going ahead with her plan.
In a post on X, he reminded that the Eiffel Tower featured a Citroën advert in 1925-36.
The Eiffel Tower was built in1889 for the World’s Fair. The wrought-iron lattice tower was initially heavily criticised by Parisian artists and intellectuals – but is now seen by many as the symbol of the “City of Light”.
Ms Hidalgo, who has been running Paris since 2014, is known for her bold – and sometimes controversial – reforms.
Under her tenure, many city streets, including the banks of the river Seine, have been pedestrianised.
Last year, she won convincingly a city referendum to ban rental electric scooters. However, fewer than 8% of those eligible turned out to vote.
But both drivers’ groups and opposition figures attacked the scheme, saying the SUV classification was misleading as many family-size cars would be affected.
France’s Environment Minister Christophe Béchu said at the time that the surcharge amounted to “punitive environmentalism”.
And just before the Paris Olympics, Ms Hidalgo and other officials went into the Seine to prove the river was safe to swim.
-BBC
Olympics
AIU files appeal with CAS against America’s Olympic sprinter, Knighton
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The Athletics Integrity Unit said on Wednesday it has filed an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport in the case that cleared American sprinter Erriyon Knighton of a doping offence, thus allowing him to compete at the Paris Olympics.
Knighton, 20, tested positive for a banned substance in March but avoided a ban as the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency said an independent arbitrator ruled it was likely caused by contaminated meat and that he was not at fault and had not acted with negligence.
The finding cleared the 200 metres world silver medallist to run at the U.S. Olympic trials in June and he went on to compete in Paris where he finished fourth in the men’s 200m final.
The AIU, an independent body created in 2017 by World Athletics to manage integrity issues for the sport of athletics, said it has challenged the first instance decision that Knighton had established no fault or negligence.
“This appeal is against the decision of an arbitration tribunal in the United States that the athlete established no fault or negligence after USADA brought charges against the athlete for the presence of epitrenbolone and use of trenbolone,” the AIU said on X.
USADA Chief Executive Travis Tygart said in a statement on Wednesday he understood the AIU’s reasons for appealing the case, which he called an example of the system at work, before pointing a finger at the World Anti-Doping Agency.
“The real issue in this case is WADA’s bad rule. Trenbolone, the substance in Knighton’s case, is a known livestock enhancer and known to be found in the meat supply,” Tygart said.
“We have advocated for the rules around contamination to formally change for years, and WADA has refused to act swiftly.”
U.S. and global anti-doping authorities have been at loggerheads since the case involving 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive for a banned substance before the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 but were allowed to compete.
-Reuters
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