The coffee is served, the mini-croissants laid out on the table. This January 23, only the guests are missing. The mobilization against the pension reform has shaken France for four days. Difficult, on this cold Monday morning, to convince the parliamentarians of the Rhône to come and meet the boss of the Paris 2024 Olympics, Tony Estanguet, a year and a half before the deadline. Of the fourteen elected officials invited to the private lounge of a hotel in Lyon, only one responded. His collaborator takes photos of the interview to feed his employer’s accounts on social networks. A shot with Tony Estanguet is always a few likes won. You don’t have to be very old to remember the exploits of the former canoe champion, triple Olympic gold medalist between 2000 and 2012. From this flag bearer of the French delegation to Beijing in 2008, who lost his title that year before winning it back at the London Games, four years later, in a turnaround worthy of Hollywood productions.
Tony Estanguet is less known in his current role as President of the Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Cojop). His ideal son-in-law’s face was streaked with a few wrinkles. White hair highlights her temples. At 44, the native of Pau retains a sporty silhouette, bent in his navy blue suit. A discreet blue-white-red border prints the heel of his sneakers. Once a cocorico, always a cocorico. The spirit of competition has not left him. Its public is limited to a simple deputy? The VRP of the Olympics presents the project as if it were necessary to convince the pope to convert to Buddhism.
He scrolls through slides and promotional videos, where the figures line up like records: 878 competitions, 54 sports, 15,000 athletes, more than 13 million tickets for sale for spectators… “We want spectacular Games”, “popular Games”, “equal Games”, “ecological Games”. Tony Estanguet recites his speech, without notes; he has always repeated the same words since taking office in 2018. Nothing should go beyond the frame. Doubts about the security of the event, the inflation of its budget, the memory of the mismanagement of past editions or the threat of a boycott by Ukraine have no place in its software. It even happens to the boss of the Olympics to suggest without laughing to the journalists to find “positive angles to talk about the Games”, not just to write about trains that arrive late.
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