THE FLAME of the Olympic cauldron will be reignited this week. Exactly 100 years since the Summer Olympics in Paris, France, that city will once again host as the world stands perched on a precipice.
In the transition between World War I and World War II, Germany was not invited to the games of 1924, memorably immortalised in the classic film Chariots of Fire.
Similarly, on July 26, when the Olympic torch ends its journey – having traversed the world, including, for the first time, Guadeloupe and Martinique – it will do so in the shadows of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Israel-Hamas war and the climate crisis.
The opening ceremony will not take place in a stadium. The parade of nations will see more than 10,000 athletes participate in a spectacle involving a flotilla on the Seine. Bleachers will stretch along riverbanks, from the François-Mitterrand Library to the Eiffel Tower.
The biggest security operation in the history of France is already underway, with the start of play in football and rugby on July 24. Bridges in Paris were closed this month; an iron curtain of barriers came down around the opening ceremony sites exactly one week ago. There will be more security than athletes.
If there are echoes of 1924, organisers are also mindful of the events of the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, which was overshadowed by a massacre involving the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes, coaches and officials and five members of a militant Palestinian organisation that orchestrated the attack. France has prepared a dizzying array of contingency plans to protect sportsmen and members of the public.
But the breach of the pitch by angry fans at the Argentina-Morocco football game on July 24, which saw chaos at the Stade Geoffroy-Guichard in Saint-Etienne, raised worrying questions. The arrest of a 40-year-old Russian man days earlier on suspicion of a dastardly plot also painted a frightening picture. The advisory issued by the Foreign and Caricom Affairs Ministry to our nationals in France is important.
Yet, these games stand for the power of human resilience; the beauty of athletic achievement; and, through spectacle, the removal of what divides us.
We wish the TTO delegation best of luck and congratulate all who qualified. While there were disappointments along the way, we note our medal prospects confirm our status as a country that punches above its weight, especially in athletics, cycling and swimming.
It is ironic that France, hitherto the nation of liberté, égalité, fraternité, is grappling with a crisis of identity as it welcomes the world.
Having weeks ago conducted elections that laid bare a surge in anti-immigrant, right-wing feeling, the country is poised to gift Trinidad and Tobago with something memorable: a chance to rally behind our own and unite.
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