From our special correspondent on the Internet,
It was the (almost) last chance sale. For the organizers of these Paris 2024 Olympic Games, eager to feed the story of the people’s Olympic Games, and for the latter, therefore, who have not really had a say until now. 400,000 tickets were available this Thursday from 10 a.m. on the event’s sales platform, including 70,000 at 24 euros. Athletics and swimming received a small boost with 36,000 additional places (30,000 for athletics, 6,000 for swimming). On paper, it looks nice. We might as well tell you that we made the choice to sacrifice our morning to be sure not to miss it.
The live of our morning
4:30 a.m. : insomnia. Impossible to sleep, we only think about this modern pentathlon final which awaits us at the Château de Versailles.
6:30 a.m.: short 10km jog to get in OLYMPIC shape
8am : champion breakfast
9:45 a.m.: Connection on the platform, the pressure builds. The site displays a countdown that we won’t take our eyes off for a quarter of an hour.
10 a.m.: That’s it, it’s time… BUT NO! The dreaded moment arrives, that of the queue. By the looks of it, we’ll have half an hour, maybe an hour?
10:22 a.m.: In fact, the wait will not be scandalous. As fate is a tease, it would make us wait 20 Minutes before finally opening the doors of this sale, where, in fact, there is food and drink.
From this point on, we have half an hour to shop within the limit of 30 tickets – who can afford that many, seriously? The time gives a little atmosphere at the end of the transfer window in Everton, we will naturally be careful of panic buying: come with the hope of snatching a place for the 100m finals in athletics and leave with an overpriced ticket for a 2nd round of ping-pong is no.
The hunt for 24 euro tickets
A major issue in this new sale, the 24 euro ticket is mainly found in team sports and/or minor disciplines. Football, field hockey, rugby sevens, basketball (group stage in Lille), archery, artistic gymnastics, handball (preliminary round), shooting, track cycling and wrestling – non-exhaustive list – are affected by these affordable prices. Small downside, certainly predictable, these are category D tickets, that is to say in the last row, at the very top of the stadium/gymnasium. The price of binoculars is not included in the pack, remember to equip yourself beforehand, otherwise you will spend more time watching the stadium screens than the pitch itself. Finally, note that these are prices for sessions without a medal.
Judo, fencing and opening ceremony inaccessible
Among the disappointments, we will highlight the difficult, if not impossible, access to the judo and fencing events 30 minutes after the ticket office opened. Predictable, insofar as only 2,000 additional tickets had been “injected” around the tatami mats. To give you an idea, at 10:30 a.m., we couldn’t find anything cheaper than a category A ticket (360 euros) on Sunday July 28. The judo session with an Olympic medal is expensive. But still less than the swimming finals (from 150 to 980 euros) and the opening ceremony: 900 euros at the time you connected, 1,600 euros five minutes later.
Tennis at Roland-Garros, the big deal
It’s not every day that France hosts two (or almost) Grand Slam tournaments in the same year. Given the quality of the field, the stakes (Nadal’s last in Paris, Djokovic’s last chance to claim Olympic gold, the hope of seeing Mannarino succeed in a slip on clay, etc.) and the number of tickets given out in the machine for Thursday’s sale (24,000 places on sale), it reeked of a good deal. Unsurprisingly, category D tickets at 30-50 euros on the Philippe Chatrier court, Lenglen or even Simonne-Mathieu flew away at midday, leaving no room for any ticket under 100 euros after the hour of the meal.
Verdict: cheaper, but still not the people’s Olympics
The clock is turning. Only ten minutes left to validate our basket. Before leaving the auction, we decide to retain, at random, five places for five different events. One for swimming series in category A, one for tennis in category B, one in modern pentathlon in category B, one in expensive judo in category A (gold medal session) and a day in the sun in category D to watch rugby 7s. The average will lead us to an average per ticket greater than 100 euros, without however having sought a final at all costs.
Morality, the People’s Olympic Games will remain a fable for those who wanted to believe in them, even if solidarity ticketing will make it possible to correct some of the perverse effects of paid ticketing. The less well-off are invited to fill the stands at events that allow it such as football, rugby sevens, field hockey, archery or tap throwing, and again, at the very back in the last row stadiums. However, this last sale was by far the least scandalous, before, undoubtedly, new opportunities during the opening, during 2024, of a resale platform for those who would be disappointed with the tickets in their possession.