Protecting Games-time

The Olympic and Paralympic Games are the world’s most extensively covered sporting and cultural event. They are also the most complex logistical exercise a country can undertake. So there is huge scope for things not going entirely to plan and for widespread negative coverage to follow. Paris 2024 was no exception.

A wide variety of significant issues arose during the period known to those who work on delivery as “Games-time”: the CrowdStrike outage, sabotage of the high-speed rail lines, torrential rain during the Opening Ceremony, critical remarks from both President Trump and the Vatican over the Ceremony’s content, water quality in the Seine and more. But these issues and a myriad of others were effectively minimised thanks to a great combination of detailed preparation, readiness exercises that stretched into multi-day, real-time simulations and relentless reactivity.

Instead, the stories and abiding memories of Paris 2024 are of peak performances against the most iconic of backdrops. British media covering the Games even remarked – with a hint of disappointment – on the absence of major controversies.

Paris 2024’s approach to issues management was shaped, prepared and delivered largely by UK-based specialist agency JTA. With an extensive roster of Olympic and sports industry clients, JTA has established itself as the go-to resource for major international multi-sport competitions aiming to be remembered for what went right and not what went wrong.