CNA Correspondent Podcast: A dirty river and doping scandals - The road to the Paris Olympics 2024

Host city Paris promises a sporting spectacle at the 2024 Summer Olympic Games but faces challenges ranging from a dirty river Seine and sweltering weather to doping scandals and terrorism threats.

Arnold Gay speaks to Paris correspondent Ross Cullen as the French capital begins its 30-day countdown to the Games.

Jump to these key moments: 

• 1:07 Is Paris ready to host the Games?
• 3:44 Parisians' fears
• 7:56 River Seine, terror threats
• 17:03 Doping scandals

Here's an excerpt from the podcast:

Arnold Gay:
A big question about the River Seine - is that still going to be the location for the opening ceremony as it stands?  

Ross Cullen: 
Yes. I mean there is a plan B and a plan C. Plan B to hold the opening ceremony in a static location near the Eiffel Tower, and plan C potentially in the Stade de France. But the whole idea about the river was not to have it in a stadium for the first time ever. Paris 2024 will be the first Olympics where the opening ceremony is not held in a stadium. The argument by the organisers was that you could only get maybe 80,000 people in a national stadium. How many of those are going to be dignitaries? How many athletes? How many people would actually be able to see it? ... Holding it in a six kilometre long stretch of river in the middle of a city centre should open it up to hundreds of thousands of people potentially. It's a huge security threat, and we can maybe come onto that later. But in terms of the planning, they are hoping to have some 80 barges with every team. Team Singapore, Team USA, Team GB for Britain, all travelling down the river, going downstream to end up underneath the Eiffel Tower. So it should be spectacular. It is very challenging, very risky, but that is what they are planning to do at the moment.  

Arnold Gay:
Okay, safe to boat on obviously but will the sand be safe enough to get into, literally, for events like marathon swimming and also the swim leg of the triathlon, for example?  

Ross Cullen: 
Yeah, I mean we have had some pretty poor weather overall this year so far Arnold, in France specifically, but Europe more broadly. We've had a lot of rain. And when it rains in Paris, the water runs off into the river. The river level rises. The river current speed increases, and there is also an increase in pollution. Now they have built a huge new extra sewer reservoir to try to deal with some of those problems. They have also been regularly testing the water. Naturally in July, the water level should be lower and slower anyway, due to just the summer stream and flow of the river. So they're hoping that will happen naturally. But there have been people who have been testing the water to try to make sure that it is safe, because we have seen levels of pollution have been higher. The mayor herself Anne Hidalgo, has said that she would like to be able to swim in the Seine before the Games.