French connections and youth culture have highlighted a flamboyant ceremony in Sydney as the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) marked one year until the 2024 Paris Olympics.
An array of croissants, macarons and beret-donning hospitality staff helped Australia’s Olympic movement formally put the memories of the spectator-less, pandemic-afflicted Tokyo 2020 Games – held in 2021 – in the past, and focus attention on the Paris showpiece.
Marseille-born canoe slalom gold medallist Jess Fox and newly crowned diving world champion Cassiel Rousseau offered guests a genuine French flavour not otherwise available from the event’s accoutrements.
Rousseau’s grandfather won gold for France in the cycling at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956.
“Throughout my whole journey, he’s become a bigger and bigger part of why I do what I do,” he said.
“He competed in Melbourne for France and won the gold, so I’m gonna try and do the old ‘switcheroo’ and flip it.”
Rousseau triumphed in the 10-metre platform event at the World Aquatic Championships in Fukuoka on Saturday, preventing the Chinese team from taking a clean sweep of the events.
Australia’s chef de mission, Anna Meares, called on athletes to be open and genuine as they chase success in 2024.
“That allows the Australian people to connect with them to understand their story, to understand, you know, if it feels like it hurts, tell us it hurts, show us it hurts,” she said.
Skateboarder Chloe Covell, 13, was more timid on stage, a far cry from her success on the weekend when she became the youngest ever gold medallist in the street event at the X-Games in California.
“I still can’t believe I did it, it’s been my dream since I was little,” she said, prompting laughs from the crowd. “Since I was six,” she added.
Dr Rachael Gunn, one of Australia’s top breakers with a PhD in the culture of the sport, performed alongside the Aus Breaking Crew on either side of addressing the crowd.
Breaking, which will make its Olympic debut in Paris, is not just a sport, she said, “it’s also a culture, it’s a community and it can also be a space for people to reinvent themselves.”
The Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, received a ceremonial baton from her New South Wales counterpart, Chris Minns, to mark the handing over of responsibility for hosting the 2032 Games, from the state that delivered Sydney 2000.
The Commonwealth Games Australia boss, Craig Phillips, was in attendance alongside International Olympic Committee member John Coates, the Australian Sports Commission chief executive, Kieren Perkins, and an array of Australia’s sporting royalty.
The federal sport minister, Anika Wells, turned to her French skills in concluding her address to wish all good luck.
It came a day after her government gave Olympic hopefuls $20m in top-up funding to help them travel to qualifying events in the coming months. In March, the AOC had described a $2bn funding black hole in the decade leading up to Brisbane.
On stage, the AOC president, Ian Chesterman, thanked Wells for the funding, saying she “produced a great result”.
His organisation’s chief executive, Matt Carroll, said the AOC was optimistic it would meet its carbon emission reduction goal of 30% by next year without having to rely on carbon offsets.
“I think that’s an easy way out,” Carroll said. “You just offset based on getting people to grow trees for you where actually, to me, I’m sorry, I want to make a practical difference.”
The opening ceremony for the Paris Games will be held along the Seine River on 26 July next year.
The AOC team has adopted the slogan “allez Aus”, or roughly, “come on Australia”.
