Paris 2024 Olympics: After the rain at the opening ceremony, heatwave and risk of thunderstorms loom

Les cieux du stade pas cléments avec Paris 2024, déjà arrosé lors de la cérémonie d’ouverture. MAXPPP – Josselin CLAIR

Strong heat and the risk of thunderstorms will not make the task of athletes easier this Tuesday and Wednesday on the Olympic sites.

Paris and the Île-de-France region are on yellow alert this Tuesday, the second of four alert levels, for heatwaves and the risk of thunderstorms, Météo-France announced on Monday. Other Olympic sites such as Bordeaux and Lyon, which are due to host football events on Tuesday and Wednesday, including France – New Zealand on Wednesday in Lyon, were already on orange alert – the third of four alert levels – for the heatwave on Monday and will be again this Tuesday.

In Paris and its inner suburbs, "35°C will be reached on Tuesday and the night from Tuesday to Wednesday will be very hot, with minimum temperatures around 22°C, hence a move to yellow alert for heatwave“, explains Météo-France. In the evening, the thermometer will only drop to 34°C with a risk of thunderstorms. This afternoon in the Paris region, many outdoor Olympic events will be particularly exposed to the heat, such as the women's rugby 7s semi-finals at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, the field hockey qualifiers in Colombes (Hauts-de-Seine), the preliminary rounds of beach volleyball under the Eiffel Tower and 3×3 basketball, or the BMX freestyle qualifiers on the Place de la Concorde.

No postponement planned

There are currently no plans to postpone any events due to this heatwave, according to the organizers, who are scrutinizing the weather forecasts. Météo-France. "No postponement of tests for the moment", explained Monday Lambis Konstantidinis, director of the command center, to a few journalists including AFP. "We will have high temperatures all week, a few storms… We are preparing for all that", he added from the operational center located at the headquarters of the Olympic organizing committee (Cojo) in Saint-Denis. The situation is reassessed daily, and in real time, both for “the temperature” that for "humidity".
"Access to water has been improved and air-conditioned spaces have been made available for people who need them", he said, encouraging spectators to equip themselves with water bottles. To transport the athletes, there is "a "mix" of buses, half of which are air-conditioned, and we prioritize the use of these bus“, he said in response to criticism of certain shuttles, while at the Olympic Village, which hosts more than 10,000 athletes, designed without air conditioning for ecological reasons, some delegations have ordered air conditioners.
Tasked to monitor the weather situation at all the sites, from Marseille to Vaires-sur-Marne via central Paris, Christophe Calas, a forecaster at Météo-France, reported for Tuesday an “increasing heat”, with “up to 35/36 in the Paris region”, then temperatures will drop again on Thursday. Also watch out for the storms forecast for Tuesday evening… And which could see another problem emerge: the quality of the water in the Seine in view of the triathlon events.