Paris 2024 sold a record 12 million tickets for the Olympics and Paralympics, beating the Games record previously set by London 2012, organisers said on Sunday.

Some 9.5 million tickets were sold for the Olympics and 2.5 million for the Paralympics, which end on Sunday.

In 2012, London organisers set the record for the Paralympics with 2.7 million tickets sold but only 8.2 million were sold for the Olympics.

-Reuters

The French capital will pay tribute to Ugandan Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei, who was set on fire by her boyfriend, by naming a sports facility in her honour, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced on Friday.

The marathon runner, who competed in the Paris Games last month died on Thursday, four days after she was doused in petrol and ignited by her boyfriend in Kenya, in the latest attack on a female athlete in the country.

The 33-year-old, who finished 44th in her Olympic Games debut, suffered burns to more than 75% of her body in Sunday’s attack, Kenyan and Ugandan media reported.

“She dazzled us here in Paris. We saw her. Her beauty, her strength, her freedom, and it was in all likelihood her beauty, strength and freedom which were intolerable for the person who committed this murder,” Hidalgo told reporters.

“Paris will not forget her. We’ll dedicate a sports venue to her so that her memory and her story remains among us and helps carry the message of equality, which is a message carried by the Olympic and Paralympic Games.”

Cheptegei is the third prominent sportswoman to be killed in Kenya since October 2021. Kenyan Sports Minister Kipchumba Murkomen described Cheptegei’s death as a loss “to the entire region”.

“This is a critical moment— not just to mourn the loss of a remarkable Olympian, but to commit ourselves to creating a society that respects and protects the dignity of every individual,” Uganda’s Athletes commission Chair Ganzi Semu Mugula said on Friday.

-Reuters

Engineer’s descendants say French capital landmark ‘not intended as advertising platform’

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has triggered a heated debate by saying she wants to keep the Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower after the summer Games are over.

“The decision is up to me, and I have the agreement of the IOC [International Olympic Committee],” she told the Ouest-France newspaper over the weekend.

“So yes, they [the rings] will stay on the Eiffel Tower,” she added.

Some Parisians backed the move, but others – including heritage campaigners – said it was a bad idea and would “defile” the French capital’s iconic monument.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has triggered a heated debate by saying she wants to keep the Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower after the summer Games are over.

“The decision is up to me, and I have the agreement of the IOC [International Olympic Committee],” she told the Ouest-France newspaper over the weekend.

“So yes, they [the rings] will stay on the Eiffel Tower,” she added.

Some Parisians backed the move, but others – including heritage campaigners – said it was a bad idea and would “defile” the French capital’s iconic monument.

The five rings – 29m (95ft) wide, 15m high and weighing 30 tonnes – were installed on the Eiffel Tower before the Paris Olympics opened on 26 July, and were expected to be taken down after the Paralympics’ closing ceremony on 8 September.

But Ms Hidalgo said she wanted to keep the interlaced rings of blue, yellow, black, green and red, symbolising the five continents.

She added that the current rings – each one measuring 9m in diameter – were too heavy and would be replaced by a lighter version at some point.

The Socialist mayor also claimed that “the French have fallen in love with Paris again” during the Games, and she wanted “this festive spirit to remain”.

Some Parisians as well as visitors to the French capital supported the mayor.

“The Eiffel Tower is very beautiful, the rings add colour. It’s very nice to see it like this,” a young woman, who identified herself as Solène, told the France Bleu website.

But Manon, a local resident, said this was “a really bad idea”.

“It’s a historic monument, why defile it with rings? It was good for the Olympics but now it’s over, we can move on, maybe we should remove them and return the Eiffel Tower to how it was before,” he told France Bleu.

Social media user Christophe Robin said Ms Hidalgo should have consulted Parisians before going ahead with her plan.

In a post on X, he reminded that the Eiffel Tower featured a Citroën advert in 1925-36.

The Eiffel Tower was built in1889 for the World’s Fair. The wrought-iron lattice tower was initially heavily criticised by Parisian artists and intellectuals – but is now seen by many as the symbol of the “City of Light”.

Ms Hidalgo, who has been running Paris since 2014, is known for her bold – and sometimes controversial – reforms.

Under her tenure, many city streets, including the banks of the river Seine, have been pedestrianised.

Last year, she won convincingly a city referendum to ban rental electric scooters. However, fewer than 8% of those eligible turned out to vote.

In February, Ms Hidalgo was again victorious after Parisians approved a steep rise in parking rates for sports utility vehicles (SUVs).

But both drivers’ groups and opposition figures attacked the scheme, saying the SUV classification was misleading as many family-size cars would be affected.

France’s Environment Minister Christophe Béchu said at the time that the surcharge amounted to “punitive environmentalism”.

And just before the Paris Olympics, Ms Hidalgo and other officials went into the Seine to prove the river was safe to swim.

-BBC