The Lille Olympics: How badminton bumped basketball stars from Paris’ first week

PARIS – The basketball players competing in the July 26-Aug 11 Olympics will spend their first week playing near Lille, about 220km north of Paris, despite intense lobbying from the sport’s leaders.

Badminton took precedence to stay in Paris over basketball when several major events had to be displaced. Top national basketball teams are feeling slighted by the shuffle, which moved their competitions for gymnastics while badminton stayed untouched in an arena specifically built for hoops.

And because of scheduling and distance, some of the world’s biggest basketball stars could miss the opening ceremony, a boat parade down the River Seine. Men’s basketball games begin the next day, on July 27.

“Wait, for real?” said Kevin Durant, the most decorated United States men’s basketball player with three Olympic golds and a World Cup title, when told that the top National Basketball Association (NBA) and Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) players would be competing near Lille.

It is common for Olympians to compete in places far from the host city. Men and women’s football, for example, will compete in six regions of France, including Nice and Marseille, at these Games.

But the manoeuvres putting basketball near the Belgian border prompted sharp criticisms of local organisers and created new problems, including a need to add air-conditioning to a stadium usually used for football.

The logistics have drawn so much attention in France and the basketball world that they became a topic of discussion in 2023 between NBA commissioner Adam Silver and French President Emmanuel Macron.

“They understand we independently need to be satisfied,” Silver said in a January interview in Paris.

When organisers first envisioned the Games nearly 10 years ago, they had the full, two-week basketball events planned for Accor Arena, a 16,000-seat venue in Paris that is similar to an NBA venue. That changed in early 2022.

Soaring Olympic costs prompted organisers to nix construction of a swimming venue. Officials then had to rethink numerous events, and moved swimming to an arena originally expected to be used for gymnastics. Now, Accor Arena will host gymnastics while the basketball tournaments’ group stages unfold in a converted football stadium near Lille. Basketball will move to Accor for the medal rounds after gymnastics concludes.

“My job is to balance the different sports,” said Tony Estanguet, the president of the Paris 2024 organising committee.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) groups sports by popularity – the most important ones get the most money and preference. Gymnastics, swimming and track and field are in the top group. Basketball is in the second tier.

But badminton, instead of basketball, at the other basketball arena in town? That is different.

On the north end of Paris, near a station for express trains to Lille, is the new, US$200 million (S$269 million) Adidas Arena with NBA-calibre amenities.

It was built with the help of Olympic funds as a basketball arena. The gym was called “a pure gem, right down to its finishes” by French basketball journalist Arnaud Lecomte.

“This arena was requested by us,” said Andreas Zagklis, secretary general of the International Basketball Federation (Fiba), the world governing body for basketball. “It was not offered to us, and I would leave it at that.”

Organisers still wanted to keep basketball in Paris, and considered an auxiliary conference hall as an alternative.

Exhibition Hall 6 at Porte de Versailles, Paris’ main convention centre, has low-hanging rafters and open air ducts. Huge steel beams in the middle of the concrete floor stretch to the ceiling.

“It was nonsense,” said Jean-Pierre Siutat, president of the French basketball federation. “Fiba said no, come on. We want to be in Paris. But you have to find another place than this one.”

The best alternative, he said, is Adidas Arena, which had been earmarked for badminton, and plans for the sport to be staged there remain untouched.

With basketball in flux, its stakeholders turned their attention toward the Paris 2024 organising committee and Etienne Thobois, who is second in charge under Estanguet.

Thobois, who competed in badminton at the 1996 Olympics, is on the Badminton World Federation’s executive board.

Zagklis lobbied Thobois, and then Estanguet, to move badminton to accommodate basketball. Paris officials said they similarly pushed without success.

Estanguet disputed the characterisations by Fiba and city officials of the negotiations, and Paris 2024 denied a request to speak directly with Thobois. Estanguet called it “ridiculous” to suggest that it was Thobois’ decision to keep badminton at Adidas Arena.

“He was not involved in particular on this topic,” Estanguet said. “I had the discussions with Fiba, I had the discussion with the IOC.”

Paris officials said the reason given to deny their request was not a simple diplomatic rejection. Thobois, they said, cited a height requirement for a badminton ceiling – a minimum of 12 metres, which Adidas Arena met.

Pierre Rabadan, the deputy mayor for sport in Paris, also said city and Olympic officials determined that the costs to move badminton outside Paris were not feasible.

Building a temporary venue in Paris, like organisers are doing outdoors for 3x3 basketball, was out of the question because of badminton’s need for wind control.

The decisions are not sitting well with some people in the basketball world, who see Thobois’ ties to badminton as a conflict of interest.

“The idea that you can’t do a pop-up badminton stadium... it’s absurdist,” said David Kahn, the president of Paris Basketball and lead consultant on the development of Adidas Arena.

“Everybody in Paris knows the No. 2 person in Paris 2024 is a former badminton player and high-ranking badminton official. How he could co-opt the only new indoor arena being built for these Olympics – and for the city’s basketball legacy – is a question that needs to be answered.” NYTIMES