Paris’ Mayor has announced plans to keep the Olympic rings permanently on display on the Eiffel Tower, or until ‘at least 2028’. With the Paralympic Games about to wrap up, the city is still gripped in sporting fever, the Olympic rings are sitting proudly on the Eiffel Tower and the Paralympic symbol – Agitos – is displayed on the Arc de Triomphe. But even in the midst of the action, not everyone is convinced by the plan – and I have to agree with them.
Most critics are highlighting the disconnect between displaying the symbol of an external organisation on a structure so integral to the city of Paris. Marking the iconic building in this way is a massive statement that changes how the world views the structure, and therefore how they view Paris. Even the family of Gustave Eiffel (the designer of the tower) have stated that the tower is “not intended as an advertising platform”. (It also involves a lot of faff that will make the move a very deliberate choice – they’re too heavy so they’ll have to be replaced with lighter ones.)
But I think it’s also wrong for another reason: it totally contradicts the point of the Olympic brand, even though the IOC has reportedly agreed to the plan.
(Image credit: Amada MA via Unsplash)
To keep the Olympic rings permanently attached to the world’s view of one city belies the Olympic brand spirit and purpose. For the torch to be handed to another hosting country, but the Olympic rings to be so visibly and rigidly attached to the most famous tourist attraction of another nation contradicts the point of the Olympics belonging to all nations.
The Olympics should be transient, briefly belonging to host nations in a way, but ultimately being passed to all. And for the rings to be permanently displayed in Paris takes away from the important symbolism of the unifying event. The nostalgia that comes with looking back at the event branding of the nations that have hosted, and how it lives on only in memory and pictures, is part of the Olympic experience of the world. Paris’ move changes that collective experience. Each city is meant to have their own Olympic logo, but the rings should belong to all.
I was in Paris around the time of the Olympics, and that moment of temporary excitement for this once in a lifetime event was palpable. The idea of a brief world gaze, and the knowledge that it would all be gone soon was integral to the event experience travelling around the city. Keeping the rings is unnecessary and at odds with that.
And what of the Paralympic symbol? Is that to stay on the Arc de Triomphe? If not, why not? Elite sportspeople and invested nations exist in this section of the event too, and with the controversy surrounding the separateness of the two symbols, to only keep one on display feels, for want of a better word, slightly icky.
