Olympic Games
13.04.2023
Britain represents highest proportion of foreign ticket sales for Paris 2024
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Outside of France, British people have bought the most tickets for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games which is set to take place in the capital city for the first time in 100 years from July 26 to August 11.
The Games in Paris mark a return to Europe after more than a decade, when London hosted in 2012, which has sparked interest from British fans.
"The memories from 2012 are still around and we kind of piggyback on that," said Paris 2024 chief executive Etienne Thobois, as reported by City A.M.
The Games in Paris mark a return to Europe after more than a decade, when London hosted in 2012, which has sparked interest from British fans.
"The memories from 2012 are still around and we kind of piggyback on that," said Paris 2024 chief executive Etienne Thobois, as reported by City A.M.
The first phase [of ticket sales] has been fantastically encouraging.
We’ve got more than 158 countries represented in the buyers.
We believe that there is a high expectation, as always, with the Olympics in particular disciplines but the very good surprise was to see that in events less popular in France, like hockey or water polo, [tickets] went very quickly.
The only question is the football tournament, which drives a lot of matches in a pretty constrained time frame.
Paris 2024 organisers have aimed to capitalise on memories of London 2012 to attract British people to buying tickets for next year's Games ©Getty Images
We've chosen to take the biggest venues in France so there’s a football challenge but we are confident with the women's tournament and with people like [Kylian] Mbappe connected with the Games, it's also a fantastic opportunity to bring the games out of Paris.
The first phase of ticket sales saw 3.5 million sales, with two-thirds from domestic customers.
Registration for the second phase is due to end on April 20.
Although it is unconfirmed yet if Russian and Belarusian athletes will be allowed to compete at the Games, there are no barriers for the countries' residents to buy tickets.
"The [ticketing] platform is open to everyone," Thobois said.
We are definitely not controlling the nationalities of the people that come into the ballot.
No matter their nationality or where they live, for us there's no blockage.
The question is much more whether there will be Russian or Belarusian athletes, but that's not for us to decide.
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