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 airconditioning 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.
This story is from the February 21, 2024 edition of The Straits Times.
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This story is from the February 21, 2024 edition of The Straits Times.
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