Paris Olympics 2024: ‘Opening Ceremony Should Have Focused More On Athletes’, Says IOA Chief PT Usha

PT Usha criticized the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony for not focusing enough on athletes, reflecting on how her own Olympic chances were hindered by a lack of exposure, a challenge that today’s athletes no longer face.

Paris: The Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics was unique and historic, which saw unprecedented events take place. Breaking away from the traditional format, it was held outside a stadium and contingents took to boats and ships on the Seine River for the Parade of the Nations. However, the Indian Olympic Association IOA President and Olympian PT Usha, however, believes that the event did not focus enough on the athletes.

“In the opening ceremony, the organisers should have focused more on athletes. This is an athlete’s event, they should give more importance to players as the attention was on them for only a few seconds, otherwise, everything was good,” PT Usha told IANS here on Saturday.

Usha, who won six medals at the 1985 Asian Championships in Jakarta, bagged 13 gold medals in ATF competitions between 1983 and 1989 and also claimed four gold medals and one silver in the track & field competitions at the 10th Asian Games in Seoul, South Korea, still one of the best performances by an athlete in Continental event. Despite her unprecedented success, Usha was not able to secure a medal at the Olympics with her best performance coming in the 1984 edition in Los Angeles when she clocked 55.42s in the women’s 400m hurdles to miss the bronze medal by a wafer-thin margin.

The ‘Golden Girl’ of Indian athletics on Saturday suggested that she could not win a medal at the Olympics due to lack of exposure during her time, a problem that athletes these days do not face.

“For me, there was no exposure at all, if I could have gotten three-four races outside Europe I would have won a medal. I lost the medal due to a lack of experience and exposure. In the last 10-20 years, players have been getting a lot of facilities.”

“The government is spending a lot of money and that’s why we are getting the results. In the Asian Games, we won 107 medals and now we are hoping to do better than Tokyo (2020 Olympics),” concluded the IOA chief.

India returned from Tokyo with their best-ever performance, winning seven medals including a historic gold by Neeraj Chopra in men’s javelin throw.