The Paris Olympics: What Happens When The Circus Leaves Town?

[SOUNDS OF A BUSY POOL, WITH KIDS CHATTING AND SPLASHING]

TARIRO MZEZEWA, HOST: Our producer Arno Pedram is at a pool in Aubervilliers, a suburb just outside Paris. It’s the only pool in the neighborhood.
ARNO PEDRAM, PRODUCER: It’s, like, one of the poorest neighborhoods in France. It’s known for having one of the biggest populations of people of color, immigrant populations. So it concentrates a lot of social issues.
[MUSIC]
SEBASTIEN PERATOU [TRANSLATED FROM FRENCH]: In the media, when we talk about Aubervilliers, it’s always about violence.
TM: Arno met with Sebastien Peratou, a kids’ swim coach there.
SP: And me, that’s why I stayed here, to show that, in fact, in Aubervilliers, there are children like everyone else, who are well educated, who know how to behave, who ask questions.
TM: Sebastien’s family has lived in the area for a long time.
AP: Basically, the club was founded by his mother. And when they started the club, they accepted every kid into, like, the competitive classes. But now there are so many people, and since there’s only still one swimming pool, they have to select the kids and have to work around to be able to give everyone swimming lessons.

TM: But things might get better soon.

[NEWSCAST ABOUT PARIS OLYMPICS]

NEWSCASTER: We are back with more of our countdown to Paris this morning, of course, the heart and soul of every Olympics, the athletes…

TM: Because this summer, the Olympics are in Paris. And they’re building a brand new, world-class swimming pool — right in Sebastien’s backyard.

[MUSIC]

SP: We are lucky to have the training pool for the Olympics. A super beautiful structure, a 50-meter pool that can in fact be used for schools and for clubs.

TM: Of all the neighborhoods in and around the city, Aubervilliers was selected to receive it.

AP: People are pretty proud of having this coming to their town. It’s, like, an area of France that’s so mistreated in media all the time. And sport is one of these few fields where people from working-class, immigrant, people-of-color neighborhoods feel like they can have a little pride.

SP: I was able to visit it. It’s a large, 50-meter pool, so it’s twice the size of a standard pool, with bleachers to accommodate competitions. It’s super big. It’s spacious, and there will be a weight room and fitness room. It is magnificent.

TM: Officials from the International Olympic Committee have told people in Aubervilliers that when the Olympics are over, residents will be able to use the pool. And another public pool nearby means more kids might have the chance to learn how to swim.

But the Olympics make a lot of promises like this to host cities. And in Rio de Janeiro — which hosted in 2016 — the residents will tell you, it’s only after the Games have ended, and the tourists have left, that you find out if those promises come true.

[THEME MUSIC]

SANDRA MARIA TEIXEIRA [TRANSLATED FROM BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE]: So the promises were actually not promises. They were threats, threats and lies.

TM: From WHYY, this is Peak Travel. I’m your host, Tariro Mzezewa. Every four years, the world’s attention turns to one city, the site of the summer Olympic games. But are the Olympics really a force for good? In this episode, we’ll find out what happens to a host city after the Games end.

The Olympics are one of the world’s oldest competitions, with the first Games kicking off in 776 B.C. in ancient Greece.

[SOUND OF PEOPLE CHEERING]

Back then, the only event was a straight-line sprint of about a tenth of a mile.

[SOUND OF PEOPLE RUNNING]

Now, more than 200 nations compete in 40 sports. For many leaders, hosting the Games is an opportunity to show off their countries.

[MUSIC]

The IOC promises to bring billions of dollars and a global spotlight. About 3 billion people tune in to see some of the most captivating moments in sports.

[SOUND OF ANNOUNCER BROADCASTING DURING OLYMPICS]

ANNOUNCER: Unbelievable, he’s done it!

TM: But whether the games benefit the people who live there is up for debate.

MAC ROSS: Promises get made by every host, and it’s one of those things we seem to do as a society now, where we overpromise on almost every aspect of what we’re suggesting we’ll do.

TM: Mac Ross is a sports management professor at Western University in Ontario. He studies the Olympics and how they affect host cities.

MR: And then when, you know, it comes time to do it, we obviously can’t. And then we get these negative consequences that last for a very long time.

TM: Mac says that, throughout history, we can see how host cities have used the Olympics to push a particular agenda.

MR: As a propaganda tool, this is huge. We can use this to, you know, try to show that we’re the strongest nation on earth, both figuratively and literally.

TM: Like in 1936, when Germany hosted the Games.

[SOUND OF BROADCAST FROM THE 1936 GAMES]

ANNOUNCER: Berlin’s great day dawns with the arrival of the Olympic flame at the end of its 2,000-mile journey from Greece. And meanwhile, a packed stadium and flag-draped cheering streets greet Chancellor Hitler on his way to perform the opening ceremony.

MR: Adolf Hitler basically used the full powers of the state, put it behind it, used it as a massive Nazi propaganda tool. So for an authoritarian, totalitarian regime, the Olympics still have massive potential. Because of people’s love of sports, it’s a perfect vehicle to generate popular support for your horrible actions.

TM: It’s a common strategy. Mac says governments often use the Games to implement policies they haven’t gotten support for. And foreign audiences don’t always notice.

[MUSIC]

MR: When we look back, we’re always focused on, you know, what was the most inspiring performance? We’re not looking at, how were the unhoused population of Vancouver rounded up into vans and taken away? No one even knows about that. It blows my mind. Nobody knows that in Atlanta, they put the homeless population on buses and sent them away. How does this stuff just get forgotten? And part of it is because there’s a multi-million-dollar marketing campaign by the IOC to make sure that that’s not the focus, and it never will be.

TM: The Games are rife with all kinds of serious issues — corruption, exploitation of workers, pollution, blighted infrastructure.

MR: In Rio in 2016, for example, largely the most marginalized portion of the citizenry were deprived of their houses, their homes, their neighborhoods. There is a trend here, of focusing on the most marginalized communities, and leveraging the Olympic games to move them and displace them.

TM: Coming up after the break, the people of Rio de Janeiro tell their story.

[MIDROLL BREAK]

[MUSIC]

TM: Welcome back to Peak Travel. I’m Tariro Mzezewa.

Our producer, Ana Ionova, lives in Rio. She wanted to understand how the Olympics changed the city and its people.
ANA IONOVA, PRODUCER: So I headed all the way to the West Zone, and from there you, kind of, go deeper into the city, towards, kind of, the rainforest and the hills.
TM: She visited a community called Vila Autódromo, which was at the center of the 2016 games.

AI: Communities that we call favelas, which are basically, you know, sprawls of informally constructed homes that mostly the working poor lift up from the ground. So they’re communities that spring up out of necessity.
[STREET SOUNDS, CARS HONKING, AND MUSIC PLAYING]
TM: Sandra Maria Teixeira is from this neighborhood. It now sits in the shadow of the Olympic park. But it wasn’t always like this.
SMT: Vila Autódromo is a community that has its origins in the ‘60s, as a fishing colony, on the banks of the Jacarepaguá Lake.

[SOUND OF ROOSTER CROWING]

TM: Vila Autódromo was also a bustling farm community with hundreds of families living there. Sandra moved there in the ‘90s, and right away, she loved it.

[MUSIC]

SMT: The streets were made of clay, and we had residents who raised goats, chickens, horses, and pigs. And these animals were free, so every now and then, there would be a goat on the street, a pig, a horse, chickens, ducks. When it comes to Rio de Janeiro, if you talk about a favela, a favela with 700 people, 700 families, it’s a small place. So it was always a very village-like environment, where everyone knew each other. So imagine, all very old families, many fishing families.

TM: But Sandra didn’t get to enjoy Vila Autódromo for long. Real estate investors quickly started eyeing the neighborhood, and an old race track nearby, as a site for new condos and hotels.

SMT: In the 2000s, things got worse, because mega-events arrived.

TM: In addition to the Olympics, the city also hosted the Pan American Games in 2007, and the World Cup in 2014.

SMT: The PAN, the World Cup, everything was a reason for the removal of Vila Autódromo. However, when the city of Rio de Janeiro was chosen to host the Olympic games, things got serious.

[SOUND OF RIO DE JANEIRO OLYMPICS BEING ANNOUNCED]

ANNOUNCER: The 31st Olympiad are awarded to the city of Rio de Janeiro.

[SOUND OF CHEERING]

[MUSIC]

TM: In Rio, just like each Olympic host city before it, billions of dollars of investment poured in — from the IOC, local government, and private partnerships.
SMT: Because the Olympic games generate billion-dollar financial investment. It’s something, like, surreal. It’s unbelievable.

TM: The money went toward building new stadiums, pools, housing for athletes, transit, and more. Rio spent nearly $13 billion. But the people of Vila Autódromo didn’t see any of that money.
SMT: As soon as he chooses this area of the race track to build, he starts to hold a series of meetings with the Residents’ Association. And then, in these meetings, he said that he needed to remove part of the community to build the Olympic Park, which, in fact, were pretexts, because the real reason is real estate speculation.
TM: Mayor Eduardo Paes demanded that residents leave. Eventually, they learned that the nearby race track would be the site of the Olympic Park, and their homes would be replaced with a hotel to host some of the 500,000 people who traveled to Brazil for the Games.
SMT: And then, as he makes these decrees, he also has a bunch of employees going from door to door and telling people, “Hey, you better negotiate your house, exchange it now, take advantage of the fact that the mayor is giving you an apartment in exchange for the house. Exchange keys, or then you end up being left with nothing.” And then, through this, many people negotiated and exchanged their houses, good houses, slab houses with backyards, for apartments. So the promises were actually not promises. They were threats, threats and lies.
[MUSIC]
TM: Many residents resisted eviction. So the mayor took things a step further.
SMT: He began to implement a series of violent actions here, for example, he removed public lighting from the main streets, suspended basic services, such as garbage collection, mail delivery, removed — at the time, people were still using landline — and he also removed this benefit.
TM: More residents left. Then the government started making room for the new Olympic facilities.
[SOUNDS OF CONSTRUCTION, BULLDOZING]
SMT: Each house that was torn down felt like a bomb had been dropped on the community. The dust that spread turned everything white. People started to get sick with respiratory problems. The abandoned rubble accumulated water during a period when there was an outbreak of zika, dengue fever, and chikungunya in the city. The proliferation of rats was immense. Rats started to appear in Vila Autódromo. It was a sub-human environment, very bad living conditions. And people were getting sick. People were giving up.
TM: And then, the police showed up.
SMT: On June 15, 2015, riot police arrived here, from the Municipal Guard, wanting to demolish a house that was in the decree, a house that had a couple, two children aged 2 and 4, and a 73-year-old elderly man. They arrive around 7 o’clock in the morning, and the riot police from the Municipal Guard beat the community.
TM: A video taken by a resident shows police in riot gear and shields, storming the neighborhood. They pushed and attacked people.
[SOUNDS OF POLICE RAIDING VILA AUTÓDROMO, RESIDENTS SCREAMING]
SMT: They beat this 73-year-old man. His head is split open with a club. He has a photo of him on the floor.
[MUSIC]
TM: This was a breaking point in Vila Autódromo. It was too much for many of Sandra’s neighbors to bear. So most of the remaining residents left.
SMT: And the people who left didn’t leave because of the promise of a better life. They left because of the threats they experienced, and the violence they were experiencing in that territory.
TM: Out of more than 700 people, Sandra and about 20 of her neighbors stood their ground. They stayed put, and ran out the clock so close to the Olympics that the mayor gave in.
SMT: Because he couldn’t hold the Olympics next to a territory that was completely destroyed, and we, at that time, with a lot of visibility, gave interviews to the whole world. The whole world came here.
TM: The people of Vila Autódromo now live next to a hotel for tourists, instead of the neighbors they grew up with.
SMT: The threat of removal, it hangs over our heads. So, we live in fear to be able to guarantee our right to live in this territory that we built over decades, because this entire region was built by the labor of these people.
TM: Ana says the neighborhood that’s there now is very different from what it used to be.
[STREET SOUNDS, PEOPLE CHATTING AND VENDORS SELLING THINGS]
AI: You know, usually you go into favelas, these communities are vibrant and loud and, you know, people are selling things. And there’s like the smell of food being cooked and, you know, dogs barking, and just kind of this, this really vibrant form of chaos. And you walk in there and it’s kind of like a ghost town.
[STREET SOUNDS FADE TO QUIET STREET]
SMT: Around 70,000 people were removed in the city of Rio de Janeiro in preparation for the Games, including preparation for the World Cup, the Olympics, these major events. This is a legacy they left for the city. People without a home. The legacy it left is when you get to the city center and see the number of people living on the streets. People in misery. Here in Vila Autódromo, we saw many people die. People died. During the removal, after the removal, we saw families falling apart.
TM: When asked for comment, the IOC pointed us to Rio City Hall, who maintained that Vila Autódromo was the only neighborhood that was displaced for the Olympic games. City Hall said the families who stayed in the neighborhood, quote, “benefited from the urbanization of the area” and were offered new houses or apartments.
But longtime resident Maria da Penha Macena says when all was said and done, she and her neighbors didn’t benefit at all from this global spectacle.
[MUSIC]
MARIA DA PENHA MACENA [TRANSLATED FROM BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE]: They forgot that the resident, the worker, who spends every day in the same places, stays here. At the time of the Olympics, it was made very beautiful for those who come from abroad, not for the people who live in the country. The Olympics, wherever they go, they destroy life stories. Destroy the city. And it only gives way to capitalism. And that’s wrong. I would also like athletes to know about this. Because we are not against the Olympics. We are against the rotten system that the Olympics are used for, in fact. Because when they take these Games to a country, they don’t consult the population. They don’t respect people’s rights. Housing is a fundamental right for every human being, and the land does not belong to the Olympic games, nor does it belong to politicians themselves. The land belongs to all of us, and everyone has the right to this land.
TM: Mac, who studies the Olympics, says that among all the Games, Rio still stands out.
MR: Rio 2016 is often labeled as the worst example of human rights violations in an Olympic games, in terms of displacement, securitization, ignoring environmental standards, all these kinds of things.

TM: He says this story is a cautionary tale for any place willing to host the Olympics in the future, including the 2024 Paris Games.

[MUSIC]

MR: Paris has been, relatively, admirable, I guess I would say, in that they’re not building a lot of infrastructure. But unfortunately, the infrastructure that they are building is displacing people. They’re doing it, maybe, at a slightly different scale. But they’re still doing it.

TM: Coming up after the break, will the new pool actually benefit the children of Aubervilliers?
[MIDROLL BREAK]

[MUSIC]

TM: This is Peak Travel. I’m Tariro Mzezewa.

In the spring, Arno got to check out the new pool just outside Paris. Construction was almost done, and he could already see the signs of the neighborhood changing.
AP: I walked out of the train station to go to the public swimming pool. As I was getting closer, all of a sudden, I see cranes on both sides, and it’s like, I can see this sort of like post-industrial, probably like warehouses or something like this, that are being turned into apartment buildings. There are ads about the future apartments with, like, stock photos of people who would be living there, sort of yuppie, white, more affluent-looking people. And it’s not at all the people that you see on the street: Black and Arab immigrants, West Asian immigrants, speaking foreign languages, families, these types of people.
TM: City officials insist the change is exciting.
ANNE-SOPHIE LE PARANTHOEN [TRANSLATED FROM FRENCH]: For us, it’s a big chance. We are lucky to have this beautiful pool.
TM: Anne-Sophie Le Paranthoen, sports director for Aubervilliers, gave Arno a tour of the new facility.
[MUSIC]
ALP: We see a 50-meter pool. So you should know that all Olympic events are in a 50-meter pool.
TM: In France, swimming is part of the curriculum. Most kids learn to swim in school. But in Aubervilliers, there haven’t been enough facilities and resources for all the kids to learn.
ALP: And thanks to the new pool, we will be able to teach to more children.
TM: People in the area are already clamoring to get into the new pool. The schedule for recreational clubs and schools is fully booked.
AP: You’re in a neighborhood where 60% of the kids don’t know how to swim when they’re 12. And then this sort of creates a ripple effect, where you just don’t see that many people of color in swimming.
TM: Anne-Sophie said that once the Games end, the day-to-day scheduling and operations will be run by a private company. Arno and others are concerned that under private management, the focus will be making money, not teaching kids to swim.
AP: Who is going to be able to access the pool? Because one overall worry is that the pool is beautiful, but it’s also very big, and very expensive to maintain. When you privatize management, they’re going to cut costs where they can. And the time slots are allocated for schools or clubs are not very profitable for these private managers. So it’s often slots that get discarded over, like, more, like, general public attendance.
TM: Other privately managed pools in France have started charging higher prices to community groups. But Anne-Sophie says there’s nothing to worry about. She promises that the community will pay, quote, “accessible prices.”
Olympics organizers think the pool will help address disparities in Aubervilliers, and they’ve even funded a program to help kids learn to swim.
In the meantime, Anne-Sophie is dreaming big about what the pool could mean for the development of the neighborhood.
ALP: In general, it is a city that is trending at the moment. It is growing everywhere, and then we will see, we will have to touch base in a year. But I really hope it will attract people.
TM: Anne-Sophie doesn’t share the Olympics pessimism.
[MUSIC]
ALP: People don’t realize, but it is really a chance that we have, the Olympic games in Paris. There is a lot of criticism, but that’s the French temperament: to be afraid or to criticize. But it’s really only going to happen once in a lifetime, and we’d better enjoy it.
TM: Even critics of the Olympics can sometimes appreciate the excitement around the event. Mac says he understands where Anne-Sophie is coming from. He’s a longtime sports fan, too.
MR: It does feel like it’s just a fun release. That’s exactly what fandom is. We cheer for our favorite team. We get to focus on something different for a little while. We escape from our work life, spend time with our family, watching sports. But especially with the Olympic games, these events have real consequences for people all over the world, not least of which are the most marginalized people within the host city itself. And it’s too easy to forget about that because they literally erase them from the picture.

TM: The way he sees it, there’s one thing we can do to stop the Olympic games from taking advantage of host cities.

MR: Don’t watch. The vast majority of the money that gets pumped into the IOC comes from media rights. So if you don’t watch, the media rights don’t mean anything. And eventually, people will stop paying so much money for it. But it’s a cycle we can’t seem to break.

[THEME MUSIC]

TM: Coming up next, on Peak Travel, we’re taking you to a wonder of the world…

JIMENA LEDGARD, PRODUCER: It’s the first time you get to see Machu Picchu, and every single time, the whole bus goes like, “Oh!” Because it’s so breathtaking.

TM: … Machu Picchu, where you’ll meet the porters who hike the Inca Trail with tourists every day — and bear the weight of the industry on their backs.

MIGUEL GÓNGORA [TRANSLATED FROM SPANISH]: They’re treated like animals! How else can you explain it? And the tourists see this. The tourists witness all this abuse.

JUAN CAMA ARÍAS [TRANSLATED FROM SPANISH]: They make a lot of money at the expense of our suffering, our humility, our lack of awareness that we are Peruvians. We are people.

TM: That’s next time, on Peak Travel.

This is Peak Travel. I’m your host, Tariro Mzezewa.

Our senior producer is Michael Olcott. Our producer is Michaela Winberg, and our associate producer is Bibiana Correa. We had production help on this episode from Ana Ionova and Arno Pedram.

Our editor is Meg Driscoll. Original music, mixing, and sound design by Catherine Anderson. Engineering by Al Banks, Charlie Kaier, Diana Martinez, and Mike Villers. Our tile art was created by Nick Rogacki.

Special thanks to the voice actors who helped bring this episode to life: Elsa Pérusin, David Duclos, Carol Leiderfarb and Sumaira Tennent.

Our executive producer is Tom Grahsler.

Peak Travel is a production of WHYY, distributed by PRX, and part of the NPR podcast network. Find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, the iHeart Radio app — or wherever you get your podcasts.

Executive Producer: Tom Grahsler
Senior Producer: Michael Olcott
Producer: Michaela Winberg
Associate Producer: Bibiana Correa
Additional Production: Ana Ionova, Arno Pedram
Editor: Meg Driscoll
Original Music, Mixing, and Sound Design: Catherine Anderson
Engineers: Al Banks, Charlie Kaier, Diana Martinez, and Mike Villers
Tile Art: Nick Rogacki

Special thanks to the voice actors who helped bring this episode to life: Elsa Pérusin, David Duclos, Carol Leiderfarb and Sumaira Tennent.

Peak Travel is a production of WHYY, distributed by PRX, and part of the NPR podcast network.