“Games Wide Open”

The last day of 2024 TaiSPO will feature a two-part forum with four guest speakers invited during the first half to discuss the global sports culture and its influence on the diversity of the sports industry’s development from the perspective of the 2024 Paris Games.

National Science and Technology Council’s Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Director Su Shuo-bin (蘇碩斌) opened the forum, stating that it was a great honor to have all four speakers today to speak on the “Games Wide Open” concept touted by the 2024 Paris Games.

The 2024 event will mark the first time that France has hosted the Olympic games in a century, with the last Olympic games in Paris, dating to 1924. Paris will also be the second city, after London, to have hosted the Olympic Games three times.

Su said sports and exercise aren’t just about making the body fit but also about creating empathy with others.

Taiwan and France will continue to promote sports technology, thereby realizing the International Olympic Committee’s (ICO) new standard for inclusive, gender-balanced, and youth-centered Games.

French Office in Taipei Director Franck Paris said that Taiwan’s democracy, openness, and creativity have created the most innovative technologies and that France and Taiwan make for excellent partners because, like the French, the Taiwanese are passionate about life.

Paris said France is looking forward to greater collaborations with one of the leading nations in developing semiconductors and technology. He added that the six agreements on tech collaboration both sides signed last year would further adapt the technology for sports use and allow athletes worldwide to perform better in their fields.

Paris said that France would warmly welcome Taiwanese athletes and conveyed his well wishes to Taiwanese athletes participating in the games.

Sports a Facilitator for Sustainability and Green Initiatives

Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee Secretary-General Hsu Hsiao-tzu (徐孝慈) said that the IOC adopted the 2020+5 reforms after the COVID-19 pandemic to emphasize technology’s positive influences on the sports industry – such as making sports fairer, less difficult, and broadening the inclusivity and participation of more ethnic groups.

The IOC’s initiative also focuses on the importance of carbon reduction. It plans to use existing structures for 95 percent of future competitions and games, reduce the number of new facilities built specifically for the Olympic Games, and curb resource waste. The policy will be observed during the  2028 Los Angeles Games, which will 100 percent use existing structures and facilities.

Hsu said the UN believes that sports can play a significant facilitating role in furthering global sustainable development goals and that showing the international community that sports are educational and can promote peace can help popularize sports.

Sports Transcends Nationality, Ethnicity, Gender and Age

For the first time, the 2024 Paris Games have achieved a 1:1 ratio in the number of male and female athletes attending the games, demonstrating that sports is no longer a domain exclusive to the male sex.

Taiwan Sports Forward Association Secretary-General Liu Po-chun (劉柏君), also Taiwan’s first female baseball umpire, said she wished to thank the New York Yankees for their support, which gave her more equipment support through science and technology, adding that she was thrilled to hear that the IOC is supporting the WBSC hosting women’s baseball competitions.

“The move ensures that sports transcends nationality, ethnicity, gender and age,” she said.

The IOC’s continued efforts to introduce women’s categories or events under international organizations such as FIFA are a marked improvement in countries restricting women’s participation in the Olympics for religious reasons or otherwise, Liu said.

Liu said her organization will be working with international NGOs to deliver baseball uniforms and equipment to the Gaza Strip to ensure that young girls and women in the region will still be able to practice sports despite the ongoing conflicts between Israel and Palestine.

We hope that one day, the children of both Israel and Palestine can mayhaps resolve their issues on the baseball field and not on the fields of war, Liu said.

Devices for Potential Marathon

As is customary since the Seoul Games in the summer of 1988, Paris is expected to also host the Paralympics this year, and Paris hopes to harness the use of technologies to help the 2024 Paralympics become even more inclusive than before.

Taiwan Diversity Exploration Education Association founder Marc Oriol, who spearheaded the introduction of the joelette wheelchair to Taiwan, said that, “If a set of fair rules can be established and a safe location found, the joelette is very suited for a marathon race for those with disabilities.”

The Movable Feast and The City of Lights

The 2024 Paris Games is planning the first-ever open-air Olympic Games opening ceremony, with athletes from attending countries transported to the stadium via the Seine, which will undoubtedly leave with many athletes the same impressions as that of Ernest Hemingway – that Paris is a moveable feast.

The games are expected to stimulate the local economy and further enhance Paris’s glamor. Policies to endorse environment friendliness, social welfare and economic stimuli also serve to further athletes’ imagination and implementation of the relationship between sports competitions and sustainable development, presenting to the world a diverse, sustainable, down-to-earth and multinational sports culture.