As the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics come to an end, many underlying issues have come to light, including health, cleanliness, political and security issues. One of the biggest problems was the cleanliness of the Seine River and the illness that came from it. Although Paris poured 1.4 million dollars into cleaning up this river before the Olympics began, it was visibly still dirty and several athletes fell ill after competing in their events and had to drop out of the races. 

Another large issue was the conditions of living in the Olympic village. Issues with the beds being made out of cardboard, food having to be rationed and the lack of air conditioning and instead opting for geothermal cooling systems to be environmentally conscious but the athletes in these living conditions felt they were less than ideal. In addition to these issues, more than 40 athletes tested positive for COVID and while this is not entirely the Olympic committee’s fault, they could have taken more precautions to prevent this. 

When asking students who were keeping up with the games, 10th grader Ryker Rhorer said “I think that Paris is at fault because they could have prevented all of these things from happening if they just took proper precautions instead of letting these problems continue happening.”

However, many people might disagree with this statement because it could be perceived that it’s less Paris’ fault and more the Olympic committees fault for some of these issues, but it is undeniable that Paris should have taken more care like cleaning the Seine river to prevent the athletes from getting sick. Although events and practices did get canceled due to the river’s health, in the end the competitors still swam in it and fell ill.

While these controversies are about Paris’ environment, there was also backlash regarding the actual Olympic games. A widespread debate on the break dancing event started trending on social media. There has been criticism of the athletes competing in these events and one athlete responded saying that non break-dancers don’t understand the style of dance and have no place to critique. With this, the Olympic committee has received criticism for allowing these athletes to compete.

When looking at the amount of controversies this year compared to the past, people might begin to wonder who should be to blame or if it’s a mix of all the higher ups who helped plan. This Olympics was one of the most chaotic despite the fact that they had almost 7 years to plan. Many things could have been done better like cleaning the Seine river to prevent the athletes from getting sick, although, in the end the competitors still swam in it after swimming had been banned for almost a hundred years and rightfully so. Altogether, the Olympic athletes continued to persevere and find solutions to some of these issues like moving out of the Olympic village and replying to the backlash happening on social media.