by Our Sports Desk

PARIS’S Olympic bid leader said yesterday that the city learned the lessons of previous defeats after the French capital formally announced its bid to host the 2024 Olympic Games.

The city is aiming to mark the 100 years since it previously hosted the Games and to avoid the indignity of a fourth successive defeat after the disappointments of losing out to London for 2012 and previously for the 2008 and 1992 Games.

In the contest for 2012, Paris’s bid came in for criticism after their final presentation team was exclusively made up of white, middle-aged men wearing suits.

Chief executive of Paris 2024 Etienne Thobois said: “We have learnt our lessons. It’s different times and different bids — in 2012 it was more of a political leadership. I think we have learnt from that and are now into a position where we have strong leadership from the sports movement.”

Paris’s bid chairman is Bernard Lapasset, the president of World Rugby, while the official launch involved more than 100 Olympians.

A feasibility study in May estimated the hosting budget at £4.3 billion, less than half the cost of London’s Games, and Thobois said the bid would be planned in line with the International Olympic Committee’s new “Agenda 2020” strategy aiming for more flexible and less costly Games.

The city last held the Olympics in 1924, which has become known as the “Chariots of Fire” Games after the film celebrating the achievements of British runners Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell.

Thobois insisted however that Paris would not be seeking to make too much of the centenary connection.

“We are very proud of our history and the centennial Games is something that is important to us but we are looking forward not backwards,” he said. “It’s a bid for today and the Agenda 2020 and not the Agenda 1920.”