PARIS: Preparations for the Paris Olympics stepped up a gear on Saturday as security teams scoured the banks of the Seine ahead of Friday’s opening ceremony and top International Olympic Committee officials met in the French capital. Police with sniffer dogs checked the six-kilometre (four-mile) route along the Seine for the ceremony in which around 6,000-7,000 athletes will sail on nearly a hundred barges and river boats in front of 300,000 spectators.

French police will be bolstered by colleagues from several countries, including Spain, Britain and Qatar. Early on Saturday, a rehearsal for the ceremony was held on the river but security barriers and police screened it from the eyes of residents and media.

The stakes are high for the waterborne parade; the first time the opening ceremony of a Summer Games will take place outside a stadium. The preparations for the ceremony have caused extensive disruption to residents of central Paris, who must have a pass with a special QR code to cross the Seine.

“We’ve had far fewer customers than usual for the last two weeks. There aren’t many tourists and lots of Parisians have left town. All our local clientele has gone,” said Behi Samadian, 69, in a boutique in Saint-Germain-des-Pres. Team delegations have started to check into the athletes’ village but some arrivals were delayed by Friday’s global IT crash. “Like a lot of organizations, we suffered this global Microsoft outage,” the Games chief organizer Tony Estanguet told reporters on Friday.

“All of our servers were affected this morning.” However the accreditation systems were working again by Friday evening. In better news for organizers, the ticketing systems were not affected.

Organizers say 8.7 million tickets have already been sold, beating the record from the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and that figure will rise because tickets are still on sale for some of the 45 sports.

Some of the athletes expected to be the biggest stars of the Games, including American sprinter Noah Lyles, will compete for a final time before the Olympics at the Diamond League meeting in London on Saturday.

Friction over 2030 Olympics

The IOC’s top brass, led by President Thomas Bach, will meet on Saturday to prepare for the larger IOC Session later this week. Behind the scenes, the allocation of the 2030 Winter Olympics to the French Alps - they are the only candidates - risks being delayed by a row over the French government’s reluctance to give funding guarantees.

Russia will be the big absentee from the Paris Games, with just 15 Russians and 16 Belarusians accredited as most sports have turned their backs on the Russians after the invasion of Ukraine.

Those allowed to compete at the Games have had to meet strict criteria on neutrality, but Global Rights Compliance, a Hague-based human rights foundation, said two thirds of the Russians selected had expressed support for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine or have links to the military. In a statement to AFP, the IOC said Friday it would not comment on individual cases. Meanwhile, North Korean athletes left for the Paris Olympics on Saturday, AFP reporters saw, as they prepared to take part in the summer Games for the first time in eight years.

The athletes posed for photos at Pyongyang airport, wearing white blazers adorned with their national flag and badges featuring their former leaders.

Around 16 North Korean athletes are expected to compete in around seven Olympic events in Paris, including boxing and table tennis, according to the South Korean news agency Yonhap. North Korea’s culture and sports minister Kim Il Guk was part of the delegation heading to Paris on Saturday.

Thousands of athletes have begun flying into the French capital ahead of the July 26-August 11 event. The nuclear-armed North did not send a delegation to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics - which were delayed to 2021 because of the coronavirus - due to concerns over the pandemic. The country was banned from the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, after it failed to take part in Tokyo in 2021. North Korea won two gold medals at the Rio Olympics in 2016 - the last time it participated in the summer Games. Rim Jong Sim won in women’s weightlifting and Ri Se Gwang scored gold in men’s vault. – AFP