Concerns and controversies at the 2024 Summer Olympics

[5] In March 2024, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin met with intelligence services to assess the terrorist threat to the country after an attack on a Moscow concert hall raised security fears for the Games.

[30] A series of Olympic-branded reusable water bottles for children, which had been licensed but not produced by the organisers, were recalled a week before the Games began, due to excessive levels of Bisphenol A, which has been banned in France since 2015.

[31][32] A news report in The Times cited an analysis by Dragonfly, a security and geopolitical firm, by which the level of terror threats for the Paris 2024 Games remained "severe", including the potential use of bombing drone attacks.

[41] The IT operations of the Olympics were hampered by a global IT outage on 19 July 2024 due to a faulty update provided by CrowdStrike, causing computers that were running Windows to experience the blue screen of death.

[105] A group of Iranian dissidents including Franco-Iranian boxer Mahyar Monshipour and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi sent a letter to the IOC calling for Iran to be banned; they opined that the country's prohibition of women from practicing sports like wrestling, boxing, swimming, and sailing was not in line with the Olympic Charter.

[119][121] A move initially perceived as undermining the environment messaging of the hosts,[121] at the start of July 2024, the organising committee began offering air conditioning unit rentals to NOCs for an extra fee.

[165] American sprinter Erriyon Knighton was provisionally suspended by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) after testing positive for a metabolite of the anabolic steroid trenbolone (category S1 on the banned list, substance not specified).

Following a lengthy investigation, Knighton was cleared in June after and independent arbitrator concluded that the positive result was due to the consumption of trenbolone-contaminated meat, thus allowing him to take part in the US trials.

[166] The week after the Olympics ended, the Athletics Integrity Unit launched an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against USADA's decision regarding Knighton's positive drugs test.

[167][168] In July 2024, it was revealed that US artistic swimmer Calista Liu had tested positive for dorzolamide, a form of eye drops for the purpose of treating glaucoma that can also be used as a masking agent by hiding the use of steroids.

[237] On 23 July, British equestrian Charlotte Dujardin abruptly withdrew from the Games, citing her shame at a video of her "making an error of judgement" in a training session four years earlier.

[258] At around midnight in Paris between 25 and 26 July, Canadian journalist Rick Westhead of The Sports Network published an investigative report indicating that drone spying had been endemic within Canada Soccer for several years.

[259] The opening match of the men's football tournament, between Argentina and Morocco, had 15 minutes of stoppage time added on at the end, a controversial method of time-wasting prevention seen in FIFA competitions.

Additionally, one month before the tournament, Argentinian midfielder Enzo Fernández posted a video on social media in which he and other Argentina players chanted derogatory remarks regarding members of the French team with African heritage in a postgame celebration after their Copa Ameríca win.

[282][283] Jean-Pierre Farandou, the head of the state-owned railway operator, SNCF, reported that its high-speed rail network suffered from multiple instances of coordinated sabotage, causing significant disruptions to train services.

The affected lines were located in the western, northern, and eastern regions of France, impacting not only domestic trains but also the Eurostar services travelling to neighboring Belgium and to London via the Channel Tunnel.

[295] A scene of drag queens at a bacchanal (or anthesteria) was allegedly interpreted by many commentators as a parody of depictions of the Last Supper and deemed offensive by some Christian (including the Bishops' Conference of France) and Muslim groups, as well as conservatives.

An initial statement from Paris 2024 said the scene was inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper fresco (housed in Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, one of the host cities of the 2026 Winter Olympics),[296] though director Thomas Jolly denied this the following day[297][298] and organisers apologised, saying Philippe Katerine was portraying Dionysus rather than Jesus.

[302][303] Jang Mi-ran, South Korea's Second Vice Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, asked the IOC for an official apology and to arrange a meeting with President Bach regarding this incident.

"[340] Italian Sports Minister Andrea Abodi said: "I find it difficult to understand that there is no alignment in the parameters of minimum hormonal values at an international level, which includes the European and world championships and the Olympics.

[357] On 7 August, Indian wrestler Vinesh Phogat was disqualified before her gold medal bout in the women's 50kg freestyle event against Sarah Ann Hildebrandt of the United States, after being found 100 grams overweight in the second weigh-in.

Phogat had on the previous day beaten reigning Olympic champion Yui Susaki - handing the Japanese her first ever international defeat - in the Round of 16, Oksana Livach of Ukraine in the Quarterfinals, and Yusneylys Guzman Lopez of Cuba in the Semifinals,[358][359] having weighed-in at 49.9kg in the morning of 6 August.

[360] Phogat and her team tried drastic measures throughout the night to make weight, including foregoing sleep, spending hours on the treadmill and the sauna, not consuming any food or fluids, and even shortening her clothes and her hair.

The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) filed an appeal against the disqualification at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), also contending that she be given a joint silver medal as she had complied with weight regulations during the bouts of 6 August.

The opposition Congress linked the incident to Phogat's participation in the 2023 wrestlers' protests against the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party's erstwhile MP and Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.

[400] BBC Sport commentators were shocked at the controversial loss of British women's boxer Rosie Eccles, who had led throughout her entire last 32 bout and whose opponent (Poland's Aneta Rygielska) had a point deducted and received a warning for failing to keep her head up.

"[403] The previous day, British women's boxer Charley Davison had also lost her fight in a close split decision,[404] with TNT commentator Ian Darke tweeting afterwards that she was "scandalously robbed" and "won very very clearly.

[419][420] The Prime Minister of Romania, Marcel Ciolacu, stated that he would boycott the closing ceremony due to "the scandalous situation in the gymnastics, where [Romanian] athletes were treated in an absolutely dishonorable manner".

On 11 August, USA Gymnastics announced that it had newly available time-stamped video evidence showing that Head Coach Cécile Canqueteau-Landi first stated her request to file an inquiry at 47 seconds, within the 1 minute deadline.

[422] On 12 August, the Court of Arbitration for Sport denied a request to reconsider its ruling and in response, USA Gymnastics said it would "continue to pursue every possible avenue and appeal process, including to the Swiss Federal Tribunal.