The Olympic Aquatic Centre in Seine-Saint-Denis, north of Paris, has been inaugurated, a facility built specifically for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The new aquatic venue for Paris 2024 was inaugurated by French President Emmanuel Macron and Paris 2024 Organising CommitteePresident Tony Estanguet, along with officials including Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo.

So far, just another opening story for politicians to use for photo ops, speeches and attempts to improve their public image. Of course, like everywhere else in the world, problems are swept under the carpet and "everyone is happy".

Well, this story wasn't just swept under the carpet, because the problems were so numerous that even the sawdust carpet (which set a Guinness World Record at 3,932 metres in Tlaxcala, Mexico) couldn't contain them.

The organisation had a lot on its plate. Just over seven years ago, the bid documents stated that the Olympic pool would cost less than €70 million, but by the time the final project was presented in September 2017, the cost had quickly risen by 20% (to €90 million), more than doubling the original budget (€175 million).

So far, this is one of the many times that the original budget has not been respected for events of this magnitude (150% more than the original, which could have caused a scandal in other societies). The most curious thing of all is not the huge difference in the budgets, but that in the end it will not host the Olympic swimming events, simply because it is too small for such events.

Some €175 million has been spent on an Olympic pool, instead of the €70 million originally budgeted, and it will not host one of the pioneering sports of the Olympic Games (it has been contested for men since Athens in 1896 and for women since Stockholm in 1912).

Incredible as it may seem, there will be no swimming in the arena, which will be replaced by the La Défense arena in Nanterre, at the other end of the French capital, with two pools that will be moved after the Games to Sevran and Bagnolet, two suburbs of Paris.

There were few rational explanations. "This pool story is an unprecedented originality in the Olympic Games. Something has been set up to find a financial balance and in the end France will be left without an Olympic pool," Armand de Rendinger, a specialist in the Olympic movement, told AFP.

According to this specialist, you have to go back more than 20 years to understand what happened. In 2001, during the bidding process for the Beijing 2008 Games, France submitted a bid in Moscow "with no chance of winning, but rather to prepare for the 2012 bid", which it eventually lost to rival London.

It was then that the project was born to build an Olympic swimming pool, a facility that France needs, but which remains a ghostly idea every time the French capital bids for a Summer Games.

"It was only when it came to Lima in 2017 that the promises had to be taken more seriously, including that of the pool," recalls De Rendinger. Everything was quickly distorted and the original project mutated. In 2018, a report by the Financial Inspectorate warned of a probable and significant cost overrun, valuing the construction at €260 million," the expert explains.

This budget, which was almost four times higher than the original budget, could not be met due to budgetary constraints. "So the cost of the pool had to be reduced," recalls De Rendinger.

Several scenarios were considered. Two contractors, Vinci and Bouygues, were in the running, and in April 2020 the latter was chosen for the project, estimated at the time at €175 million, but with one major modification to the original design: it could not have a capacity of more than 5,000 seats.

This capacity, which may be overlooked by many, is not for World Aquatics, which requires a minimum of 15,000 for top-level swimming events, so France will not be able to host a World Championships unless it builds a new pool with this capacity, which is unlikely to happen for at least several years.

As a result, the Olympic Aquatic Centre (CAO), linked to the Stade de France by a footbridge over the A1 motorway, will eventually host the artistic swimming, diving and water polo qualifying events.

"It's obviously a fiasco, but the problem was there from the start," says David Roizen, an expert at the Jean Jaurès Foundation, a think tank. The 20,000-square-metre wooden building has four pools: one for learning to swim, another for recreation, a third for competitions and the last for diving.

"This is a huge step forward for Seine-Saint-Denis, one of the least equipped départements," says a local elected official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A handful of new and renovated swimming pools will also be the legacy of the Games in France's poorest department, where one in two children cannot swim by the time they reach secondary school (12 years old), according to the authorities. The story seems to have come to an end, but it hasn't, because during the inauguration it was announced that the entire sports infrastructure had cost slightly more than expected, which is clearly uncertain given the initial budget of €70 million.

However, with a budget of €175 million (150% higher than the original), it wouldn't be far from the amount spent on the construction of the swimming pool, which was handed over to the organising committee a month earlier than planned.

Last week, Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castera told French television that the organising committee's budget could be overspent by 15 per cent, compared to the 200 per cent overspend at London 2012. "Let's take a bit of perspective and look at the history of previous games. Let's remember the excesses of spending four, eight or twelve years ago. It's nothing like this," she said.

Well, if we just look at the construction of the Aquatics Centre, with an initial budget of  €70 million and the final cost of construction, beyond the make-up that politicians may want to put on to show successes where there are none, anyone can do the mathematical calculation (Simple Rule of Three) that gives a difference of over 167%.

According to last week's government audit, the final bill could reach €5 billion instead of the previously announced €3 billion. In short, the cost of the Games will not be known until they are over. The taxpayer, who ultimately foots the bill, has the right to know exactly where the money they so painstakingly pay into the Exchequer is going, not to be invented or swept under the carpet.