IT outage hits athletes arriving for Paris Olympics

PARIS, France — The Paris Olympics were affected by the global IT outage on Friday, with organisers temporarily unable to hand out accreditations to athletes and officials arriving for the Games.

Airlines, banks, TV channels and other business across the world have scrambled following one of the biggest computer crashes in recent years, caused by an update to an antivirus programme.

"Like a lot of organisations, we suffered this global Microsoft outage," chief organiser Tony Estanguet told reporters, a week before the opening ceremony of the Olympics.

"All of our servers were affected this morning."

By 11:00 p.m. Friday (Manila time,) the organising committee said its operations were "now running normally", with the evening hours at its accreditation centre extended to help clear a backlog of demands.

Thousands of athletes have begun flying into the French capital ahead of the July 26 to August 11 event, while the organising committee is also distributing badges and uniforms to 45,000 volunteers.

The IT problems did not affected Paris airport operator ADP, but "the arrival of some delegations has been impacted by delays to their flights," the organising committee added.

- Cyber risks -

Paris is putting the finishing touches to preparations for the first Olympics in the French capital in a century.

The venues are on track, the weather has brightened up after months of rain, and the water quality in the Seine has improved, making outdoor swimming events in the river possible after months of suspense.

New data released on Friday showed the river was clean enough to swim in on six out of seven of the last days.

"We weren't necessarily expecting an IT outage a few days before the start of the Games," Estanguet said.

Security is already tight across the capital, with much of the central areas of the city near the Seine fenced off, with vehicles and everyone except local residents banned from entering.

Trade groups representing Paris shops, restaurants, bars and clubs complained on Friday that they were facing an "unprecedented slump in business and footfall", blaming in part the "heavy security measures".

Elsewhere on Friday, the Japan Gymnastics Association (JGA)