Speaking at a media event for the US Olympic team in New York, United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) chief executive Sarah Hirshland said she expected Paris 2024 officials to have contingency plans in place.

"I think any leader has a plan A, B and C, at least in the back of their mind. How developed are those plans? It's certainly not for me to say what the organising committee might have, but there's no leader who relies on a single plan at any time. No, I wasn't surprised," Hirshland told AFP.

Asked if the USOPC had been made aware of the possibility of moving the opening ceremony to the Stade de France, Hirshland replied: "I've seen the same reports you've seen."

Nicole Deal, head of security for the USOPC, said the safety of the athletes was the "number one priority" for officials. The US delegation will be escorted by 70 State Department agents during the Olympics. On the sensitive and unclear issue of the presence of armed agents in the Olympic Village, shee assured delegates that "there will be no firearms there: that is the norm."

Deal said US officials were comfortable with the plans for the opening ceremony, which will see the athletes transported along the Seine in a flotilla of boats. "They've got it all planned and it's going to be a well-orchestrated symphony that day," Deal said, adding that no US athletes had expressed concerns about the river ceremony.

Meanwhile, she praised the French authorities' decision to limit the number of spectators at the opening ceremony to around 320,000. "They changed the number of spectators and to me I was thrilled," she said. "They changed the number of spectators and I was thrilled because you have to be nimble but flexible at the same time, it's a balancing act. If you know you can't meet the safety threshold, you have to reduce the crowd," she said.

"I saw that as a positive, that 'OK, you're taking feedback in to reassess and then go back to the drawing board. And that's what I want to see, you're making a security plan,", Deal insisted.

Holding the Olympic opening ceremony on the Seine is the "main plan" and "very likely", Tony Estanguet, president of the organising committee, said on Tuesday, the day after Emmanuel Macron's comments suggesting alternative venues at the Trocadéro and the Stade de France.