The Yves-du-Manoir stadium, which was the main venue for the 1924 Paris Olympic Games, is ready, a century later, to welcome hundreds of participants and tens of thousands of spectators for the next Olympic Games in summer in the French capital next year.
The Yves-du-Manoir stadium, located in the northwest Paris suburb of Colombes, on Monday became the first sports venue to be officially handed over by promoters to local authorities ahead of the Games.
It will host field hockey competitions, a sport which may not be the leading activity in France, but which has enormous popularity in Northern Europe and Asia, particularly in India.
The stadium was specially renovated for the 1924 Paris Olympics, where it hosted the opening ceremony, athletics and other sports ranging from equestrian to gymnastics.
During these Games, it was the scene of epic sprint races involving British athletes Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell, famous in the 1981 film “Chariots of Fire.”
According to organizers, it will be the only 2024 Olympic venue to host the Games for the second time.
It also hosted the 1938 FIFA World Cup final, where Italy beat Hungary, and saw its capacity increase to 60,000 after the end of World War II.
But the opening of the Parc des Princes stadium in 1972 to the west of Paris marked its decline and three of the four stands were demolished at the end of the last century.
It’s now located in a location that doesn’t match its mythical status, wedged between fifteen-story buildings and a highway.
Its selection to host the field hockey events in 2024 has given it new life.
Two years of work made it possible to upgrade the historic stand, with a capacity of 6,000 seats, and to build a new stand for 1,000 seats as well as training grounds for hockey and other sports.
Temporary stands will be installed between February and April, bringing the total capacity to 13,500, said Edouard Donnelly, head of operations for the Olympic Organizing Committee (OCOG).
The total cost of the work amounted to 101 million euros ($110 million), including 87.4 million financed by local authorities and the remaining 13.6 million by Solideo, the public establishment responsible for carrying out the work. Olympic construction work.
On Monday, the Leon Grosse construction group, which carried out the renovations, symbolically handed over the keys to the new complex to its owner, the Hauts-de-Seine department in France.
Marc Guillaume, the state official in charge of the Paris region, said the handover was the first in a series.
There will be “many more ceremonies of this nature in the coming weeks”, he said.
The stadium is named after French rugby player Yves du Manor, who died in a plane crash in 1928, aged 23.
“The Olympic Games were an opportunity to completely renovate this stadium,” declared the head of the Hauts-de-Seine department, Georges Siffredi.
It will host the men’s and women’s Olympic hockey tournaments from July 27 to August 9.
Around 300,000 spectators are expected during the fortnight of competition, declared Edouard Donnelly, head of the COJO.
Other facilities will be declared ready in the first months of 2024.
The Arena Porte de la Chapelle, which will host the badminton events, will be handed over in January, the Olympic village in February and the aquatic center at the end of March.