It was the perfect opportunity. For Montpellier, combining the hosting of the Olympic flame and extreme sports, for which the Hérault city has showcased itself through the International Festival of Extreme Sports (FISE), was almost obvious.
Especially since the calendar suited it: after Millau (Aveyron) and Sète (Hérault) earlier in the day, the torch relay crosses the urban area on Monday May 13 in the afternoon, the day after the end of FISE. In the space of five days, the festival will have seen several hundred thousand people come to discover the performances of 2,000 professionals and amateurs competing in seven urban disciplines, including BMX, skateboarding and breaking.
While the Olympic Games will host events in these three disciplines this summer in Paris (on the Place de la Concorde), the Montpellier town hall and the organizers of the event have agreed to try to link the two events.
“The metropolis of Montpellier is now truly the territory of “action sports” [sports d’action]. Connecting the FISE to the passage of the flame was very coherent”notes Hervé André-Benoit, the director of the event, which he created in 1997 on the beach of Palavas-les-Flots and which claims to be the third most popular free sporting event in France, after the Tour de France and the Vendée Globe.
After organizing the first BMX freestyle world ranking, FISE, for example, approached the International Cycling Union to structure the discipline, which joined this federation in 2015. The following year, the first BMX World Cup discipline was organized during the festival in Montpellier.
It was also after attending the 2017 edition of the Montpellier meeting that the evaluation commission of the International Olympic Committee made the decision to add this discipline to the list of sports present at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. .
“Like a nod to the Olympics”
It therefore seemed unthinkable that the flame could visit Montpellier without integrating FISE into the event. However, extending the festival by extending it to Monday May 13 seemed difficult, given that it corresponds to the day of return to work after the big Ascension weekend.
It is also difficult to maintain the main festival equipment in place on the Lez, the small river that crosses Montpellier. Largely because the population of the neighborhood, who accept the noise and the crowds every year, willy-nilly, would hardly have understood that overtime was being played.
The city and the festival organizers found a solution acceptable to all: leave the large BMX ramp installed in front of the city hall in place. This is how the flame will arrive on this square shortly before 7 p.m., against a backdrop of BMX, skateboarding, rollerblading and scooter demonstrations.
Another sport will be added, 3×3 basketball. “We added it to FISE this yearexplains Hervé André-Benoit, like a nod to the Olympics. » A new Olympic discipline which will also be present this summer, along with various urban sports, on the Place de la Concorde in Paris.
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