Still without a fixed enclosure, basketball could well be played in Lille during the Paris Olympic Games in 2024. Handball would go the opposite way by joining the capital. This is the option studied by the town hall.
Inverting the sites of the preliminary phases of basketball and handball during the 2024 Olympic Games, by sending the first to Lille and repatriating the second to Paris, “seems the most reasonable” for the town hall of Paris.
“We wanted to keep basketball in Paris” but the use of the Pierre-Mauroy stadium in the first week “seems to us the most reasonable”said Pierre Rabadan, PS Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s deputy for the Olympic Games, on Wednesday during a visit to the Arena under construction in La Chapelle.
The Parc des Expositions at Porte de Versailles, on the southern side of the capital, was originally supposed to host the preliminary phase of the basketball tournament – the final phase being played at Bercy – but the Paris Olympics organizing committee (Cojo ) preferred to give it up at the end of March.
In question: a controversy launched by one of the executives of the France team Evan Fournier on a room with a “ceiling too low”.
As the La Chapelle Arena will host the Paris Basketball club after the Games, the town hall “had suggested the idea that it was pretty good that basketball (y) comes in first week”said Mr. Rabadan.
Fournier, who plays in the NBA championship under the jersey of the New York Knicks, also claimed it, but the new Arena will finally host badminton and rhythmic and sports gymnastics.
“But as we have done for several sports – in particular rugby, which was at Jean-Bouin and which is at the Stade de France because there is more space, it mobilizes fewer sites so it saves money. -, we think on a global scale and not only in our personal interest”underlined the former rugby player.
The exchange with Lille will allow Paris to “retrieve” handball in the first week, underlined the former Stade Français player. French handball players “are three-time Olympic champions and they don’t mind playing in a cattle shed”he added, ironically about the criticism of NBA players.
The preliminary phase of boxing, scheduled for the Suzanne-Lenglen stadium at Roland-Garros, could also leave Paris due to technical constraints and find refuge in Seine-Saint-Denis.
“It’s a possibility,” admitted Mr. Rabadan, stressing that beyond “project adjustments”the organizers of the Olympics were trying to “sticking to our project: respecting environmental and budgetary commitments“.