Olympic site in 1924, the town of Les Mureaux wants to replay its Olympics at Paris 2024
With just 100 days to go until the Tokyo Olympic Games in Japan, let's take a step back in time almost a century. In 1924, the town of Les Mureaux was to host one of the sailing events at the Summer Olympics. It's a page of history that the town council wants to retrace on the occasion of Paris 2024.
Sequence of memories. While many towns in the Yvelines have been awarded the "Terres des Jeux" label for Paris 2024, Les Mureaux is one of the few towns in the département to have been named an Olympic town. It was chosen in 1924 by the then organizing committee of the Olympic Games because of the presence on its territory of the Cercle de la voile de Paris (CVP), founded in 1858 and located on the banks of the Seine opposite Meulan.
The club had been commissioned by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games in 1894, to draw up regulations for sailing competitions in the run-up to Paris 1924.
26 sailboats at the start in 1924
So it was only natural that the town of Les Mureaux should become an Olympic venue that year. The single-handed regattas on one-design national 5-meter dinghies would take place on the Seine rather than at sea. And the location was not chosen by chance. As Yves Jambu-Merlin, the current president of the CVP, explains, the lake meets all the criteria.
In this area, the river runs in a straight line and is also very wide. Last but not least, the winds and the geographical location are ideal for sailing.
The races, held from July 10 to 13, 1924, brought together 26 competitors representing 17 nations. The Olympic gold medal went to the Belgian sailor, ahead of Norway and Finland.
The CVP's adventure at the highest level lasted almost 50 years. The second oldest sailing club in France, it provided the majority of athletes for the Olympic Games from 1900 until the early 1950s.
We now have around a hundred members and regularly organize regattas on the Les Mureaux lake.
The history of Les Mureaux and that of the club are therefore forever associated with the Olympic Games. With Paris set to host the 2024 Olympic Games, the Seine Valley town wants to take advantage of the event, which will take place in the Ile-de-France region, to reconstruct its history a century later. The opportunity is incomparable. The CVP and the town want to be there. It's the ideal time to bring this 1924 epic to the general public. François Garay, the mayor of Les Mureaux, who has just signed a partnership agreement with the City of Paris, believes in it more than ever.
The project covers a wide range of activities, from heritage enhancement and tourism to schools and sport. The aim is to revive the tradition of the Games, to organize actions aimed at children, but also to enable our young people to become ambassadors for the Olympics in 2024.
From the start of the school year in September 2021 and for a period of three years, sailing workshops will be set up for schoolchildren. Exchanges will take place between the towns of Les Mureaux and Paris, as well as Le Havre in Normandy, also an Olympic venue in 1924.
Recreating the atmosphere of the 1924 Olympics
The town council and the club work together on the project. The Cercle de la voile de Paris premises are about to get a facelift. The building, which dates from the late 19th century, will be renovated. A remarkable site, it still houses equipment from the 1924 Olympic Games, in particular the athletes' changing rooms.
An unprecedented competition is planned for 2024, the year of the Paris Olympics. A sailing regatta featuring some of the world's top skippers will be staged on the same stretch of water where the events took place a century earlier. The aim is to recreate the atmosphere of the time. One of the sailboats that lined up in 1924, which has been carefully preserved, should even be on the starting line.
Seven Olympic disciplines in Yvelines in 2024
See you in three years' time. But while festivities will be held in Les Mureaux, several sites in the Yvelines have been selected for the official competitions of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The département will host seven Olympic disciplines: golf in Guyancourt, modern pentathlon in Versailles and Montigny-le-Bretonneux, road cycling in Versailles, BMX on the Saint-Quentin leisure island, track cycling at the Saint-Quentin national velodrome, mountain biking on the Elancourt hill and horse riding at the Château de Versailles.
The Tokyo Olympic Games, which kick off in 100 days' time, will be held from July 23 to August 8, 2021, followed by the Paralympics from August 24 to September 5, 2021.
