As Olympic and Paralympic Day – celebrated every June 23 – approaches, the Parisian municipality presented on Monday 13 all the sporting and cultural events that will be organized on this occasion.
Two years from the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the Parisian municipality is committed to doing well, and above all, to setting an example. On the occasion of Olympic Day on June 23, it has planned a great weekend of festivities, where young and old can discover the sport while having fun.
“The opportunity to bring the atmosphere of the Olympics to life this summer,” explains Pierre Rabadan, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of sportthe Olympic and Paralympic Games and the Seine, which promises “neighborhood parties”, “initiations to Olympic sports” or even “a festive stroll”.
“This year, Olympic Day falls on a Thursday, a day when family and children are unavailable. This is why we wanted to organize a program over several days, from June 22 to 26”, confides this former professional rugby player, who intends to take advantage of this opportunity “to seek out an audience” sometimes distant from sports practice.
13 sites to learn about Olympic sports
Thus, from Wednesday June 22, young Parisians are invited to discover a certain number of Olympic and Paralympic disciplines “through fun and sporting courses or initiations (basketball, badminton, judo, triathlon, fencing, archery , Table tennis…).
For this, 12 municipal gymnasiums will be open mainly in the afternoon, as will the forecourt of the Paris Center town hall, which will be entirely dedicated to sports practice between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. on Wednesday June 22.
a weekend of entertainment
An unprecedented event, a nautical base will be deployed on the Seine on Saturday June 25, at the level of the Marie arm, “between the Nautes and the Henri IV tunnel”, explains Pierre Rabadan. Accessible to all, free of charge and without registration, kayaks, canoes and canoes will be made available to the general public, who will be able to learn about these water sports.
Throughout the weekend, neighborhood parties will be held in several popular Parisian sites Grange-aux-Belles (10th), Saint-Maur (11th), Belleville-Saint-Michel (11th), Marx Dormoy (18th). There, the sports assistant promises “sports Olympiads”, aimed at “sensitizing” the general public to “sports and cultural practices”.
Another highlight of the weekend: a 4 km stroll between the Canal de la Villette and the Stade de France, in Saint-Denis (93), punctuated by sporting and cultural activities. The start will be given around 1:30 p.m. on Sunday June 26, in the presence of the mayor Anne Hidalgo and some professional athletes.
THE “OLYMPIC FORMS FESTIVAL”
At the same time, the Parisian municipality presented the program for its “cultural Olympiad”. After a call for tenders launched in March, 65 projects were finally selected, including 35 dedicated to performing arts, 13 to the visual arts and 6 to music. That is more than a hundred events organized this summer in Paris.
Free events, open to all and most often organized outdoors. Like the “cultural hike” organized on Sunday June 26 from the Carnavalet museum in Paris and to the Charléty stadium, in search of “remarkable women who made history”.
Or even the summer program of Point Éphémère, called “Fail”, which will question the relationship of the athlete to failure from June 23 to September 11. On the program: “pool on the rooftop”, “marathon of dance films” and “roller party for the national holiday” of July 14.
For Carine Rolland, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of culture, the idea of this cultural Olympiad – which will take the name of “Olympic Forms Festival” is to “remove a certain number of prejudices which would suggest that the public interested in culture and those interested in sport would not be the same”.
A way, according to the deputy, of “going to meet new audiences”, of “building bridges”, while putting “the values of Olympism at the heart”. The detailed program of the festival is already available on the dedicated website.
