Umpteenth twist in the soap opera of the choice of the room for the first round of the basketball tournament of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. While some players from the French team castigated the initial choice of the Porte de Versailles exhibition center and then the possible move to the Pierre-Mauroy stadium in Villeneuve d’Asq, a third solution was mentioned this weekend: the track Villepinte and its huge exhibition center.
guest of France Info, Tony Estanguet cut short this rumor, and the objective is still to propose the Pierre-Mauroy Stadium to host this first round. According to the president of the Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games, it is at the request of handball, initially scheduled in Lille, that this change will take place.
“It is first of all a question of responding to a request from handball, which was in Lille for the two weeks and which wanted to play in Paris” he justifies himself when the administration committee is meeting this afternoon to ratify this change. “It’s true that having all the team sports partly played in Paris makes sense. In France, we have a real love story with handball, it is the most successful team at the Games. We are therefore delighted to be able to offer handball to come and play in Paris. »
Since the hand agrees to play Porte de Versailles, it frees up space for basketball a few kilometers from Lille, where the European Basketball Championship took place in 2015.
« Suddenly, (it will be) Lille in the first week, and we are talking about three matches per team since basketball will stay well at Bercy in the second week for the quarters, halves and final. It is the biggest room in Paris. »
Incidentally, Estanguet affirms that Villepinte is not one of the proposed solutions. Clearly, it will be Lille or nothing for basketball players. No offense to Evan Fournier.
