PARIS 1924

Respected father of modern Olympic movement, baron Pierre de Coubertain had reached an age, where he felt that he had better to step aside from the presidency of the IOC and as a respect for his decision, the games of the 1924 were given to his home town Paris.  So Paris became the first city to organize the Olympic games twice.

From Antwerp games 1920 familiar winter sports ice hockey and figure skating were also included in the program, but the French hosts wanted to organize a separate Festival Sports d'Hiver in February in the city of Chamonix.  IOC suggested the Chamonix' games to be named as winter olympic games and so had a new event started.

Because the Paris Olympic stadium was located outside the city center to district of Colombais, the organizers paid a special attention to the public transport.   A direct railway connection was opened between Paris city center and Colombais.  This connection is still operated by local trains. The olympic stadium is approximately half an hour walking distance from the railway station.  One of the main roads leading to the stadium was named as Rue du Finlande to remind future generations of the second best team of the 1924 games. 

 

 

 

 

 

Close to the main stadium there was an Olympic village for the athletes but some of the teams choose to stay in their own accommodations. For example the Finnish team was staying in their own villas in the Colombais center.  These villas are still in there and for the inhabitants it might be interesting to know that they are staying in buildings occupied by olympic team. 

Other venues were located in the city center of Paris. For example the Velodrome d'Hiver that hosted boxing and wrestling was located only couple of hundreds of yards from the Eiffel Tower.  Some of the football matches were played outside of Paris, some of the shooting events in Versailles and sailing was competed in the city of Le Havre in Northern France.

The opening ceremonies were held in the 5th of July and closing ceremonies on the 27th July.  Some of the shooting competitions, rugby and football tournament were held already in May-June.

Participating athletes and countries reached the highest level so far in the Olympic history, 3092 athletes from 44 different countries.  China participated in the opening ceremonies but pulled their two tennis players away before the tournament.  Apart from the athletes there were 135 women.  The biggest teams came naturally from France (319 athletes) and USA (291 athletes) 

STADE DE COLOMBAIS

 

Organizers decided to build the first olympic complex of olympic history to the northwest part of Paris in the district of Colombais.  The complex had the main stadium, hall for fencing of modern pentathlon and tennis courts for the tennis tournament.  The athletes' olympic village was also built in the area.

The main stadium capacity was 45.000 spectators and as a new invention a new pa-system (voice box) was set up to the stadium.  This was the first time in the olympic history when the announcements were not done with hand held devices.  The stadium hosted the athletics, equestrian, football, gymnastics, rugby and the cross county running of the modern pentathlon.

The old olympic stadium is still under active use.  For example the European Championships in athletics were held there in 1938. Now the stadium is owned by rugby team Racin Metro '92 and when I visited the Colombais, there was a rugby match and I was invited as a guest to see the game.

Perhaps the most famous use for the stadium was in the movie Chariots of Fire.  The athletics scenes of the movie were filmed at the authentic places.  While visiting Colombais, the famous theme of the movie came in my mind.Another movie - Escape to Victory - about a football match between Nazi soldiers and allied POW's was also filmed in Colombais 

BASSIN D’ARGENTEUIL

 

I found the rowing stadium by co-incidence from the old pictures of the 1924 games official report.  In the old pictures you can see an old industrial estate.  According to the old maps the stadium is located by the river Seine close to to the Stade de Colombais.  The goal of the rowing competitions was located exactly by the industrial estate.  An old bridge was built over the Seine so it was easy to take the pictures of the rowing venue now.  Unfortunately the old factory does not operate anymore and there are no longer rowing competitions held there. 

 

HIPPODROME D'AUTEIL

 

 

Hippodrome of Auteil is located in the western part of Paris.  The area is now well known of the French Open Tennis tournament. The Roland Garros stadium is located only an half an hour walk away from the Auteil. 

 

 Hippodrome is still in active use and when I vsited it, they had athletics competition for local youth teams.  The inner field of the hippodrome has a full size athletics field and it is surrounded by the horse track

In 1924 the stadium hosted the start of the three days' event's cross county event. 

 

 

VELODROME DE VINCENNES

The velodrome was the main stadium of the 1900 summer olympic games and therefore it had an honor to be the first main stadium of the Olympic Games twice.  This time the velodrome of Vincennes was not the main stadium of the 1924 games.  The stadium hosted the track cycling events of the 1924 games

This time finding the velodrome was much easier as after more detailed research  I was able to find a local Metro station only half an hour walk from the velodrome.  The stadium is still in active use by local rugby team and cyclists.


The first case of doping was also seen in here when a special attention was given to a Dutch cyclist who was celebrating his bronze medal unusually cheerful way and he was found to be extremely drunk as he had had a whole bottle of cognac evening before competition.  However he was not disqualified as there was no rule against competing drunk yet.

PISCINE DE TOURELLES

First time in the history of the Olympic games the swimming competitions were held in the swimming stadium built specifically for the event.  The swimming centre of Tourelles is still an active venue, except the only thing remaining from the old stadium is the main entrance.

Personally I had a chance to have a swim in the swimming pool of Tourelles while visiting Paris and now I can say that I have swam in the same place as the Tarzan aka Johnny Weissmuller who won his first three gold medals in here. Surprisingly not many visitor in the center didn't know that they are swimming in the 90 years old olympic venue.

VELODROME D’HIVER

Located in the city center of Paris, the Velodrome of Winter was chosen to host the boxing, wrestling, weight lifting and fencing.  The venue was located only few hundred meters away from the Eiffel Tower.

The velodrome was built already 1911 and it hosted several sports events before the olympic games. Together with cycling it hosted specially ice hockey and boxing tournaments.

After the games the velodrome had a not so sportsman like part of the world history.  During the Second World War the German occupiers gathered 13.000 jews from Paris to Velodrome to be sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

After the war, the velodrome still hosted some sports events but because of it's history, the events were no longer so popular with the locals.  1959 the velodrome was destroyed partially by a fire and the city of Paris decided to demolish this sports venue.

On the sport there is a memorial park for the Jews gathered in there.

STADE DE PARIS 

Out of the stadiums hosted olympic football 1924, there are only Stade de Colombais and Stade de Paris left.  The Stade de Paris is still in active use by the local football team Red Star Paris.  In 1998 football World Cup Stade de Paris hosted a friendly match between Brazil and Andorra.  The game was won by Brazil 3-0

Unfortunately the stadium has been neglected very badly, probably due to lack of funds, but you can still sense the olympic athmosphere in there.

CHATEAU DE BOGATELLE

It's very unusual to find an old beautiful old castle in the middle of a big capital like Paris.  In the middle of city centre close to the business district you can find Chateau de Bogatelle that hosted the Polo matches of the 1924 games

The area is still practice area of the French polo union and it is also a recreation area for people.

Chateau de Bogatelle hosted also the polo matches of 1900 games

The Paris olympic games of 1924 were declared closed by Baron de Coubertain on the 24th July and the games were a great success for both the organizers and the International Olympic Committee.

The games of the 9th Olympiad 1928 were given to the Dutch capital of Amsterdam, so the International Olympic movement didn't have a long way to move. So Amsterdam is my next place of visit.

DID YOU KNOW THAT

* The athletics competition in Paris 1924 was an inspiration to the movie Chariots of Fire

 

* Medalists of 100 meters, Harold Abrahams from GB and Arthur Porrit from New Zealand, had a dinner 

   every year exactly on the 7th July 7pm which was the time of the 100m final.  The tradition was held all 

      the way to Abrahams' death in 1978

 

* The IOC motto Citius Altius Fortius was quoted first time in the olympic history by de Coubertain

 

* Johnny Weissmuller won also a bronze medal in the water polo together with team USA

 

* The athletes were accommodated first time in their own Olympic villag