Olympic Games-2024: the eventful birth of the Olympic aquatic center

There are difficult births. That of this infrastructure which will host the synchronized swimming, diving and water polo events, and which will be inaugurated Thursday in Saint-Denis (north of Paris) by Emmanuel Macron, was much more successful than expected.

In the application file, the Olympic swimming pool was to cost less than 70 million euros, a cost refined to 90 million euros in the final project submitted in September 2017.

Seven years later, it will have finally cost nearly 175 million euros, and its capacity in terms of number of spectators is also too small to host future world championships.

It is thus the Arena La Défense, in Nanterre, which will host the Olympic swimming events in line, with two temporary pools which, at the end of the Games, will be installed in two towns of Seine-Saint-Denis (Sevran and Bagnolet).

“This swimming pool story is uniquely original in the history of the Olympic Games. We tinkered with something to satisfy the financial balance but, in the end, France will not have an Olympic swimming pool,” summarizes Armand by Rendinger, a consultant specializing in the Olympic movement, who explains that you have to go back more than 20 years to understand.

Arlesienne

In 2001, in Moscow, during the award procedure for the 2008 Olympic Games, France was a candidate, "but without any chance of winning", says Armand de Rendinger. The purpose of this application is to "prepare for that of 2012". An unfortunate attempt since it was London which won the organization.

At this time, the project emerged to build an Olympic swimming pool, which was sorely lacking in French swimming. He will stand out like an Arlesian every time France bids for the Summer Olympics.

“Except that, when we won in Lima in 2017, we had to delve more seriously into the promises, including that of the swimming pool,” recalls Armand de Rendinger.

Very quickly, the project turned into a headache. A report from the Financial Inspectorate warned in 2018 of a probable fairly significant overrun, estimating the cost at nearly 260 million euros. Impossible given budgetary constraints.

“It was therefore necessary to reduce the size of the swimming pool at all costs,” explains Armand de Rendinger.

Substitution scenarios are then put on the table. “We knew quite quickly that there was a problem,” recalls David Roizen, expert with the Jean-Jaurès foundation.

Two manufacturers are joining the ranks, Vinci and Bouygues. It is the second, at the head of a consortium, which pockets the prize in April 2020, for 175 million euros, but with one box less compared to the specifications: there can only be 5.000 spectators . Too little for the international federation which imposes a minimum of 15.000 places for world-level swimming events, de facto excluding France from the World Swimming Championships.

"Symptomatic"

The Olympic Aquatic Center (CAO), connected to the Stade de France by a footbridge spanning the A1 motorway, will therefore host artistic swimming, diving and water polo qualifying events, and not line swimming, one of the three king sports of the Games , with athletics and gymnastics.

“It’s obviously a failure. But the problem is at the origin,” said David Roizen.

Built under project management by the Métropole Grand Paris, the 20.000 m2 building, with a low-carbon wooden structure, will offer four pools: learning pool, fun pool, competition pool and diving pool.

“It remains a huge step forward for knowing how to swim in Seine-Saint-Denis, for one of the departments with the worst facilities,” assures an elected official on condition of anonymity.

A handful of new swimming pools, such as the Marville complex in La Courneuve, and renovated pools for the region, were also born from these Olympics.

This elected official warns: "We will have to make this significant legacy bear fruit after the Olympics for the poorest department in France, in which one in two children does not know how to swim when they enter middle school according to the public authorities.