Paris Olympics’ Club France is ‘the place to be’ for supporters, athletes and ever-present sponsors – Technologist

Don’t look for crowds at Disneyland Paris during the Olympic Games. The park’s paths are reported to be unusually empty. The lines are here, at La Villette. The metallic Grande Halle at the entrance to the vast park in northeastern Paris is, for the duration of the Games, “the place to be”.

To take part in a decibel contest organized by pudding brand Danette, stand in line. To have your photo taken holding the Olympic torch, thanks to the BPCE banking group, stand in line. To start a virtual reality wheelchair race at national utility company EDF stand, or score points by hitting Tourtel non-alcoholic beer bottles that appear on a screen, stand in line. Even the Interior Ministry stall, where you can try out shooting with laser guns, is always busy. Welcome to Club France.

“This is the place where everyone is going to want to be,” said David Lappartient before the Games. The president of the French National Olympic and Sports Committee no longer needs to prove it. Since the opening of this immense space (15,000 square meters inside, 40,000 outside) dedicated to broadcasting events, celebrating French athletes and promoting sports, Club France has been packed. On the evening of Wednesday, July 31, even Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Séjourné made his way into the “golden square,” the VIP area at the foot of the giant screen inside the Grande Halle, to watch Léon Marchand win his third Olympic title in the 200-meter breaststroke.

A sell-out

The venue can accommodate 25,000 people at any one time, 5,000 in the Grande Halle and 20,000 on the adjacent lawns. By the middle of the week, the venue was seeing between 39,000 and 40,000 people a day. Most of them paid the €5 entrance fee to join in with the Olympic festivities and cheer on the medalists as they paraded down a long podium in the middle of the crowd.

The event is sold out every evening. The quota of online tickets available – which varies from day to day – has been reached until early next week. A few thousand tickets remain available each day at the entrance. “The last thing I want is for a child who comes with their parents to have to turn back,” said Arnaud Courtier, the energetic director of this bustling hive that attracts a family crowd of sports fans and revelers in a festival-like atmosphere.

All it took was one electrifying night on the opening day, July 27. The images of rugby player Antoine Dupont, freshly awarded a gold medal, floating in the pit at La Villette like a rock star, established the venue’s reputation. It has become known as a temple of sports celebration, a sanctuary for vocal cords strained by cheering, a hub for sports-induced cold sweats and brows drenched in tropical heat.

You have 73.01% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.