THE spectacular Château de Versailles will host the equestrian events of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games - show jumping, dressage and eventing and the five modern pentathlon events - from July 27th to August 11th, followed by the para-equestrian events from September 3rd to 7th.
The Olympic venue has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979. An exceptional site covering more than eight square kilometres, the Versailles estate is a haven for nature, with its large gardens, wooded park and more than 350,000 trees.
It is a major part of the heritage of France. These characteristics mean that those carrying out the work have to comply with a number of rules to ensure the protection and integrity of the site, in architectural, plant and environmental terms.
The temporary infrastructure includes an arena with stands for 16,000 spectators on the Royal Star site, as well as obstacles and cross-country tracks on the banks of the Grand Canal.
Halfway between the Étoile Royale and the Château de Versailles is the Menagerie, where the cross-country will take place. On Sunday, July 28th, 40,000 spectators are expected along the 5.3 km course.
Just a few metres from the Menagerie is the last part of the estate, a long tree-lined driveway for the training area. The athletes will be able to ride in the shade, well-protected by the trees. In all, there are 220 boxes in the 600m-long stables, while the athletes will also have areas with showers and places to rest between competition.
Team Ireland logistics
Taking the role of chef de mission for Team Ireland’s equestrian convoy in Paris is Horse Sport Ireland’s Acting Head of Sport, Bernard Jackman.
“It’s one of the most amazing venues I think you could ever dream about having a sporting event in,” Jackman told Irish Horse Worldabout the Château de Versailles. “It’s a World Heritage site, so every change to it had to be carefully planned. I think they’ve got the balance right between what’s going to be a brilliant spectator viewing Olympics, but also for the athletes to really feel they’re part of something special.”
Is there still much work to be done? “There’s still work to be done, to be honest. But you could see the stands were already up. They had the grooms’ accommodation built, that’s a new building. They were a long way towards the stabling.”
The event riders will be the first athletes into the site, after a holding camp at nearby Haras de Jardy. “We are still waiting to find out what day we can enter the Olympic site with our horses. Dag and the eventers are very familiar with Jardy, and it’s only 15 minutes away. That is ideal because it breaks the journey up. The jumpers have that option too of going to Jardy, Michael Bake hasn’t decided on that yet, and so too does dressage.”
Olympic village
The athletes have opted not to stay in the Olympic Village and will instead stay in a hotel just off the park, while the grooms are just 100 metres away from the stables. “The biggest thing I had with the riders was they wanted to be very close to the stables. Their hotel is the Waldorf Astoria, and it’s literally just right on the park, so they’re very, very close as well. The last thing you want to worry about is traffic,” Jackman said.
In terms of the Olympic Village experience, he added: “They will miss out a little bit on the Olympic experience by not being in the village, but logistically, and in terms of performance, it just isn’t the right option.
“Shuttle buses will run from the village to Versailles, but it could be an hour and a half, and you could be two and a half hours if something went wrong. The riders are just focused on performance. They have the option to go to the village after they compete for a night or two and there’s a cultural centre as well, which we would encourage them to do.
“There’s going to be an Olympic kind of atmosphere in Versailles. On our recce missions, we’ve met other chefs d’equipe and a lot of them are planning to stay in Versailles and put performance first.”
Opening ceremony on the Seine
Every athlete is invited to participate in the opening ceremony on Friday, July 26th, which is the night before the first day of competition for the eventing athletes. For the first time in the history of the Games, the opening ceremony will not take place in a stadium. Instead, the parade of athletes will be held on the Seine with boats for each national delegation.
Jackman, who spent a number of weeks in Paris for the Rugby World Cup last year, added: “If it is anything like the World Cup, it took about a week for everything to settle down in terms of security and traffic and all that; so for the opening ceremony, you could be gone for five or six hours, just for the athletes to be aware of that.”
We can hardly wait for the Games to begin!
Olympic schedule
Eventing: July 27th – July 29th
Dressage: July 30th – August 4th
Show jumping: August 1st – August 6th
The numbers
€4.38bn - the budget for the cost of the Games
15,000 - athletes at the 2024 Olympic and Paralympics
44,500 - volunteers
26,000 - accredited journalists
4bn - television viewers
13.4m - tickets
€3.5bn - economic benefit
206 - nations represented
32 Olympic and 22 Paralympic sports
869 events