Emmanuel Macron inaugurates the Aquatic Center before a “site review” 100 days before the Games

Emmanuel Macron inaugurated the Saint-Denis Olympic aquatic center on Thursday, which will host the synchronized swimming, diving and water polo events of the Paris Games, before launching a “site review” general just over a hundred days before the planetary meeting. The President of the Republic first met the workers who participated in the construction of “this completely new place which has been thought out with audacity, built in a unique way”he greeted, recalling that he was also “exemplary from an environmental point of view”.

With “the largest concave wooden frame in the world”this “showcase of French know-how” allow “to reduce building energy consumption by 30%”, an advisor to the Head of State explained to the press, ahead of this visit during which Emmanuel Macron also spoke with children. The Head of State underlined that this site, the only permanent one built for next summer’s Olympic Games – to which we can add the Arena Porte de la Chapelle, an old project financed thanks to the Games – “will allow you to learn to swim”A “challenge” because “there is still a lot of injustice in this area”.

This will therefore be an important legacy for Seine-Saint-Denis, the poorest department in France where one in two students does not know how to swim when entering sixth grade, according to the public authorities. “Thanks to the Games and the two swimming pool plans initiated with the department, 18 new pools out of ten swimming pools have been built or renovated, which can be passed on to residents”, according to the presidency. But the Saint-Denis nautical center, delivered a month in advance, will not be used for the row swimming events, one of the three key sports of the Games, along with athletics and gymnastics. The latter will in fact take place at the Arena La Défense, in Nanterre, with two temporary pools which, at the end of the Games, will be installed in two other towns in Seine-Saint-Denis, Sevran and Bagnolet.

After inaugurating the athletes’ village at the end of February, in the same suburb north of the capital, Emmanuel Macron is ramping up the preparations. On April 17, “We will be 100 days from the start of the Olympic Games. So from next week, the president has asked his ministers to be on the ground. For “do site reviews”, “make sure everything is in order” on the calendar, announced those around him. The Head of State will himself make a new trip in mid-April dedicated to the Olympics. The expected infrastructures are numerous, and the projects are often complex.

A total cost of 188 million euros

The birth of the aquatic center, for a total amount of 188 million euros including the footbridge which spans the A1 motorway to connect it to the Stade de France, was not without its ups and downs. 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. A forecast budget which then exploded and forced the organizers to rework their project in 2020: the Olympic Aquatic Center (CAO) and its 5,000 places will therefore only host artistic swimming, diving and water polo qualifying events. Thursday’s presidential visit was also to be an opportunity to celebrate Olympic and Paralympic week at school. Emmanuel Macron therefore attended a sporting and artistic performance carried out by 130 young members of the French Swimming Federation.