Olympic Games 2024: the Prisme, the first inclusive sports building in Paris
Rugby, football or wheelchair basketball, ping pong, archery, climbing, fencing, dance but also medical and research center. Six months after the laying of the first stone, the Pôle de référence inclusif sportif métropolitain (Prisme) includes equipment for able-bodied and disabled people in the same place. A unique site in Europe of more than 13,000 square meters located in the northern suburbs of Paris.
Audio 00:26
The future inclusive metropolitan sports reference pole dedicated to parasports for the Paris Games. © Sylvie Koffi / RFI
Text by: Sylvie Koffi
Advertising
Read more
Once the safety instructions are given, it is with a helmet well screwed on the head that the visit can start. With caution and remaining all grouped, because the site is in full activity. Six months later, it is still difficult to project because scaffolding, concrete walls and stairs occupy all the space.
On the Prisme construction site, a 13,100 square meter building in Bobigny, a northern suburb of Paris. © Sylvie Koffi / RFI
The Prism built at the Stade de la Motte in Bobigny in Seine-Saint-Denis brought out of the ground an old Roman road, identified following archaeological excavations. The architects adapted this gigantic project to this unexpected discovery.
Roman remains
To manage their vast empire, the Romans had created an ultra-efficient road that crisscrossed the territory, linking ports, large urban centers and small towns such as Bobigny.
The city of Bobigny is located in a particularly poor department that combines many difficulties: between lack of infrastructure and accessibility problems, athletes with disabilities were not the priority.
"When you enter the large practice room, it's magical," says Fabien Paillard, president of adapted sport in Seine-Saint-Denis, elected to the inclusion and education through sport pole at the Seine-Saint-Denis Olympic Committee. It's taking shape, he says with a broad smile. Our athletes have been waiting for these infrastructures for a long time. In Seine-Saint-Denis we have a lot of young people who need these places to train, called motor skills rooms. »
An innovative project
The particularity of the Prisme is to welcome all audiences, whether they are able-bodied or disabled. In terms of infrastructure and equipment, everything has been studied. Balneotherapy will thus rub shoulders with medical spaces that will make it possible to develop bridges between sport and health, with physiotherapy or rehabilitation.
A section dedicated to research and development is also proposed to study Paralympic sport. But for now, it is the boots in the water that the visit continues. Here everything has been thought out: lights, specific signage in Braille in particular that will welcome athletes with disabilities.
The Prism is one of the legacies of the Paris Games
«
A true gem ", reacts enthusiastically the president of the department Stéphane Troussel who speaks of flagship, armed arm of the entire Paralympic strategy during and after the games.
The cost of the works is more than 55 million euros. The Prism, will serve as a training site. However, there will be no events at the 2024 Paralympic Games.
>> Read also: Paralympic Games 2024: "The challenge, gain years of quality of life for millions of people"
Newsletter Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
Read on on the same topics:
- France
- Olympic Games
- Olympics 2024