The basketball players may complain, the Organizing Committee of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games is going to offer to play basketball in Lille for the group stage.
The president of the Cojo Tony Estanguet confirmed this Tuesday morning to France Info, while a board of directors is scheduled during the day to endorse the mapping of the Olympic competitions.
"The proposal that is on the table today is this switch where handball will return to Paris in the first week and suddenly, basketball could go and play in Lille in the first week", indicates the double Olympic champion in canoeing. .
This is the main hot spot that remains to be decided concerning the sites.
The first phase of the basketball tournament was initially planned for the Porte de Versailles exhibition center, but the International Federation was not in favor of it due to too many technical constraints (ceiling height, lighting, TV production, etc.) .
🗣 Conflict around the basketball site at the Olympics ➡️ "Basketball will stay in Bercy for the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final and could play in Lille in the first week", details Tony Estanguet, allowing handball to come to Paris first week pic.twitter.com/WpxkGVNUgy
— franceinfo (@franceinfo) July 12, 2022
Access to this content has been blocked to respect your choice of consent
By clicking on "
I ACCEPT
", you accept the deposit of cookies by external services and will thus have access to the content of our partners
I ACCEPT
And to better remunerate 20 Minutes, do not hesitate to accept all cookies, even for one day only, via our "I accept for today" button in the banner below.
More information on the Cookie Management Policy page.
The discussions between the various actors were then stormy.
Proof of the persistent distrust between the Cojo and the International Basketball Federation, "Fiba no longer even attends meetings on the subject", told AFP a source close to the Organizing Committee a few days ago.
She wanted the tournament to take place in the new Arena at Porte de la Chapelle, but Paris 2024 did not want to expel badminton and gymnastics.
“The problem is bigger than that”
The International Federation even tried another card by proposing, via the IOC, to study the possibility of playing in a hall of the Villepinte exhibition center.
An option that was not taken up.
Basketball should therefore be transferred to Lille at first, before returning to Bercy for the quarters, semi-finals and final.
"I don't care if we play in Lille, I already played there at Euro 2015 and it was one of the biggest thrills of my career," commented Nicolas Batum last week on RMC.
But the problem is bigger than that.
(…) We have the Games at home, and twenty months before we don't know where we fuck volleyball, where we fuck handball, where we fuck basketball.
That's what pisses me off.
»
Sport
Paris 2024 Olympic Games: What relationship do Seine-Saint-Denis and the Games have?
Sport
Paris 2024 Olympics: Justice gives the green light to the Aubervilliers swimming pool with a modified project
Sport
Paris 2024 Olympics
Paris 2024
Basketball
Tony estanguet
Lille
Hauts-de-France