“It's a very modern stadium.
There are showers, changing rooms linked by a tunnel to the lawn, two covered side stands and a high-quality athletic track, ”describes Michaël Delépine, specialist in French stadiums.
That was almost 100 years ago.
When the Yves-du-Manoir stadium in Colombes (Hauts-de-Seine) was built for the 1924 Olympic Games.
Since then, this mythical place of French rugby, which takes its name from a former international, has been plagued by rust and climbing plants.
The 80 million euros budgeted for its next renovation should allow it to be given a new lease of life to host, in 2024, the field hockey events during the Paris Games.
Doves.
The plan of the new Yves-du-Manoir stadium.
Celnikier & Grabli architect
The project, 90% funded by the Hauts-de-Seine departmental council, notably provides for the rehabilitation of the historic stand, whose symbolic metal canopy will be preserved and restored, as well as the construction of two synthetic hockey fields, changing rooms and offices which will serve, at the end of the Olympic Games, as the headquarters of the French Hockey Federation (FFH).
There will be a new athletics ring, four football and three rugby fields, all synthetic and lighted, at the level of the playground.
The budget is gone
The site, which will begin in the last quarter of this year with a demolition phase, has so far posted an invoice 20% higher than the initial price of 67 million euros.
An increase that the department explains by the explosion of prices in the field of construction, due to "the strong mobilization of the profession on sites related to Greater Paris and future Olympic sites".
The site, placed in the red flood zone, also requires the implementation of “very strict” town planning rules.
“This requires us to use, for the base of the buildings, construction materials that resist water degradation,” explains Jacob Celnikier, one of the architects involved in this project which brings together the CGA and Olgga firms.
The CGA partner, however, qualifies this “risk linked to the centennial flood.
[
The site
] has not been inundated for decades and if there were to be an equivalent flood, it would take several days for it to be really soaked ”.
Doves.
The rehabilitation of the Yves-du-Manoir stadium provides for the construction of new buildings and the renovation of all sports fields.
Celnikier & Grabli architect
The very tight schedule is also called into question.
Construction work should start in early 2022 and be completed at the end of 2023. In addition, there are technical constraints since the work will take place on an “open and active” site, specifies the department.
Newsletter The essential of 92
A tour of the Hauts-de-Seine and the IDF news
Subscribe to the newsletterAll newsletters
"The goal is to always be able to restore part of the plain, before starting work on another area, and to avoid any cross between construction machinery and users", specifies Jacob Celnikier.
See beyond the Olympics
An additional challenge for this place which, despite the departure of Racing in 2017 for the U Arena in Nanterre, remains frequented, in particular by sports associations and schools, with a weekly attendance of around 7,000 people.
Doves.
The current stadium pitches will be replaced by synthetic pitches.
CD92 / Olivier Ravoire
Finally, the budget makes the project sustainable.
This stadium will become "the cradle of field hockey in France," recalls the department.
The public will nevertheless keep its entrances there alongside other activities.
The architecture of the sports complex has been designed with this in mind.
With the centralization of the grounds, a vegetated sports course dedicated to future companions has been imagined.
“Parents, who generally find themselves leaning against a fence during their children's session, will be able, tomorrow, to walk or jog to be patient,” the architect proudly exposes.
"This stadium is a bit the equivalent of Maracanã and Wembley"
“No stadium in France can boast such a record to date,” underlines Michaël Delépine, doctor in contemporary history.
LP / LD
A Mecca of world sport, this forum has not finished making an impression.
Michaël Delépine, doctor in contemporary history, specialist in French stadiums, made it the subject of his thesis.
He explains to us how the Colombes stadium is a mythical place, unique in its kind in France.
How did Yves-du-Manoir become an Olympic stadium in 2024?
MICHAËL DELÉPINE.
Before being a stadium, Yves-du-Manoir was a racecourse.
It was the newspaper Le Matin which, in 1907, decided to use the place as an athletic stadium.
At the time, it was a fairly common approach: the press created the event by organizing competitions themselves, like L'Auto, the ancestor of L'Equipe,
which had created the Tour de France to boost its sales during the summer period.
Then, in the 1920s, the Racing club de France established itself in Colombes.
The club rents the grounds of this suburban stadium to escape Parisian land pressure.
In 1921, Paris obtained the Olympic Games planned three years later.
The Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games initially aimed at Parisian stadiums but, after long rivalries, Racing ended up proposing to build the Olympic stadium itself on the land it leased, with the aim, eventually, of to acquire.
The stadium built is not monumental since it only has between 40,000 and 60,000 seats, against the 100,000 ordered.
But it is rather modern in terms of its equipment.
What did the Yves-du-Manoir stadium represent in its heyday?
From the Olympic Games until 1972, when the Parc des Princes was built, Colombes is undeniably the center of sporting France.
For the generation of people who were born just before or after the war, this is the stage of their youth, a magical place.
No stadium in France can claim such a record to date.
After hosting the 1924 Olympic Games, in 1938 there was the Football World Cup and the European Athletics Championships.
It is somewhat the equivalent, internationally, of the Maracanã stadium in Rio or Wembley stadium in London, in terms of the hosting of sporting events.
But it is also a place that has its dark side, since at the end of 1939, it served as a camp to identify German and Austrian refugees expelled from Germany for having opposed the Nazi regime.
How does the 2024 Games fit into this story?
This stadium has been the heart of sporting France for 50 years.
That field hockey, which today is a discipline reserved for a certain elite, is played in Colombes, in a working-class suburb, in the heart of sensitive neighborhoods, is something very interesting in my opinion.
It's a nice sign.
