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Ghani Yalouz: "The challenge of the 2024 Olympics is to create a link between Paris and its suburbs"

2021-03-06T08:31:41.230Z


THE PARISIAN WEEKEND. At 53, the former Olympic wrestling vice-champion heads the National Sports Institute and supports the greatest athletes.


Ghani Yalouz, former Olympic wrestling vice-champion, has been leading the National Sports Institute (Insep) in Vincennes since 2017.

At 53, he, who accompanies the greatest athletes around the world, appreciates the working-class neighborhoods and the dynamism of the cities around the capital.

Born in Casablanca, Morocco, you arrived in France at the age of 6, in Besançon (Doubs).

When do you discover Paris?

GHANI YALOUZ.

The first time I take the train and go to the capital, I am 15 years old.

I'm not discovering Paris, but Sevran!

This is where the friend I am visiting lives.

Three years later, at the end of the 1980s, I took up my quarters at Insep, in the heart of the Bois de Vincennes.

I am touching the sporting Grail, but on a human level, I am experiencing a big heartbreak.

For the first three months, I cry every night in this cold gray room.

For four years, I returned to Besançon every weekend.

But I am all week in Vincennes, I sleep there, I eat there, I train there, I take care of myself, in short, it becomes my home.

I meet extraordinary people: Marie-José Pérec, David Douillet, Tony Parker… I find a family and my life is built in this Greater Paris.

Like many athletes, you will no longer be leaving eastern Paris ...

Yes, I like working-class neighborhoods, Paris beyond the “periphery”.

Today, I live in the Créteil-village district, I have all the amenities there, the metro and the RER, and my children have been able to do all their education there, from kindergarten to high school.

The quality of life is superior to that of intramural Paris.

We are a stone's throw from the center while benefiting from a provincial setting, can we dream of better?

Do you ever wander in the suburbs?

Ah yes !

My last favorite is Ivry-sur-Seine.

For me who adores New York, this town in the south of Paris will become the French Brooklyn.

This is the typical example of a popular, dynamic, attractive city where solidarity meets excellence.

There I discovered the national drama center of Val-de-Marne, which is housed in a 19th century factory, which has now become a place of theater and culture.

We do not always realize the riches we have nearby, no need to travel for miles!

What is the most beautiful sports arena in the capital, according to you?

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The Pierre-de-Coubertin stadium, in the 16th arrondissement.

We rarely talk about it but it is a mythical place for sports with little media coverage such as judo before Teddy Riner, wrestling, badminton ... Who knows that this stadium hosted the handball team of PSG, for example?

Me, I keep an immense memory of the Grand Prix of judo which took place there in 1996, with the icons of the time, David Douillet, Marie-Claire Restoux and Djamel Bouras.

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Handball: Coubertin, the second home of the stars of PSG


And what is the place of the Stade de France in the hearts of athletes?

I had the privilege of participating in its inauguration in 1998, a few months before the start of the World Cup.

The organizers had invited the greatest French sportsmen.

There was Alain Prost, Marie-José Pérec, Michel Platini, there were about ten of us.

On the lawn, Alain turns to me and lets go:

What the hell, what must it be fun to play in such a stadium!

This sentence remained engraved in me because it's true, it made us all vibrate that night.

And then, over time, the Stade de France became familiar to me.

Today, I know it in every nook and cranny: the corridors, the car parks, the offices ...

What trace will the 2024 Olympic Games leave in Paris?

The challenge is to create a link between Paris and its suburbs so that the border of the ring road is finally erased.

The Games will be accessible to everyone, cosmopolitan, intergenerational.

An example of the wealth of the Parisian agglomeration: its cuisine.

I like to eat in the 8th arrondissement, at Akrame, Michelin starred, which cooks us dishes inspired by its Oran culture and makes us travel.

But I also like to taste couscous from Chez Abda in Perreux-sur-Marne, where TV journalist Harry Roselmack also comes regularly!

Is there a part of the city that you don't like?

The edges of the periphery, with all these people in pain.

I don't feel good about myself when I see this, especially when it's cold as it has been recently… There is still work to be done, this is where we measure it.

Three places he likes

The Opéra Bastille in Paris (12th century).

"I am a fan of this large, modern, uncluttered building", says Ghani Yalouz./LP/Philippe Baverel  

The banks of the Marne.

“I like to walk there, to see the barges moored along the quays, it's relaxing.

I would have loved to live in one of them, like my friends Jean Galfione and Olivier Girault.

There are also the taverns, I think back to the history of pre-war France and it almost makes me nostalgic for this time that I did not know.

"

The Opera Bastille.

“I am a fan of this large, modern, uncluttered building.

It was there that I saw

Madame Butterfly

for the first time

, by Giacomo Puccini.

My wife surprised me.

"

The Penates.

“This workshop located in the 11th arrondissement amazes me, especially since I know the artist very well who exhibits and sells his lights there: Olivier Vallaeys is an athletics trainer who, in his spare time, works on porcelain and light to create beautiful objects.

"

Source: leparis

All sports articles on 2021-03-06

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