Olympia: More than 45 million euros for Marseille's sailing arena - baptism of fire from today!
Tatjana Pokorny
· 27.07.2024
High Noon in the Bay of Marseille: The Olympic regatta of the XXXIII Olympic Games in Marseille starts at midday on Sunday. The iQFoil women windsurfers with Theresa Steinlein will be the first to start their series at 12.13 pm - winds permitting - and the iQFoil men with Sebastian Kördel (both Norddeutscher Regatta Verein) at 12.33 pm. This will be followed by the women's skiff sailors with Marla Bergmann/Hanna Wille (49er FX) from Mühlenberger Segel-Club from 12.35 pm and the 49er fleet with the German duo Jakob Meggendorfer/Andreas Spranger (Bayerischer Yacht-Club) from 1.15 pm.
The Olympic harbour: Marina Marseille
The men's and women's Olympic iQFoil fields are made up of 24 windsurfing boards each, with only 20 boats each in the 49er and 49er FX Olympic skiff fleets. Their Olympic arena is the Bay of Marseille, their home harbour during the Games is the Olympic Marina Marseille.
More than 45 million euros have been invested in France's new Olympic harbour. Traditionally known as Marina Roucas Blanc, the sailing hotspot for Paris 2024 is now called Olympic Marina Marseille. The French state-owned company Solideo, which is responsible for all Olympic buildings for Paris 2024, has invested 31 million euros in the marina. The French state (2.7 million), the Aix Marseille metropolitan region (4 million) and the Département des Bouches-du-Rhône (2 million) also invested. Further funds were contributed by the city of Marseille (2.1 million), the Contrat Baie environmental programme (800,000 euros) and the European regional development fund FEDER (2.9 million).
In four years, the Roucas Blanc harbour, in whose bay sailing was already practised in the 19th century, became the Marseille Olympic marina after extensive renovation work and new construction projects. The harbour now has five main buildings, not all of which had been completed by the time of the Olympic test event. However, the hosts and their onshore competition venues were ready in time for the Games, with a total indoor area of 7,000 square metres and an outdoor port area of 17,000 square metres. High-calibre regattas will also be held here in the future. The French Sailing Federation FFVoile operates a base here.
New life for the Bay of Marseille
The Bay of Marseille on the Olympia course has also undergone a radical overhaul. "Previously, we had to deal with stagnant and poor quality water in the bay. Then the seabed in the bay's Olympic regatta area, which covers around ten square kilometres, was dredged. Further measures will ensure more current in the bay," explains Laurence Astier, Head of Public Relations for Paris 2024 in the Marseille cluster. One of the main objectives of the measures was to restore biodiversity in the Bay of Marseille. Laurence Astier explains that great progress has been made here.
All maritime work was already completed and approved in June 2023. The Olympic marina was inaugurated on 2 April this year. The Olympic baptism of fire is now imminent. 330 of the best sailors will be chasing their dreams in the Bay of Marseille. Partly because the water quality was controversial at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, where several athletes fell ill with bacterial infections as a result of urban problems with wastewater disposal, Marseille and its fellow competitors and co-investors have been working hard to prepare for the Olympic regatta in their bay. Not only do they want to turn the Games into a maritime celebration, they also want to bequeath a better maritime heritage to future generations.
Visually an Olympic dream area
Not all that glitters is gold here: even in the bay of Marseille close to the city, beaches have had to be repeatedly closed in recent years due to pollution. A retention basin to store rainwater, the renaturalisation of watercourses and a modernised wastewater system have been used to counteract this for several years. Didier Réault, Vice-President of the metropolitan region and responsible for the sea and the water cycle, told the regional portal "Made in Marseille": "There has been a real improvement in the last ten years or so. Pollution episodes are becoming increasingly rare and are sometimes only due to overuse of the beaches."
Isolated sections of beach are still closed in the Marseille region. During the Olympic regatta, however, the purple restricted flag should not be visible in the region if at all possible. The Olympic harbour in Marseille therefore has its own catch basin where waste water is filtered. So far, there have been no complaints from Olympic sailors about the Marseille area. But even before the first starting shots are fired on 28 July shortly after 12 noon, there will be plenty of great photo opportunities of a visually stunning bay and highly motivated Olympians ready to take on their challenges.
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
