Paris 2024 Olympics: a first Olympic experience for a transformed Stade Roland-Garros... which will host tennis and then boxing
From July 27 to August 4, the Stade Roland-Garros will host the tennis events of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, before moving on to boxing from August 6 to 10. To do this, the Paris venue has to adapt and, above all, adopt the look of the Olympics.
Built in 1927 and inaugurated the following year, Roland-Garros is a French sporting reference. Named after an aviator who died fighting in the First World War and located on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne, it hosts the French Open every year, one of the four tennis tournaments of the Grand Slam. This year, as a significant bonus, the Paris stadium is hosting the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, just a few weeks after its annual big event.
Christophe Fagniez, Deputy Director General of the French Tennis Federation (FFT) and Event General Manager of the site for Paris 2024, is delighted: "There's a great deal of energy on site. For the FFT, to have been recognised for its expertise in hosting the world's best players every year and its knowledge of the site is obviously a source of great pride, he confides. We've been working on this project for two and a half years, creating a team from scratch: from 3 at the start, we've grown to 40, then 100 and now thousands. Actually, we had to acculturate the teams because the service levels of Paris 2024 and the IOC are very different from those of the Grand Slams, with two mantras: the Games are different and all the stakeholders have to be involved as much as possible."
A renewed site for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games
The site was (logically) chosen very early by the organisers to host the tennis events, but it still had to undergo a number of improvements. The Olympic Games have already acted as a boost to the modernisation of Roland-Garros Stadium. The Court Philippe-Chatrier, the venue's largest arena, has been completely revised, with the addition of a roof in 2020.
The following year, in anticipation of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (the site will also host the wheelchair tennis events), it was the Court Suzanne-Lenglen that began to receive a facelift. Completed a few months ago, the work has given Roland-Garros two indoor courts. The Court Suzanne-Mathieu, with a capacity of 5,000, was built in 2019 in the garden of the Serres d'Auteuil.
All you need to know about the Stade Roland-Garros
12 courts used during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games
The Stade Roland-Garros had very little time to get into Olympic mode: exactly 6 weeks since the end of the annual tournament won by Iga Świątek and Carlos Alcaraz. "Unlike other sites, we didn't start from scratch, Christophe Fagniez continues. We decided to anticipate as much as possible by doing what we could do before the tournament, especially installing the lighting for the boxing. After that, we had to remove anything specific that we didn't need for the Games and then transform the stadium, particularly by giving it the Paris 2024 look. It was a huge job!"
While 16 of the stadium's 19 courts are used in competition for the French Open, this time the players involved will be playing on 12 courts... all dressed in the colours of the Olympic Games, and with the mythical rings. "For the general public, discovering the stadium in Olympic mode is going to be incredible! The transformation and metamorphosis, from an aesthetic point of view, has been very successful, and we're very proud of it. It's thrilling every day", he confides.
The boxing finals of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at Roland-Garros
Scheduled to start on Saturday July 27, the tennis tournaments will finish on August 4... leaving Christophe Fagniez's teams 36 hours to transform the Central Court into a boxing arena. "It's a great source of pride for the FFT to welcome a sport as prestigious as boxing to its finals. We're really looking forward to it because there will be 15,000 people on the Court Philippe-Chatrier! We trained last year for a test event. As soon as the tennis finals are over, we'll start the transition to get everything ready", the head of the venue says.
It has to be said that Roland-Garros has a long history with the noble arts. "There have been many prestigious fights, notably those of Marcel Cerdan in 1946, Jean-Claude Bouttier in the 1970s and, more recently, Tony Yoka in 2021", he explains. This time, then, things will be different, as the one-shot fights will be replaced by 5 evening sessions.