Grandstands And Gallop Tracks: Versailles Palace Gardens Get Ready For Olympic Equestrian Events

VERSAILLES, France: Preparations are underway for the gardens of the Versailles Palace to welcome Olympic horse riders and tens of hundreds of holiday makers when it hosts equestrian and trendy pentathlon occasions throughout this summer time’s Paris Games.

Temporary amenities together with grandstands are being constructed throughout the park, the place as much as 40,000 individuals are anticipated to attend the cross-country a part of the occasion.

The foremost enviornment will maintain over 16,000 seated spectators for the dressage and showjumping competitions. Located at one finish of the Grand Canal, the most important basin within the park, it can provide a spectacular view of the palace, as soon as residence to Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette.

“It’s a real opportunity to be able to organize such an event in such an amazing and iconic venue. We feel very honored and respectful,” mentioned Anne Murac, who’s in command of the Versailles web site for the Paris 2024 organizing committee.

On the western aspect of the park, non permanent stables, with air-con, stay to be constructed. A close-by observe with each grass and sand surfaces has already been set as much as permit horses to heat up earlier than the competitors.

In addition, the 5-kilometer (3-mile) cross-country path is being fastidiously ready, Murac mentioned.

“We are working the ground very deeply to put some sand and drainage to make sure the cross-country track will be consistent and to be able to guarantee the safety of the horses and the riders,” she mentioned.

Pontoon bridges, examined final summer time, will allow horses to cross the Grand Canal in the course of the cross-country.

Several water obstacles are being ready. One newly created pond may have the form of the royal lily, or fleur-de-lis, an emblem of the French monarchy. Horses may even cross by way of water within the round basin of a fountain which had not been stuffed for over 40 years till now.

Murac mentioned, “we wanted to integrate sports and culture altogether and to be able to promote French heritage.”

The 5 occasions of the trendy pentathlon (swimming, fencing, driving, working and capturing) may even be held within the gardens of the Versailles Palace.

The web site will provide “a wonderful frame” for the horse trials, Versailles Palace President Christophe Leribault mentioned. “Horses are so obviously in the iconography of the palace,” together with in work, sculptures and fountains, he mentioned. “So it’s a wonderful meeting of this old tradition and the modern sport.”

After the tip of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, all non permanent amenities might be eliminated, the soil might be fully put again in place and grass might be reseeded to depart the place the best way it was earlier than, organizers mentioned.

The palace itself will stay open to the general public in the course of the Games.

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AP Olympics protection: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games

(This story has not been edited by News18 employees and is revealed from a syndicated information company feed – Associated Press)