Sailing: in Marseille, tensions between locals and Olympic athletes during the Olympic test-event

How to reconcile pleasure and Olympism? By hosting the sailing test-event from Sunday, Marseille is offering itself a general rehearsal one year from the 2024 Olympics, with an important safety device at sea which is causing some local swimmers to cringe.

It's only a taste of the Games but, in many ways, it already looks a lot like it. From July 9 to 16, in the harbor of Marseille, more than 350 athletes representing 55 countries will compete in the 10 disciplines of Olympic sailing, in the same competition areas and under the same conditions as in one year.

“The objective of this test-event is to train the organizing teams and to test the sports, the medical, the technical and the technological”, summarized during a press conference Cédric Dufoix, manager of the sites of Marseille and Nice for Paris-2024.

The five competition areas, three of which (the “rounds” Marseille, Calanques and Corniche) very close to the coast, are included in a perimeter which will be prohibited to all boats from July 7 to 16, from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

"This red perimeter is a sanctuary reserved for competitors, coaches and the organization", explained commissioner Thierry de la Burgade, deputy to the maritime prefect of the Mediterranean.

“We have a duty to let athletes evolve and a duty of security and management of rescue organizations. But, unlike the three previous Olympic Games, we chose not to ban everything and we organized the compatibility of uses, ”he added.

In addition to the non-regulated period from 8 p.m. meters from the shore along the southern coast and on the island of Frioul.

Activities without a motor, such as kayaking or paddleboarding, will also remain authorized in certain areas, within the limit of 300 meters from the coast, but not on the main beaches in the city center. The entire system was presented to yachtsmen, swimmers and members of sailing clubs by way of posters and via flyers.

“There are going to be a couple of downsides on the sidelines, but it's going to be great, an amazing party. It's a huge chance to have the Games here,” said Guillaume Chiellino, national technical director of the French Sailing Federation.

Deputy mayor in charge of the sea and the coast, Hervé Menchon for his part said he was "reassured by the long consultation" which led to the chosen device. “We can always swim, there is no H24 ban and it does not last 16 months. It does not deprive us of our coastline, it sublimates it, ”he assured.

“They have a lot of elements of language”, retorts Sylvain Ronca, whose collective “Les Nageurs du Prado” brings together several dozen disgruntled people, who demonstrated in May by unfurling banners such as “Rendez les beaches”, “OJs like that, in Marseille we don't want it”, or “Marseille is not a kite-foil spot”.

The installation of kite-foiling, a new Olympic discipline, on Prado Nord beach, now surrounded by barriers, is indeed the main point of tension.

“They requisitioned the beach to make it an empty space for humans on land and at sea. Marseille is a rocky coast, there are only six or seven beaches and they are taking the largest. It is an injustice to favor a few sportsmen of marginal importance in the face of thousands of families,” Ronca told AFP.

“Some competitions have been moved, basketball, shooting, boxing, sports that weigh more heavily than kiteboarding. We want to relocate to a suitable site, ”added Mr. Ronca, who suggests Hyères or the Serre-Ponçon lake.

For the rest of the device, he regrets that the organizers have "left only a few dipping areas, paddling pools". "The quality of public beach has disappeared," he says. His group has also planned a new demonstration on Saturday morning, on the beaches of the Prado.