Nicholas D’Amour, the two-time Olympian from the US Virgin Islands, didn’t mince his words during the practice and familiarisation session on Monday, two days out from the ranking round at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
“The venue is just absolutely incredible,” he said. “It’s kind of the most incredible venue there’s ever been for archery.”
“Tokyo was a legacy venue, so there is a lot of value in that, but definitely the surroundings of this venue make it something special.”
The Tokyo 2020 venue where Nicolas shot was a superbly designed theatre for the sport that sadly never saw a paying audience, due to the COVID-19 pandemic forcing all sports at those Games behind closed doors. Only a handful of athletes, coaches and press would ever sit in its thousands of seats.
That’s not the case here, in Paris. The venue holds 7600 – and all sessions are sold out.
It's the largest venue ever constructed for Olympic archery by audience capacity, and may well see the biggest live audience for an archery competition in history.
More than that, it's absolutely at the heart of the Games. Archery has been held in some spectacular Olympic venues, but usually they are a little way from the centre of the action. This venue even has a view of the Eiffel Tower from one of the stands.
It's been designed with an eye on the TV audience, with an overhead cable camera that will draw viewers into the action. There is also a practical reason for having the archers shoot south to north – it guarantees the athletes will never have the sun in their eyes, whatever the time of day.
“It's amazing; right in the heart of Paris,” Australia's Peter Boukouvalas said. “We shot on the finals field earlier this morning, and that was an amazing setup. Yeah, there's no other word for it. It's just they've done an incredible job. Fantastic.”
“It's everything I thought it would be and more.”
In Paris, we have also see the sport tie itself to a part of history.
The venue, in the gardens of Les Invalides, is a historic complex in Paris that dates back to the late 17th century. Commissioned by King Louis XIV in 1670, it was designed as a hospital and retirement home for war veterans, reflecting the Sun King's penchant for grandiose and symbolic architecture.
(The grand domed building you can see rising behind the finals field is actually an illusion – the dome belongs to a different building behind the long block at the front.)
Archery doesn’t get Les Invalides to itself over the Games; the same venue will also play host to the marathon finish towards the end of the Games, after the conclusion of the archery competition.
The same combination of sports also took place at the Sambadromo at Rio 2016, and also at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens 2004.
That’s not all. The cycling time trials will also start in the vicinity, and as well as hosting the Paralympic archery competition, several other mass-participation sports will be using the venue.
It’s going to be a busy place – but for archers and spectators alike, it’s going to be unforgettable.
