“To accommodate the athletes, we start by throwing out students” – Libération

One hundred years ago, Paris already hosted the Olympic Games. What did the press say at the time? She wondered: where are we going to accommodate the athletes and visitors? And she fulminated against hoteliers and their obscene price increases that drove students onto the streets.

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With Retro newsBNF’s press page, a look back at the Paris Games in 1924 as the press of the time reported them.

The image shows rows of identical wooden pavilions, piled up on muddy ground surrounded by a rickety fence. The proximity of two buildings would constitute an invitation to neighborhood quarrels if the occupants of these barracks were not excited by a chivalrous spirit and athletic qualities that brought them together in these places. Welcome to the Olympic Village for the 1924 Paris Games, the first in history, established in Colombes (Hauts-de-Seine) near the stadium that will host the competitions. A year earlier, the Olympic Congress entrusted the hosting countries with the accommodation of the participants. From now on, “The Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games is required to provide the athletes with accommodation, bedding and food, at a fixed price which must be determined in advance per head and per day.”

Ah Colombes, epic object of outrage from the press of the time who judged the city in the western suburbs of Paris as easily accessible to spectators as the summit of Everest to hikers in espadrilles. As for housing the athletes there… On January 20, 1924, the free man choking at the thought. “The great sin of the Olympic Games. And we are now wondering where the athletes can be accommodated – if we set up a camp in Colombes, let it be by the lake because of the floods! newspaper headlines criticizing the organizers’ incompetence. We have everything planned, everything except the accommodation for the athletes […] Indeed, this is not the least difficulty that the Olympic Committee would have had to solve if it had had time to think about it.”

Lines that will bring tears to the eyes of the most optimistic of Olympic prophets. “Let’s talk about the athletes, the poor athletes who don’t know where to live. It is not that they lacked housing projects. We offered everything, a little, and the comfortable, and the rudimentary, and the practical and the impractical. […] It is really a temporary village that is being built in Colombes, to house the five thousand knights of the muscle who will come to honor France with their presence. But this village is too small! mockery the free man. Actually, it’s bad luck. […] Village on stilts, right? Lake City? […] The Stade de Colombes rises where the Seine, if it overflows, spreads out; which we can no longer gain access to soon before the Zouave of the Pont de l’Alma has his ankles in the water…”

The day before, Excelsior was already alarmed, stressing that the location of the village turned out to be very uncertain even before construction began. “We had planned to build an Olympic village in Colombes. It is doubtful whether this organization will be carried out as planned. The Olympic Committee must therefore notify as soon as possible.” There are plans B, C, D, says the newspaper. Said committee requested “to the city of Paris to rent land capable of housing barracks. Suggestions were offered: Parc des princes, Saint-Maur camp or Gennevilliers. And the daily task of weighing and comparing the merits of the three places: “It would seem that the Parc des Princes would offer certain advantages. Gennevilliers, although admirably situated near Colombes, would force the athletes into a seclusion which would seem severe to them. Saint-Maur, near the Joinville school [une unité militaire de l’armée française accueillant des appelés sportifs plus connue sous le nom de bataillon de Joinville]would provide valuable resources for training.”

Some countries have foreseen. “The importance of international competition has made certain nations concerned about the housing of their citizens, signals Excelsior of 19 January 1924. There are hotels booked for the month of April when the athletes arrive, with the Games due to start in May.” Housing the athletes is all well and good, but the spectators? The organizing committee “had set up special premises to receive the athletes”, remember press of 19 February 1924. And “he asks individuals and hoteliers to notify him of the rooms they can make available to visitors. These, we can already say, are almost certain that they do not sleep under bridges and if they pay the price for having comfortable rooms.

Put the price on it. This is what scandalizes the free man. On 22 February 1924, the daily newspaper founded by Georges Clemenceau was outraged: “To accommodate the athletes, we start by throwing out the students.” These hideous people who live in low-cost establishments are the first to be exposed to the obscene price increases practiced by hoteliers. : “The victims of this dishonest maneuver (because the keen sense of trade should not necessarily obliterate the professional conscience) are all the tenants who are the least able to defend themselves, the least able to institute legal proceedings, the least likely to know how to navigate the labyrinths of harassment: I named the students.”

The Thénardiers of the night are enjoying themselves. Especially since “Foreigners pay well. Americans and Dutch have admirable purses. The most extravagant prices leave them cold as ice. Under these conditions, hoteliers believed that it would be foolish to rent rooms at a normal price. prejudices the free man.

Hoteliers who fill their dreams with dollars. Because the Americans are coming. “Already more than half a million rentals have been subscribed in America alone”excites the national echo. Athletes from across the Atlantic will prefer the Rocquencourt castle, in Yvelines, to the Olympic village finally built in Colombes with an annex to the Parc des princes, as the newspaper explains: “For athletes, some rich nations have already rented hotels and entire houses to accommodate their representatives. For those less fortunate, an Olympic camp has been set up at the Parc des Princes.”

The “real” village was finally installed in Colombes: about sixty wooden barracks, which, according to the newspapers, evoke “English cottages» or vulgar “cagnas”. For a daily price for room and board, participants will be able to stay overnights “five-bedroom villas, each accommodating two or three athletes”, details of the National Echo. Champions has at its disposal a currency exchange office, a hairdressing salon, a post and telegraph office, a newsstand, a laundry service and a storage service for valuables. Sinks and showers are shared, as well as the dining rooms where breakfast and two hot meals per day with water are offered. “mineral water, beer or half a bottle of wine”. If modern Olympic villages have a reputation for being the site of much cooing, this was not the case for the first of them, all male (1).

To be closer to Tourelle’s swimming pool, American swimmers, including Johnny Weissmuller, gigastar of the 1924 Games, ended up settling there. The British, for their part, are not picky about these cabins that are quickly installed on undeveloped land. But there is one condition: bring the food and the cook. A refuge to swallow the trials like starving people?

(1) Although a few women competed in Paris in 1924, they were not officially admitted to the Games until 1928 in Amsterdam.