The Adidas Arena, located at the Porte de la Chapelle in Paris, will host badminton and artistic gymnastics during the Olympic Games.
Paris – In the heart of summer, it will host badminton, gymnastics, para-badminton and para-weightlifting. The Adidas Arena, built at Porte de la Chapelle in Paris for the Olympic Games, will be inaugurated on Sunday, February 11th, 166 days before the opening ceremony. Paris Basketball, its future resident club, will welcome Saint-Quentin for the 23rd day of the French championship.
Following several international events for urban sports, badminton and more, the grand Olympic and Paralympic events will take place from July 26th to August 11th and from August 28th to September 8th.
Starting September 15th, the Paris Basketball, which aims to bring the capital back to the top of French and European basketball, will play all its home games in front of 8,000 spectators. In addition, the arena will also be used to host concerts and shows for up to 9,000 people.
The Arena is the only medium-capacity venue that Paris needed besides the Accor Arena at Bercy with 17,000 seats. Paris lacks other large sports venues, as neither the Pierre-de-Coubertin Stadium nor the Halle Georges-Carpentier have more than 4,500 seats.
The Olympics have given the opportunity to build this facility, the only one within the city of Paris for the event. For 138 million euros (a third of which paid by the Games), the arena, with an interior reminiscent of Bercy, found its place in the north of the city in a popular neighborhood undergoing transformation.
“The 18th arrondissement wants to keep it a popular neighborhood, and no gentrification is planned,” says Emmanuel Grégoire. A portion of the 26,000 m2 of the arena, including the partly vegetated plaza facing the street, is designed as a daily living space, hosting shows, exhibitions, and opening onto a vast terrace.
In addition, there are two gymnasiums intended for associations, schools, and clubs in this deprived neighborhood. Hyper urbanized and interwoven with the peripheral, the A1 highway, and soon the CDG-Express railway viaduct, the area was once home to the “crack hill” just a few years ago.
