Paris 1924 'Chariots Of Fire' Stadium Ready For Games Century On

The stadium that was the main site for the 1924 Paris Olympics is ready, a century later, to welcome hundreds of participants and tens of thousands of spectators for next year's Summer Olympic Games in the French capital. The Yves-du-Manoir stadium, in the northwestern Paris suburb of Colombes, became on Monday the first sporting venue to be formally handed over by developers to local authorities ahead of the Games. It will host the competitions in field hockey, a sport which may not be the number one activity in France but has a huge following in northern Europe and Asia, in particular India.

The stadium was specially renovated for the 1924 Paris Games, when it hosted the opening ceremony, athletics and other sports ranging from equestrian to gymnastics.

During those Games it was the scene of the epic sprint races involving British athletes Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell, famously portrayed in the 1981 film "Chariots of Fire".

According to the organisers, it will be the only 2024 Olympic venue to be hosting the Games for a second time.

It also hosted the 1938 World Cup football final, where Italy beat Hungary, and had its capacity expanded to 60,000 after the end of World War II.

But the opening of the Parc des Princes stadium in 1972 in the west of Paris signalled its decline and three of the four stands were demolished at the end of last century.

'New destiny'

It now stands in a location that belies the stadium's mythical status, squeezed between 15-storey buildings and a motorway.

Its selection to host the field hockey events in 2024 has given the stadium a new lease of life.

Two years of work enabled the historic stand, with a capacity of 6,000 seats, to be brought up to standard and a new stand of 1,000 seats