From “Land of Games” to “Olympic and Paralympic Week”
In almost 500 days, the Olympic Games will officially begin in Paris. Already, a whole network is mobilizing for the promotion and organization of this planetary event. French people living abroad are involved in the organization of the “Paris 2024 Olympic Games”, in particular through embassies and high schools.
Promoted by the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, the “Terre de Jeux 2024” event invites our compatriots living outside France to take part in the pre-Olympic Games festivities and to participate in a relay on the five continents.
A relay in 116 overseas countries and territories
On March 14, the diplomatic network is mobilized around the world. “Terres de Jeux 2024” actions are taking place in 116 overseas countries and territories. French embassies or consulates will thus take part in this international action which, playing with time zones, will take place over 24 hours.
Throughout the day, each “Terres de Jeux 2024” entity will organize a one-hour sporting event, starting at 9 a.m. local time. Once this is completed, the handover takes place at the embassies and DROM-COM of the following time zone. It is this pattern that will be reproduced throughout the day, and this for 24 hours. It was in New Zealand that this initiative began, which later crossed Oceania, Asia, Europe, Africa and America, before ending in the Pacific, in French Polynesia.
Samuel Ducroquet, Ambassador for Sport at the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs confides that this ” relay around the world carries a message as symbolic as it is ambitious. It testifies to the capacity of the Paris 2024 Games to unite, thanks to our diplomatic network, our communities abroad as well as our partners in the four corners of the world.. »
More than 40 sports highlighted
Several tens of thousands of participants are expected for this action and more than a hundred athletes will take part in it. It is also a forty different sports which are highlighted (cricket, taekwondo, stand-up paddle, skateboarding, petanque, long jump, discus and javelin throwing, para athletics, para badminton, etc.).
rowing, racing,
For example, Ellen Keanea Paralympic swimmer who won gold at the Tokyo 2020 Games and bronze at the Rio 2016 Games, and Kelly Harrington, Olympic boxing champion at the Tokyo 2020 Games are expected in Ireland. In Italy, John Patry, French volleyball player and Olympic medalist at Tokyo 2020 is also taking part in this event. In Brisbane (future host city of the Games in 2032), the Consulate General of France is organizing an action during which an 8-seater rowing boat will set off along the city’s river and thus cross it. In Turkey, a few weeks after the terrible earthquakes, the French Embassy is offering a solidarity race and will give rise to a virtual handover between Ankara and Istanbul; in the United States, the French School of San Francisco is planning a relay race on the mythical Golden Gate Bridge,…
You can follow these 24 hours on social networks or, moreover, each handover between countries will also be the subject of a specific communication.
Inclusion, main theme of Olympic and Paralympic Week in High Schools
On March 15, the Olympic flame will not be extinguished. Indeed, French high schools, especially abroad, will organize from April 3 to 8 the Olympic and Paralympic Week (SOP), the theme of which will be centered this year on inclusion.
Teachers, students and parents are invited to take part in this week of sports activities in their schools. Through the values of Olympism, this action aims to use sport as an educational tool in teaching, to awaken young people to voluntary and civic engagement and also to change the way people look at disability by focusing on the discovery of parasports by organizing specific meetings.
To better understand the organization of this Olympic and Paralympic Week, we met and interviewed a player in the field, Julien Kervedaou, PE teacher, ambassador of Olympic and Paralympic Week (SOP) Paris 2024 for the AEFE, who will organize this event at the Lycée français Jean Monnet in Brussels, a member establishment of the AEFE.
Julien Kervedaou: “Giving our students a disability experience helps change the way we look at physical differences”
Julien Kervedaou has been a PE teacher at the Lycée Français Jean Monnet in Brussels since 1999. Julien Kervedaou has been a school sports referent for the North-West Europe and Scandinavia zone, and has been there for three months. Having practiced swimming and then triathlon for several years, he regularly participates in adventure raid events over several days with a greater diversity of activities (mountain biking, orienteering, swim-run, kayaking, climbing, etc.).
LFP : Julien Kervedaou, the Olympics, Paris 2024, what does that mean to you?
Julien Kervedaou : It is an exceptional opportunity for France to show its know-how in terms of organization, moreover these Olympic Games make it possible to honor less publicized sports and the Paralympic Games to highlight athletes with a disability. . This event will make it possible to acquire more infrastructures in order to have a public health policy through physical practice. Concerning me, I will try to obtain places to take place in this planetary event.
LFP : What motivation for a PE teacher to put this Olympic and Paralympic week in place in his high school?
Julien Kervedaou : This will be our 7th edition at the French high school in Brussels, indeed, we have always organized this Olympic and Paralympic week in high school with our colleagues from EPS, the generation 2024 label commits us to this. Our “Olympic and Paralympic Week” (SOP) organizations have always been under the sign of inclusion because we are convinced that bringing a disability experience to our students can change the way we look at physical differences. Beyond the simple motor practice, this week allows the students to be involved in the organization, we have often called on our optional EPS for this. But Olympism can be understood through different prisms and this week has already been an opportunity to develop synergies with other disciplines.
LFP : In concrete terms, what activities will be offered at the Lycée Français Jean Monnet in Brussels?
Julien Kervedaou : Our SOP will consist of adapted physical practices, interdisciplinary cultural activities and meetings and conferences with top athletes and sports players. For cultural activities, an exhibition on the ancient games will be offered, another on the values of Olympism through the 30 Olympiads will be presented by the students. The screening of films will be organized at the media library during the lunch break. For physical practice, a challenge of 10,000 steps will be organized for ten classes over the week. All PE students will practice adapted activities, wheelchair biathlon and pistol shooting, visually impaired climbing, wheelchair table tennis. The Olympic basketball activity in 3 against 3 will be organized by the students in the form of a tournament. Meetings will be organized with the presence of the Olympic vice-champion in swimming Malia Metella, the triathlete guide Olivier Loyen who participated in Tokyo 2020 and Piotr Van Montaigu who also participated in the last Olympiad in para archery. We will have conferences on the Olympic values with Diane de Navacelle de Coubertin and the historian Jean Pierre Guilbert but also a conference on the Olympic and Paralympic Games of Paris 2024, led by a former student, Charles Courcol who works on the organizing committee. Paris 2024 and Ludovic Dabauvalle who works for the French Handisport Federation. Some conferences will be open to parents of students and adapted parent-child activities will be offered in order to promote our SOP within the educational community.
LFP : What do you expect from the students?
Julien Kervedaou : Let them live the sporting experiences and take advantage of the offer offered to them, between sports initiations, a tournament, a step challenge, meetings, conferences, we are convinced that a good number of students will come out with a greater culture on the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The students are also invested in the organization with the basketball tournament managed by our “young referees”. The exhibition will be presented throughout the week by around twenty “young historian” students previously trained by myself and a colleague Nelly Davidian involved in this project. Naturally our international “young reporters” will cover all the activities with interviews, reports and the web radio hosted by Didier Piotrowski.
LFP : What follow-up could be given to this week?
Julien Kervedaou : This 2023 Olympic week, which is very dense, is the result of work initiated last year during the organization of the International Youth Games. This event at the end of May brought together more than 500 people over 5 days with sports and cultural activities, a master-class on disability, the presence of sports ambassadors and everything organized, arbitrated and publicized by our students. On the strength of our previous SOPs and the heritage of the JIJ, we have, with Aude Abeguile, deputy headmaster and the primary school directors, Messrs. Allegre and Seguelas, decided to offer the most complete Olympic and Paralympic week possible. We also have Olympic Day on the agenda on June 23 and in September the arrival of decathlete Kevin Mayer, all of which augurs well for a very good year 2024 under the sign of sport. We also want to circulate our exhibition on the values of the Olympics in order to promote PARIS 2024 in other establishments of the network or French institutions in Belgium. This exhibition project presented by the students has won the support of Laure Mouden, principal of the establishment, who fully supports us in this SOP and more particularly on this initiative.
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