Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Paris 2024 proposes preliminary Olympic basketball games in Lille

Paris 2024 Olympics

This picture taken on October 21, 2019 shows a Paralympic Games logo during a logo presentation ceremony for Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Grand Rex cinema in Paris. (Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP) (Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/AFP via Getty Images)

AFP via Getty Images

Organizers are proposing moving preliminary 2024 Olympic basketball games from Paris to Lille.

The Paris 2024 Board of Directors, after talks with FIBA and the IOC, decided Pierre-Mauroy Stadium in Lille should hold preliminary basketball games. Lille is about 130 miles north of Paris.

The IOC must still issue a final approval of the venue plans.

Previously, preliminary basketball games were slated for a Paris arena, first in Bercy (where the quarterfinals onwards will still take place, after gymnastics competition is finished in the arena) and then Hall 6 at the Parc des Expositions.

Paris 2024 said that putting preliminary basketball games in Lille will allow handball players to compete in Paris. Previously, the entire handball schedule was slated for Lille. If basketball preliminaries are moved out of Paris, handball preliminaries can be held in the venue vacated by basketball.

“This option also helps optimize the use of existing competition venues and keeps the budget under control thanks to the exceptional capacity of the competition site in Lille,” according to Paris 2024.

It would mark the first time that Olympic basketball games are held this far outside of the Olympic host city, according to Olympedia.org. At the 1984 Los Angeles Games, the entire basketball tournaments were held at The Forum in nearby Inglewood.

OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us!