An Introduction to Vaires-sur-Marne

The venue for this week’s World Rowing Under 19 Championships in Vaires-sur-Marne just outside of Paris will play host to the rowing competition at the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. While the State Nautique Olympique was the first Paris 2024 Olympic site to be ‘inaugurated’ and delivered back in June 2019, the venue has been hosting rowing competitions for more than 30 years.

Back in April 1991, the venue, which was then called “Basin Olympique de Champfleuri”, hosted the French cup of rowing leagues, organised by Société Nautique de Lagny. The next year, in the run up to the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, the Vaires-sur-Marne hosted a regatta for some of the top rowing nations including Belgium, Great Britain, Italy, Romania, Spain and Slovenia.

The World Rowing Cup Series was held for the first time in 1997 with the second event that year being hosted in Vaires-sur-Marne, just under three months ahead of France also hosting the World Rowing Championships, 575km south in Aiguebelette. That World Rowing Cup in 1997 saw Germany top the medal table with four gold, two silver, and two bronze medals. Host nation France claimed a silver in the men’s four – the boat containing World Rowing’s current President Jean-Christophe Rolland – and three bronze on home waters.

While Paris’s bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games wasn’t successful, their bid to host 12 years later was, and the venue will host not only the rowing but also the canoeing events during the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Vaires-sur-Marne will see it’s first Olympic Champions crowned on Wednesday 31 July 2024 but, in advance of that, the best Under 19 rowers from around the world will get to test out the course over the coming days.