French "Paris Race Illustrated" article on March 4, original title: For the Olympics, Deauville has become an important town to receive Chinese In 2024, the French coastal city of Deauville, located in Normandy, will welcome athletes from China in advance a month before the Paris Olympics. Commenting on the selection of the city to provide a training centre for the Chinese delegation ahead of the Paris Games, the Mayor of Deauville, Philippe Ogier, said: "Deauville has become the training venue for most of the Chinese Olympic delegation, including more than 200 athletes and a similar number of coaches and masseurs. Chinese athletes will participate in swimming, track and field and many other events. This is thanks to the fact that we meet the standards in terms of equipment – we have an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a sports center that offers indoor training for sports such as table tennis, a conference center and an international equestrian center ......”
The mayor said that the Chinese side had signed the contract and was currently waiting for the contract to be signed in France, "As early as the beginning of 2022, we discussed the relevant conditions with the representative body of the Chinese sports department. In the autumn of the same year, the Chinese Taekwondo Federation also contacted us, hoping that the national team (sixty or seventy people, including coaches) would stay with us for two months, because athletes would participate in international championships in Europe every two months, and of course we would welcome them. The Chinese side paid for everything from the rental of the venue to the hotel accommodation. ”
"I'm glad that these activities are based on our two pillars of education, culture and sports, and I think we have to deal with Chinese, and that connection can be built on a personal level," he said. Culture and sport are shared values, factors for discovering others, factors for peace. Through this, we will eventually understand each other, and not only between the French and the Chinese. ”
Regarding Franco-Chinese relations, Ogier said: "The connection between Deauville and China is relatively new, and in the past there were very few Chinese tourists here because Paris was more attractive. In the past two years, we have received a total of five Chinese delegations and the Chinese ambassador to France. Not only the Olympic Games, but former French Prime Minister Raffarin also created the Franco-Chinese Forum here, bringing together hundreds of cultural figures from both countries. In addition, from March 2 this year, Deauville will host an exhibition by the famous French-Chinese painter Zao Wou-Ki. 2024 marks the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between France and China, and of course Deauville will also hold a celebration, which is expected to take place in November after the Paris Olympics, and is still being planned to take the form of the celebration. (Written by Lou Fleet, translated by Dong Ming).