The Sports Festival, “it stops you from running around everywhere and looking on the internet”

There's plenty to do this Saturday, September 7, at the La Prairie sports complex in Alès. MIDI LIBRE – ALEXIS BETHUNE

There's plenty to do this Saturday, September 7, at the La Prairie sports complex in Alès. MIDI LIBRE – ALEXIS BETHUNE

There's plenty to do this Saturday, September 7, at the La Prairie sports complex in Alès. MIDI LIBRE – ALEXIS BETHUNE

Il y a de quoi s'occuper, ce samedi 7 septembre, au complexe sportif de La Prairie, à Alès. MIDI LIBRE – ALEXIS BETHUNE

À Alès, au complexe sportif de La Prairie, les clubs de la capitale des Cévennes assurent, ce samedi 7 septembre, leur promotion.

While the Alès associations forum is being held on Avenue Carnot, sport is being celebrated this Saturday, September 7, in La Prairie. Of course, the capricious weather was to force the City and the Municipal Sports Office (OMS) to cancel all outdoor activities and to move the lighting of the clubs, through a medal ceremony for deserving members, to the indoor courts of the tennis club. However, René Reboul, the president of the OMS, is satisfied: “There have been people since 10 o'clock this morning. And since then, it hasn't stopped” It's a beautiful day!”

More than 50 clubs are represented

Indeed, visitors flock to the halls and gymnasiums near the Pibarot stadium. There, surrounded by the stands of the 52 clubs present and affiliated with the OMS, the demonstrations follow one after the other: acrobatic rock, boxing, ju-jitsu, chess, etc.

“It's nice to introduce sports”, says Joris, a 17-year-old teenager attracted by boxing and bodybuilding, who, while accompanying a friend, “looks a little” before “thinking”. Moving from stand to stand with their parents, Lucie and Lizzie, aged 12 and 15 respectively, are there to find the activity that suits them. The former opts for badminton: “I just asked around, and we'll see…" The latter is getting ready to start a third year of boxing and has just found out about the schedule.

The interest of demonstrations

This Sports Festival, Vivien is coming for the first time, with her little family, to register her 4-year-old daughter in a sports club. If this Alésien thinks about MMA or gymnastics, the little one, “she wants to do everything”, he smiles. That said, this day suits this father: “It avoids running around everywhere and looking on the internet. And there are demonstrations so that the children discover sports.”