Paris 2024 Olympic Games: discover the Eiffel Tower, between declaration of human rights, giant concerts and sporting exploits

The Eiffel Tower provides a majestic setting for cycling events. MAXPPP – Vincent Isore

The Eiffel Tower theater will host the road cycling and 20 kilometer walking events.

The Champ de Mars and the Trocadéro, two tourist hotspots located on either side of the Eiffel Tower, will host several events of the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games, near this monument used to sporting exploits.

Human Rights

Overlooking the Seine, the Trocadéro esplanade is bordered by the rounded wings of the Palais de Chaillot, built for the 1937 Universal Exhibition. The road cycling and 20 kilometer walking events will start below.

It was at the Palais de Chaillot that the universal declaration of human rights, a humanist ambition, was adopted on December 10, 1948 by the brand new United Nations organization. world displayed shortly after the Allied victory over Nazi Germany. At the entrance to the "court of freedoms and human rights" separating the two wings of the Palace, is engraved Article I of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789, proclaiming that"Men are born and remain free and equal in rights". Many gatherings are organized there.

The esplanade and its gently sloping gardens, which extend to the Pont de Iéna, almost at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, have long been popular with rollerbladers and skateboarders .

Giant concerts

The Champ de Mars, located between the Eiffel Tower and the École Militaire, will host the wrestling and judo events, then para judo and armchair rugby, within the Arena, or " Grand Palais ephemeral" built for renovation work on the historic building located on the other side of the Seine. This vast public garden traditionally hosts the free concerts organized for July 14: Michel Polnareff in 2007 and Johnny Hallyday in 2009 performed there in front of hundreds of thousands of people, and for around ten ;rsquo;years there are classical concerts which precede the fireworks display for the national holiday.

Sports achievements

Outdoors, the Stade Tour Eiffel will offer beach volleyball and blind football events. Built by Gustave Eiffel for the Universal Exhibition of 1889, the 330 meter high tower, symbol of Paris and France, is one of the most famous monuments in the world with 6.3  million visitors in 2023.

She is no stranger to sporting exploits: French athlete Anouk Garnier broke the world record for rope climbing on April 10, by climbing up to ;on the second floor, 110 meters high. On March 31, 1984, American pilot Robert Moriarty passed between the legs of the Tower aboard a Beechcraft Bonanza, "just for fun".

The Frenchman Gérard Dance repeated the feat aboard an ULM on November 6, 1986. In 1989, the tightrope walker Philippe Petit had crossed the 700 meters on a wire which separate the Palais de Chaillot from the Eiffel Tower. Nathan Paulin also walked from the Eiffel Tower to the Trocadéro, 70 meters high, in 2017 and 2021.