Paris 2024 Olympics: the gigantic BMX Park for the Games was designed and built in Hérault… in secret!

Cette gigantesque zone de jeu pour les riders du monde entier a été imaginée et conçue dans l’Hérault, à Baillargues. MAXPPP – YOAN VALAT

The Hérault company Hurricane has designed the area installed at La Concorde, the scene of the first BMX Freestyle events on Tuesday 30 July.

Place de la Concorde, shortly before 2 p.m. on Tuesday, July 30. The female BMX Freestyle athletes – including Hérault's Laury Pérez – take off for the qualifying phase of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. While spectators scrutinize the sequence of tricks, Hervé André-Benoît keeps a more peripheral eye on the immense structure installed at the end of the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. “We have been supporting this sport for so long… It is impressive to see the progress of this discipline", confides the boss of FISE – Montpellier's extreme sports – and business festival Hurricane.

Hervé André-Benoit was in Paris this Tuesday to attend the events. D.R.

In Baillargues, from plans to construction

This gigantic play area for riders from all over the world was imagined and designed in Hérault, in Baillargues, where the company is based. The call for tenders was won more than two years ago. It was then necessary to draw up the plans for the modules spread over 1,800 m2, “a huge area, even larger than what we are setting up in Montpellier for the Fise”.

“Drawing the plans for a BMX Park means thinking about curves and modules that will allow competitors to express their talent and creativity. It is a very technical job, which is subject to validation by the International Cycling Union, and which requires a certain expertise in these major events”, confides Hervé André-Benoit, whose company, one of the leaders in the global module construction market, is also in charge of equipping the championship and the World Cup.

Keeping it secret to maintain sporting fairness

A technical job carried out in the greatest secrecy. During the Tokyo 2020 games (for which Hurricane was already in charge), the plans had been unveiled too early by the organization, allowing two nations to produce full-scale replicas and thus gain a serious advantage over the competition.“For these games, the COJO wanted perfect fairness. The teams all received the plans at the beginning of July to imagine their program, and only discovered the park a few days before the competition for the training phase.”It was therefore necessary to reinforce security!”

For months, only three people were in possession of the precious documents, stored on secure computers. The production, carried out in three months in Baillargues by around fifteen employees, was done in a compartmentalized manner. "The final assembly phase took place directly in Paris three weeks ago."

A new coup for Hurricane, which has been designing and building modules and parks for 25 years. The one in Paris 2024 should continue to see riders pass through long after the end of the games. “The entire structure can be dismantled and reused. It will then be in the hands of the French Cycling Federation, which will be responsible for sharing it with other athletes.”

Working on the Concorde site

From the candidacy phase, Paris 2024 had chosen to remove urban sports from traditional stadiums. And to offer them a dedicated site on the Place de la Concorde. A setting to host BMX, but also skateboarding, 3×3 basketball and breaking. Here again, the site's layout and architecture were entrusted to Hurricane.

“The organization wanted a site that combined the competition part with paying stands, and a free area with initiations and giant screens, in the form of a fan zone. Combining competition and discovery, that speaks to us. It's been our credo for 27 years with the Fise”, concludes Hervé André-Benoît.

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