With Le Coq Sportif, the Paris 2024 Olympic Games organizing committee is banking on history
|Jean-Luc Flémal/BELPRESS/MAXPPP – Sport | Sport 11/21/2018 (MaxPPP TagID: maxnewsfrfour162091.jpg) [Photo via MaxPPP]
MAXPPP – Jean-Luc Flémal
While Le Coq Sportif's outfits for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be revealed this evening, the organizing committee called on a historic equipment manufacturer to dress its athletes.
Already present during the Paris Olympic Games in 1924, Le Coq Sportif will once again make outfits for French athletes, a hundred years later. A beneficial strategic and commercial shift for the Aube brand.
After Breuer in Beijing in 2008, or Lacoste in Tokyo in 2021, the French delegation has been equipped by Le Coq Sportif since the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing in 2022.
800 athletes to dress
The contract won by Le Coq Sportif is structured around two large lots. The first concerns the "performance" section, and brings together all the outfits related to the competition. A return to a single equipment supplier, which has not happened since London 2012. But the federations which wish to do so will be able to keep theirs in exchange for financial compensation.
Rendez-vous ce soir pour découvrir les tenues que porteront nos Bleus aux Jeux Olympiques et Paralympiques de @paris2024 👀 pic.twitter.com/ZIR2S2pbLT
— Equipe France (@EquipeFRA) January 16, 2024
The second batch brings together the outfits that the athletes will wear in the Olympic village and on the podiums as well as those of the officials and employees of the OCOG. In total, this represents 1.3 million parts to be produced.
The northern company Décathlon, for its part, won the third and final lot, and will dress the volunteers and the Olympic and Paralympic torchbearers.
With less than 200 days until the Games, Le Coq Sportif must now be able to produce any outfit in less than 48 hours. A demand in tight flow which will increase with the revelation of the outfits to the general public.
Four years of exchanges to "reinterpret the colors of France"
Since March 2020, the Le Coq Sportif teams have been discussing with athletes and federations to best adapt the outfits according to the disciplines. And the French brand did not skimp on resources: expansion of the factory, reorganization of teams… Everything was done to meet the specifications and find the best materials for each clothing, under the leadership of Stéphane Ashpool, artistic director and founder of the Pigalle brand.
Stéphane Ashpool, artistic director of the Blues outfits for the Paris 2024 Games. EPA – CAROLINE BLUMBERG
In Romilly-sur-Seine (10), in the historic Coq Sportif factory, the development teams had to raise their level of research and modeling to offer prototypes tailor-made for French athletes. After their validation by the governing bodies, the pieces will be made in France, Morocco and Portugal.
Now that the Blues have the style for these Games at home, all that's left to do is…