Paris 2024

On May 12, 2024, Taylor Swift took the stage at Plenitude Arena for the final night of her Paris residency. On May 15, the venue’s teams began one of the most extraordinary challenges in its history. In 36 days flat, Plenitude Arena was set to transform entirely into an Olympic and Paralympic aquatics centre. Two 50 by 25 metre pools, each holding 2.25 million litres of water, built at the heart of the arena to host the world’s best swimmers. A construction project of unprecedented scale, carried out under the Olympic rings that now adorned the venue’s facades.

Olympic swimming, water polo, para-swimming. An extraordinary summer.

For five months, from May 15 to October 15, 2024, Plenitude Arena would host no concerts, no matches. Only the Games.

An Olympic summer

From July 27 to August 4: Olympic swimming. Every night, 35,000 spectators filled the transformed venue to witness one of the most intense competitions of the Games. And at the heart of it all, one name kept coming up: Léon Marchand.

On July 28, the 22-year-old swimmer won the 400m individual medley. Olympic record. Speaking to reporters moments after climbing out of the pool, he described the atmosphere as completely wild. Three days later, on July 31, he dove back in and emerged with two gold medals in a single evening: the 200m butterfly, then the 200m breaststroke, two Olympic records just hours apart. On August 2, he claimed a fourth individual title in the 200m individual medley, this time breaking the Olympic record held by the legendary Michael Phelps. Four races, four golds, four Olympic records. The Plenitude Arena pool was the stage for one of the most extraordinary performances in the history of swimming, and of French sport as a whole.

France left Plenitude Arena with seven swimming medals: four gold, one silver, two bronze.

From August 5 to 11: the water polo finals. Serbia claimed a third consecutive Olympic title in the men’s tournament, beating Croatia 13-11 in the final at Plenitude Arena. In the women’s tournament, Spain pulled off a historic feat, winning the first Olympic gold medal in water polo in its history, defeating Australia 11-9. Moments of pure joy and tears, under the venue’s lights.

From August 29 to September 8: the Paralympic Games. Plenitude Arena then hosted the para-swimming events, with 178 events contested in total across the Olympic summer. Athletes from around the world, performances beyond words, an arena buzzing with a different kind of emotion, just as intense, only more intimate.

The legacy reaches far beyond the walls of Plenitude Arena

After the Games, the two pools built for the occasion weren’t simply dismantled. They made their way to Seine-Saint-Denis. The competition pool, the one where Léon Marchand was crowned champion four times, found a new home at the Sevran aquatics centre. Half of the training pool was installed in Bagnolet. In a département where nearly six in ten children can’t swim, it’s a concrete, lasting legacy, one that carries something bigger than sport.

One Olympic summer. A complete transformation. And the certainty that Plenitude Arena can host anything, even History.