It’s official, the City of Miramas, the Bouches-du-Rhône Departmental Council and the ACM Miramas club have signed a protocol of intent with the Kenyan Olympic and Paralympic Committee during the European Athletics Meeting on February 3, making Miramas the rear base for the Kenyan delegation during the Paris 2024 Games.
Miramas, labeled Land of Games 2024 (“Terre de Jeux”) is the first city in the Bouches-du-Rhône region to formalize a partnership with a foreign Olympic delegation. If the quality of its sports facilities and the Stadium Miramas Métropole, one of the largest indoor athletics venues in Europe, has been recognized by the Kenyans, it is its sports movement, supported by a dynamic network of associations and an ambitious municipal policy, that convinced the Kenyan Olympic Committee to choose Miramas.
Also, during the three weeks preceding the Games, in the summer of 2024, nearly 100 Olympic and Paralympic athletes (all disciplines), many supporters but also political and economic representatives of Kenya will invest Miramas and the surrounding towns. Demonstrations, trainings, interventions in schools and cultural actions around Kenya, more than a simple reception, it will be a question of making live the spirit of the Games by creating a dynamics around the sports culture of the territory, its quality of life and its local actors.
This partnership between Kenya, the City and the Territory will go far beyond preparing athletes for the international sporting event. As a rear base during all the Games, Miramas will receive once again the medallists at the end of the competition (10 medals at the Tokyo Olympic Games). With the ambition of placing the cultural dimension at the heart of this partnership, the Olympic delegation and its president, the champion Paul Tergat, attended a performance at the “La Colonne” theater as part of the Festival of the Arts of the Gesture, Les Élancées.