“A real fight that we won”: in Toulouse, the City of Swimming will have its “Léon Marchand” pool

It is a piece of history that the Dauphins du Toec will recover: after months of discussions, the Toulouse club was assured of obtaining one of the three pools used during the Paris-2024 Olympic Games, marked of his imprint by Léon Marchand, licensed to the Dauphins since a young age.

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While several municipalities, in France but also abroad, had positioned themselves, it is a battle that neither the club nor the city of Toulouse intended to lose. “We had applied for the Cité de la Natation to inherit a Paris 2024 pool, from May 2021, with Vincent Gardeau (the president of the club Editor's note) and the Dauphins du Toec. It was a real fight that we won, and we can be proud of it” welcomed Jean-Luc Moudenc, who intervened at the beginning of October with the Minister of Sports Gil Avérous to tip the scales towards Toulouse.

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It's done, and the swimming pool will be the icing on the cake of the Cité de la Natation: it will be installed on the roof of this new 10,000 m² complex, spread over five levels, which should see the light of day in 2027 on Ramier Island. “It’s a great victory for Toulouse” also smiles Vincent Gardeau.

2 to 2.5 million euros still to be found

While one of the three pools had been purchased by the Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games and reserved for the town of Sevran (93), the Dauphins du Toec will in reality recover half of one of the warm-up pools of 50 m – the other half will go to Bagnolet (93). It has been reserved for the club for two years by the Italian manufacturer Myrtha Pools, which will also supply the remaining 25 meters to create an Olympic pool.

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It remains for the Dauphins du Toec to finance this purchase, with a sum not yet exactly quantified, which the club estimates at around 2 million euros, while the Cité de la Swimming will cost a total of nearly 30.A meeting is already planned for the end of the month between the Dauphins du Toec and the National Sports Agency in order to discuss financing the project. The subject could also be raised during the visit to Toulouse of the Minister of Sports, Youth and Community Life Gil Avérous, in mid-November. There he should meet Léon Marchand, five-time medalist at the Paris Olympics, four times gold. The name of the future pool installed on the roof of the Cité de la Swimming does not cause too much suspense.