The Decathlon Arena — Stade Pierre Mauroy will host the group stage basketball and handball games. That could mean an unfriendly audience when the Team USA women play Belgium.
The 2024 Olympics are in Paris, France. But Paris is only so large as a city, so many events will be held outside the city itself.
To the average watcher, sports like swimming, athletics (track and field) and gymnastics are the flagship sports of the Olympics. But basketball has been catching up as well because most of the top stars in the world will participate. And while the quarterfinals and subsequent round will be played at the Accor Arena in Paris, the group stage games will be played in Lille at The Decathlon Arena, also known as Stade Pierre Mauroy.
Where is Lille?
Lille is a city of about 236.000 in the Hauts-de-France region and Nord Department of the country. Lille is about a three hour, 140 mile drive north of Paris. It is part of the Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai metropolitan area, which includes cities in France and Belgium.
Given that Lille is adjacent to West Flanders province in Belgium, you may be wondering if the city is important in Flemish history. The French do call Lille the “Capital of Flanders.” Historically, Lille was in a region of the historic County of Flanders where Romance languages, as opposed to Germanic languages like Dutch were spoken.
If you are traveling to Lille from Belgium, you may see that the city is referred to as Rijsel (Ray-sel) instead. That is the Dutch name for the city. Apparently, there are some native Dutch speakers in Lille as well, though it won’t be like what you will see in Kortrijk, or other nearby cities like Bruges or Ghent where Dutch is the predominant language.
What does The Decathlon Arena normally host?
The Decathlon Arena is a soccer stadium that holds a capacity of 50,210 people. It is the home of Lille OSC in Ligue 1, France’s premier men’s soccer league.
The stadium will also host the handball tournament, so I’m wondering if they are going to split this facility with a partition to make this happen. I don’t see 50,000 people watching every basketball game.
What does the group stage mean for Team USA when it’s in Lille?
For the American men’s team, it will mean very little. They’re just going to enjoy being in a different city during the group stage.
For the American women’s team, it is going to be the exact opposite. Games being in Lille will make a big impact on the fanbases they will encounter. That’s because Lille borders Belgium. And Belgium’s women’s basketball team will be in the same group as Team USA.
And there’s more. West Flanders province is where some very notable Belgian Cats are from like Washington Mystics training camp signee Julie Vanloo and …. wait for it … Emma Meesseman! Lille is only about a 25 mile drive away from Ieper, Meesseman’s hometown. You can guarantee that there will be lots of Cats fans when they play the Americans in the group stage, with a lot of French fans hoping the Cats pull off an upset.
I have no idea how narrative somehow, someway, gets on Belgium’s side. Let us know your thoughts on the group stage being in Lille in the comments below.