Located in the Île-de-France region, Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (SQY) is easily accessible from Paris. It is well known in cycling circles as the home of the Vélodrome National - the French national training centre that also houses the headquarters of the Fédération Française de Cyclisme – and the SQY BMX Stadium. Both facilities have already hosted UCI World Championships and World Cups, and will be the venues for the track and BMX Racing events in 2024. Seven kilometres away, the Colline d’Elancourt (Elancourt Hill) will welcome the Olympic mountain bike races in July 2024 while the road races will also pass through the region.
There is no shortage of high-level sporting infrastructure in SQY, but these facilities are in no way exclusively reserved for Elite athletes.
“Throughout the year, we support local clubs with subsidies, assistance in purchasing equipment and preferential access to major events,” says Laurent Mazaury, Deputy Mayor of Elancourt, and Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines’ Vice President in charge of sports and the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. “All our sports facilities are open to the wider public all year round.”
Awarded the label Terre de Jeux (Games Territory), Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines confirms that it shares the same conviction as the Paris 2024 Games: “that sport changes lives because it is an incomparable vector of gathering and cohesion - through the emotions it arouses - and is a formidable tool for education and inclusion - through the values it conveys.”
Laurent Mazaury welcomes this label: “It reinforces the appeal of our territory, for its inhabitants, its companies and its sports tourism. It highlights the quality of life in SQY, which is close to Paris but already in the country.”
As a result of a programme entitled #TousenPiste (All-on-track), initiated in 2016 and running through to the opening of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, school students and young people have benefited from dedicated events enabling them to discover cycling and make use of SQY’s infrastructures. Three secondary schools now have a cycling section offering students a special timetable allowing them time to train at the Vélodrome National and the BMX Stadium with their sports teacher and supervisors specialized in track and BMX Racing.
An ambitious cycling blueprint
Quite apart from the Olympic and Paralympic Games and SQY’s international facilities, the aim is to increase the use of the bike in the daily lives of people from Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, which comprises seven railway stations, 90 bus lines and 420km of cycle lanes for its population of some 230,000.
A cycling blueprint adopted by SQY’s 12 communes in 2021 has ambitious objectives up until 2031. An estimated €37 million is being invested over the 10-year period with the aim of:
increasing the modal share of cycling from 3% to 6%, or even 8% by 2031
continuing to develop a secure cycle network, including another 246km by 2031
increasing the supply of parking near major centres
strengthening the range of services available to the region's residents and employees.
One of the big success stories so far is the vélostation (bike station) situated at the SQY railway station. Apart from 280 secure bike parking spots, the station has 170 bikes (150 standard bikes, 10 folding bikes and 10 E-bikes) for rent between one day and one year. The bike station also houses a maintenance workshop and a team dedicated to sustainable mobility which regularly organises special events dedicated to active mobility.
Local clubs and all bike users – whether living or working in SQY – are implicated in the cycling blueprint.
“We conduct consultations and listen carefully to the feedback of everyday users, to learn from what already exists and to improve for the future,” says Laurent Mazaury. “We are in regular contact with companies, which inform us of their employees' requests, with the 12 communes that make up SQY and with the users who pass through the station every day, in order to adapt our service offer as best we can.”
The consultations and promotion are all part of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines’ desire to see the best possible legacy left from the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics. A legacy that will go beyond that of the top-class cycling facilities that are already at the service of the population.
“Our main challenge for the legacy will now be social and societal. We must succeed in getting more and more of the territory's inhabitants and employees practicing sport, for their well-being and health,” says Laurent Mazaury.
“We must also consider that sport is a marvelous social tool, for all generations. Finally, sport is the bearer of beautiful values that must be used for educational purposes, and also for professional purposes, because they allow people to be fulfilled, to live better together, and above all, to set objectives, to work to achieve them, and to succeed together.”
SQY’s Vice President in charge of sports and the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games concludes: “We also wish to capitalise on the presence of our facilities to continue to host major international sporting events, which contribute to the international influence of SQY, offer great spectacles to our inhabitants, and produce significant economic spin-offs.”