Olympic Museum collects 200 objects from athletes in Paris
Published: Tuesday, Oct 29th 2024, 15:50
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The Olympic Museum added more than 200 objects to its collection during the Olympic Games in Paris. Most of the trophies were donated by athletes and collected on site.
These highlights include the outfits of several gold medal winners from the Paris Games, including Novak Djokovic's racket, the jersey of Brazilian gymnast Rebeca Andrade, the shoes of wrestler Mijain Lopez and the basketball of the US team from the final.
However, the Olympic Museum not only collected sporting items, but also clothing that was worn at the opening and closing ceremonies. This includes the "Golden Voyager" outfit by Valais designer Kevin Germanier.
Waiting in front of the changing room
Since the 1984 Olympic Games, the Olympic Museum has been acquiring artifacts directly on site. In Paris, three people were working full-time to approach the athletes in the stadiums, hotels or in the Olympic Village. "With Novak Djokovic, for example, we had to wait several hours outside his changing room after the final until we could pick up his racket," said Yasmin Meichtry, deputy director of the museum, on Tuesday at the presentation of a selection of the collected "trophies".
The work begins six months before the competitions, with contacts to the sports federations, the national Olympic committees and the athletes' managers, explained Meichtry.
An "ideal list" of acquisitions will then be drawn up, containing the names of "big stars" from whom the museum would like to bring an object, but also artifacts that "tell a story" or are barely represented in its collections. This is a gap that the Olympic Museum in Paris has tried to fill, particularly in the artistic disciplines (synchronized swimming, rhythmic gymnastics) or in the new Olympic sports (breaking, skateboarding, surfing).
So far, 209 objects from 27 different sports have been collected in connection with the Olympic Games in Paris. However, the acquisitions will continue even after the end of the Games: "On Monday, we learned that we will receive a swimsuit from Léon Marchand," reported Meichtry, the swimming superstar.
On display in the permanent exhibition
The various objects now need to be inventoried and photographed. Some of them will be presented to the public in the museum's permanent exhibition from next year. Some will be used for temporary exhibitions, others will be loaned to other institutions.
In total, the Lausanne museum houses over 90,000 objects that trace 120 years of Olympism. Around 1500 of these are on display in the permanent exhibition.
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