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.
29.10.2024, 14:39
SDA
These highlights include the equipment of several gold medal winners from the Paris Games, including Novak Djokovic's racket, the leotard 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 has 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 outside the changing room
Since the 1984 Olympic Games, the Olympic Museum has been acquiring artifacts directly on site. In Paris, three people were employed full-time to address 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, at the presentation of a selection of the collected "trophies" on Tuesday.
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 is then drawn up, which includes 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", the superstar of the swimming competitions, reported Meichtry.
On display in the permanent exhibition
The various objects now have 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, while 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.
