The historic photo agency Roger-Viollet close to our hotels has a new (free!) exhibition on offer, part of Paris’ Olympics-related cultural selection, known as the Cultural Olympiad – Champions! – showing the evolution of female posrts between the First and Second World Wars, the result of women’s fight for a more equal place in society.

It’s almost unbelievable to think sports were once an exclusively-male domain, and even women’s essential contribution to the First World War efforts, it required a lot of courage for women to claim their right to take part in competition sports.

Many people back then (including doctors 🤦🏼‍♂️) thought that the ‘fairer sex’ should not jump, run or throw, and yet as women started to set more and more records in sports, the press started to become interested and female sports clubs and associations began to flourish.

Timed to coincide with the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, the Roger-Viollet agency has delved into its own archives and those belonging to sports newspaper l’Équipe in order to present 70 prints of the trailblazing women who were often ridiculed by men but remained determined to change the status quo and not accept the era’s misogyny.

Twenty large-format photos will also be presented outdoors near the Sein and the opening ceremony for the Games.

While many of the women in the photos have been forgotten, they played a crucial role in advancing society toward more equality, and by extension in the Olympic Games. Their courage should be acknowledged.

And there are (at least) three good reasons to go see the exhibition – it’s the first time these photos have been shown together, entrance is free, and the agency is just a short walk from many of our hotels. Get yourselves down there!

P.S. The official opening party (almost certainly with wine and nibbles) is on Thursday 13th June from 6.30-9pm and is open to all.

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The exhibition Champions! The History of Female Sports Between the Wars is at the Roger-Viollet Gallery (here) from 13th June – 14th September 2024

Open Tuesday-Saturday, 11am-7pm

Free!

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