For nearly 1,000 years, the Greek games featured artistic competitions alongside athletic ones. Now, this ancient tradition is inspiring France's new Cultural Olympiad. What does one wear to the Louvre Museum as Paris gears up for the 2024 Olympics? On a recent visit, my fashion instructions were specific: I should don my finest jogging gear.
I had signed up for a unique running event called Courez a u Louvre , which promised to turn France's most revered art institution into the world's most aesthetically pleasing gym. This workout course mixing "inspiration" and "perspiration", as the Louvre's website promised, is just one small part of the so-called Cultural Olympiad : a sprawling series of more than 1,000 events touching on things like fashion, theatre, food and dance taking place across France until the end of September. The goal of these "other" summer games is to promote broad aspects of Gallic culture, but also to revive the little-known Olympic tradition of including artistic disciplines such as sculpture, architecture and literature that was common in ancient Greece, as well as the modern Games from 1912-1948 (including those in Paris 100 years ago ).
Some events, like a recent " Waiter's Race ", in which 200 aproned Parisian servers from Paris' top restaurants dashed 1.9km through the city's streets balancing a croissant, coffee and a glass of water on a tray; and an upcoming jazz-themed Olympic Ball evoking 1924 in the Musée d'Orsay, are one-offs. Others are rec.