Nantes Métropole
Nantes Metropolitan Area
Nantes continues to expand demographically and to attract people and businesses. Bolstered by this dynamic activity, the Nantes Metropolitan area aims to invent a new development model which promotes the democratic, ecological, and digital transitions of our time. This builds on the community-based, collaborative, creative, diverse, and audacious qualities of this region in the West of France!
Sport plays a leading role in planning for the future.
Nantes Metropole supports sport at the highest levels, as an essential vector of the region’s attractiveness. As part of this, Nantes Metropole has undertaken actions in the following areas:
- Support for sport at the highest levels – professional sport in Nantes offers a unique mix – notably through the many professional women’s and men’s sports clubs participating at the highest levels.
Nantes Metropole provides specific support for athletes at the highest levels to help them develop their sporting careers and for some, their participation in the Olympic Games. - Metropolitan sporting facilities – Nantes Metropole invests in and manages the major sporting facilities and stadiums.
- Major Sporting Events: Nantes Metropole hosts and supports major recurring sporting events, such as the Nantes Marathon, and exceptional events which capture the imagination of the whole planet!
Fully committed to major international sporting events, Nantes has been labelled Games Region 2024. It is delighted to be welcoming the World BMX Championships in 2022, the Rugby World Cup in 2023 and the women’s and men’s Olympic Football Championships in 2024.
Nantes Exhibition Centre:
The Nantes Exhibition Centre has for several years been an example of hosting and organising major sporting events, notably through the site reconfiguration and the construction of the XXL sports hall in 2013. With 13,000 m² of available space, the XXL sports hall offers the city of Nantes a new modular space to host large-scale sporting events. It was inaugurated when it hosted the FISE World Series, international extreme sports competition (mountain biking, BMX, skateboarding, roller-skating…).
For the world BMX Championships 2022, the huge 10,000 m² R zone will be used to create a 450 m long temporary track. 5,800 people will be able to watch the world’s best riders from the stands around the track. Another marvellous illustration of how sporting facilities such as the exhibition hall can demonstrate the attraction of Nantes metropolis during competition week.
Loire-Atlantique, terre de vélo
Loire-Atlantique, home of cycling
In Loire-Atlantique, the diversity of the landscape and the rich surroundings make it an ideal area for cycling. Therefore, the Department has committed to the ‘Loire-Atlantique On Your Bike’ action plan which promotes the bicycle for tourists, for local people, and as part of sporting events.
Cycling is also an everyday activity in Loire-Atlantique. The Department maintains more than 500 km of well-appointed cycle routes. This will expand to 770 km of cycle routes by 2027 with three priorities: integration with transport networks, road security, servicing village centres, commercial activity zones, and schools and colleges.
And of course, the Loire-Atlantique has a long and rich cycling history. Loire-Atlantique is home to the Nantes Atlantique Union of Cyclists created in 1909 and the achievements of famous cyclists such as Petit-Breton, Le Métayer, Guimard, and Bertin. It now boasts the largest number of licensed cyclists in France – nearly 6,700 – across 178 diverse clubs.
Four hundred competitions are organised in the region every year. These include major events supported by the Department, which welcome the best of French amateur teams. These include the recent French Road Cycling Championships (La Haye-Fouassière), the European Cyclo-cross Championships (Pont-Château), the French Youth Cycling Trophy (Saint-Nazaire) and the Loire-Atlantique Cycle Tour.
Loire-Atlantique is delighted to be once again hosting a major BMX event and is a natural and enthusiastic partner for the 2022 BMX World Championships.
Consult a wide range of information about the Department at Loire-Atlantique.fr
Pays de la Loire
The Pays de la Loire region, a land of major sporting events and cycling
With 3,000 km of cycling routes, on its coastline or inland, 10,490 members and 177 clubs grouped together within the Regional Cycling Committee, the Pays de la Loire is asserting itself as the ultimate land of cycling. The Pays de la Loire Region supports cycling on a daily basis as well as high-level cycling teams, such as TotalEnergies and U Nantes-Atlantique in the professional sector, Laval Cyclisme 53 and Team Elles Pays de la Loire in the amateur road race, and the Pays de la Loire BMX association. The Region is also a partner in events dedicated to cycling, such as the Tour de France, which it regularly hosts, Anjou Vélo Vintage, the Fête du Vélo and Nature is Bike. These are all events that are both sporting and popular, and which make a significant contribution to the animation and influence of the Pays de la Loire beyond its borders.
In 2022, the Pays de la Loire Region is proud to support the BMX World Championships which will take place in Nantes from 26 to 31 July. This is a major opportunity for the public of the Loire to come and discover, through this event which has never been held before in the Pays de la Loire, the world’s best in the discipline, both in its sporting and artistic aspects through the various events and activities on offer. The Pays de la Loire will also have the honour of hosting the French Road Cycling Championships, from 23 to 26 June 2022, which will be held in the Choletais area.
DIGES
The mission of the DIGES (cross-departmental body for the coordination of major sporting events)
France is hosting the Olympic and Paralympic games in Paris in 2024 and other large international sporting events. Twenty-seven major sporting events took place in France in 2022 and thirty such events in 2023 will contribute to the overall dynamics of sport in France, and the promotion of our territories on the international stage.
These major events are also real opportunities for economic development, to demonstrate the appeal of France, for social cohesion and are valuable opportunities to promote our expertise in sustainable development.
In this context, the cross-departmental body for major sporting events (DIGES) hopes to become the gateway to state services for major sporting events and to encourage, support, drive, coordinate and evaluate such events. Its role is not to organise sporting events, nor to ensure their security, but to be an interface, a centre for resources, and a regulator.
