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The French Swimming Federation is boasting record-high membership numbers for the 2023-2024 season ahead of a hosted Paris Olympics. Numbers released last week showed 411,992 members, an increase of almost 10,000 members from the 402,138 members in the 2022-2023 season.
While most big swimming countries see boosts in registrations in the season after the Olympics, France saw one heading into Paris, though as the host nation for the Games, the enthusiasm for Olympic sport was high leading into the Games as well.
Giles Sezionale used the opportunity to call upon the newly-appointed French government to invest in aging aquatic infrastructure in the country, saying that the increased participation and an increase in drownings in the country has led to a lack of space.
“I welcome the new Prime Minister (Michel Barnier), who, I am sure, given his past in the Olympics, will be keen to address this issue,” Sezionale said. Barnier was previously a member of the Sustainability and Legacy Commission of the IOC and a co-organizer of the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville.
“I solemnly ask him to take charge of the problem.
“With a pool stock that is on average 40 years old and the number of drownings increasing, the implementation of a massive
plan for French swimming pools must be a government priority.
“While I was delighted to see the enthusiasm of elected officials in saluting the performances of Léon Marchand or Florent Manaudou, everyone at their level of responsibility must create the conditions for other talents to emerge: renovated swimming pools, more of them and an increased place for FFN clubs,” Sezionale concluded.
Recent reporting in France has set off alarm bells about increases in drownings in the country.
The success of French swimmer Leon Marchand, who won four gold medals and a bronze and was the star of the Games, is surely to provide another record high in the 2024-2025 season. Marchand, who will remain in France for a few months post-Olympics, was become a superstar in his home country – to the point that his races stopped competition at other sports’ venues during the Games so that fans could watch and celebrate.
France is not the only European federation to report increases in members leading into the Olympics. Germany, after losing about 51,000 members (8.8%) during the pandemic, the organization gained about half of that back in the 2023 calendar year, climbing to 588,438 members.
USA Swimming, meanwhile, reported a 4.61% decline in 2023, down from 393,370 in 2022 to 375,827 in 2023. Those are both well-shy of the pre-pandemic highs of 419,427 in 2017.
USA Swimming has not released its latest membership numbers yet, but the organization’s interim leadership are expecting the traditional post-Olympic bump in registrations, and early anecdotal evidence from club coaches has supported that trend.
The United States is the host of the next Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028.
