Saint-Nizier-du-Moucherotte Olympic Ski Jump
The concrete ski jump built in six months for the 1968 Grenoble Olympics and the first in Games history where skiers flew past 100 metres; abandoned since 1987 and now crumbling and closed to the public.
- Region
- Isère
- Country
- France
- Status
- abandoned
- Year opened
- 1968
- Year closed
- 1987
- Reason for closure
- A badly chosen site. The jump stands on an exposed shoulder of the Vercors above Grenoble where snow would not hold, so it worked only intermittently after the Games. It hosted national and then World Cup ski jumping into the 1980s, ran for the last time in 1987 and was then abandoned.
History
The ski jump at Saint-Nizier-du-Moucherotte was thrown up in six months at the foot of the Trois Pucelles, on the Vercors escarpment looking down on Grenoble, for the 1968 Winter Olympics. Building it took 280,000 cubic metres of excavation and thousands of cubic metres of concrete poured heated, on a design taking its cue from Innsbruck, and it produced the first Olympic ski jumping competition in which skiers passed 100 metres. The event closed the Games on the final day in front of 50,000 spectators, with the jumpers silhouetted against the city below - one of the defining images of Grenoble 1968. The site never really worked afterwards: exposed and too low, it could not hold snow, and although it drew national meetings and then World Cup rounds it operated only fitfully and was used for the last time in 1987. It has been left ever since. The concrete is spalling and unsafe, the outrun and landing slope have been taken back by the forest, and the site is fenced off from the public - the mayor has described the structure as crumbling and very dangerous. It is the standing example of the Grenoble Games' ruins, an olympic white elephant that restoration studies price in the tens of millions of euros, with the commune hoping for a private investor. This entry covers the jumping venue itself, which never had ski lifts of its own.
Sources and further reading
- https://www.ici.fr/sports/sport-d-hiver-ski-biathlon/jo-de-1968-a-grenoble-le-trempli-de-saint-nizier-du-moucherotte-un-site-olympique-unique-1517424161
- https://france3-regions.franceinfo.fr/auvergne-rhone-alpes/isere/grenoble/en-images-a-l-abandon-depuis-30-ans-le-tremplin-des-jo-de-grenoble-au-c-ur-d-un-projet-de-restauration-2908589.html
- https://journals.openedition.org/tc/8176
- https://www.coljog.fr/saint-nizier-de-moucherotte
More in France
Location
45.1707, 5.6297