In Chamonix, one hundred candles for the 1924 Winter Olympics

IT ALL STARTED on January 25, 1924. That day, the city was packed with people: “International Winter Sports Week” was about to begin. The official inauguration of the event, renamed two years later “the first Winter Olympic Games”, took place at the Majestic, completed a few years earlier. Seat of the current Congress Center, the palace can no longer be visited, but the eye of the walker lingering on the immense Belle Époque facade is fixed on an old chandelier in one of the lounges. A hint of imagination is enough to project yourself into the festive and warm atmosphere of the time. For a little, the glasses of champagne would clink in the middle of a joyful hubbub. With this evocation, the visitor of 2024 is led to walk down the aisle of the Majestic. Exhibition panels serve as a guide. On each of them, the posters of the Winter Olympic Games go back in history: Beijing 2022, Sarajevo 1984, Saint-Moritz 1948…