The Legacy and Sustainability plan for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games — 44 • ELANCOURT Located 35 km from the centre of Paris, woodland south-west of the bottom of the hill) Élancourt Hill has a potential reach that extends and changing the dynamics of the local beyond Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines. From the late vegetation to diversify ecological habitats and 19th century through to the end of the 1950s, their unique features to promote open herbaceous the site operated as an open pit millstone grit environments. The herbaceous area at the top quarry, while from the 1960s through to the late of the hill will be expanded to recreate a habitat 2000s, it was a breaker’s yard and an illegal for protected species, which will coexist peacefully dumping ground. The site owes its current alongside people using the hill for sports and appearance to backfill work carried out using recreational purposes after the Games: mainly earth and rubble from building • redeveloping mountain bike trails using Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, as well as two existing tracks for the 2024 Games, as well household waste sites. as French Cycling Federation competitions The 52 ha site is part of the greater Saint-Quentin- and championships after the Games; en-Yvelines area. Reaching 231 metres, the summit is the highest point in the Greater Paris region. • creating additional platforms, training Though the soil was brought from other locations, structures and an area for Paris 2024’s short- nature gradually began to take over this term needs that will be shared with local abandoned post-industrial site. Today, the site residents after the Games to meet their needs is used by mountain bikers, walkers and runners. and expectations after the Games, The Élancourt Hill project strives to ensure while ensuring the temporary structures are the site blends in with its surroundings and help a reasonable size (10% of the site will be regenerate existing ecological environments landscaped); by adapting the landscape. • providing users with enhanced access to the Successfully making these changes hinges hill (including where there are community on protecting the trees along the edge of the gardens at present) and improving links Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines plateau (listed between the site and the surrounding area. © – Thomas Barwick/Getty Images