An overhead view of how Pierre le Goupil’s Olympic track will criss-cross the canal and avenues of the Versailles estate, courtesy of Cross Country App.
There’s nothing quite like designing an Olympic cross-country course. Firstly, it has to slot into a tract of land that’s rarely or never hosted the sport before; secondly, it has to be friendly enough to allow less experienced nations to have a chance of completing, while also testing the big guns and providing a spectacle to represent the sport. And, on the world stage, safety and horse welfare become even more important than ever.
But Paris 2024’s course designer, Pierre le Goupil, who also designed last year’s tough European Championships track, isn’t buckling under the pressure – he’s relishing it. And along the way, he’s allowing himself to be surprised, too.
One of the biggest surprises on unpacking the gorgeous, beautifully-built course today is how much space there actually is to open up the stride and gallop on. We’d all been expecting a much tighter, twistier, more intensive track, because it uses a reasonably compact area to get the job done – but even Pierre was pleasantly surprised at how much usable space he had to play with once he got his boots on the ground for the first of his fifty or so site visits over the last couple of years.
“When I first heard about the cross country being here, I said, ‘Ah, it’s going to be flat. Straight lines. Crooked, very sharp turns, nothing to play with,’ and it’s totally different. There’s a lot of things to play with,” he says.
And so, rather than a go-kart track of a course, it’s something a little bit different – more, perhaps, akin with a Luhmühlen-style course, though held at ‘championship level’, which is effectively a short CCI4*-L, rather than five-star. And in the unusually short time Pierre’s had the role – he was given it in 2022, rather than straight off the back of the delayed Tokyo Olympics, as would usually be the case – he’s set to work to maximise the space as best he can, while also managing the estate’s need to continue allowing tourists on site and to protect its heritage trees and flora.
On first walk, it doesn’t, perhaps, read as a hugely difficult track – but then, maybe that’s just right. We saw a not-hugely-difficult track exert huge influence at the World Championships in 2022, particularly for very experienced five-star horses, who weren’t, perhaps, quite as rideable with nothing enormous to back them off. Could that kind of influence be exerted again here? Could Pierre, whose difficult Europeans course last year took many by surprise, have a few tricks up his sleeve here? Let’s give it a walk and see.
You can take a virtual walk around via the Cross Country App here, too.
THE ESSENTIAL INFO
Optimum time: 9:02
Length: 5149m
Fences: 28
Efforts: 45
There might be hustle and bustle and excitement around the main stadium, but the first fence on course takes us well away from that – a solid twenty minute walk, in fact, into the spectacular woods of Versailles. It’s a lovely spot to start, not just because it’s so peaceful, but because it’s so cool, too. It’s hot – though not stiflingly so – here in Paris, and the humidity is pretty high, but when you find yourself in the avenues, nestled underneath the estate’s ancient trees, it’s absolutely perfect, and ideal for intensive sport.
Fence 1: a straightforward ramped table that gets horses and riders off to a confidence-boosting start.
As with all courses, the Olympic course uses the first few fences to settle horses and riders into a rhythm and allow them to get some confidence-building airtime. And so these first few fences aren’t particularly big, nor are they complicated – they’re a warm welcome into the most important cross-country round of each horse and rider’s life.
There’s no forgetting you’re at the Games, though: fence one features the Olympic rings on the take-off side, as well as the Olympic motto, Citius, Altius, Fortius – or Faster, Higher, Stronger. That motto was actually used for the first time back at Paris 1924, and one hundred years later, it still feels like the perfect summary of this phase. As another thoughtful decoration, the fence is made to look as though it’s flanked with laurel wreaths – which does give it a sort of owlhole effect that should encourage riders to tackle it positively so their horses don’t take a peek.
An Olympic start.
The second fence is a ramped timber oxer, decorated with oversized workmans’ tools – a nod to the hard work of the course builders here, who have definitely had their chisels out creating some incredible artwork across this track. That team is helmed by Christian Aschard of EQUIBOIS, assisted by Dominic Moore and Benoit Marchand, and they were painted by Christine Houdayer.
“As I like to say all the time, designers are not as good as builders,” says Pierre. “If they don’t have proper skilled builders, they can’t achieve what they want. So this is important, and builders never have enough recognition. We always talk about the designers, but it’s very important to be able to rely on high level of skills, and as you can see we have them.”
The idea, he continues, first came about after the fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral, and the flurry of skilled rebuilding that’s been taking place there ever since ahead of its reopening in December.
Fence 2.
A massive hammer? No problem. This fence is clear, and friendly, and equipped with MIM clips for added safety just in case someone has a bad shot to it, which they shouldn’t – though sometimes the first three fences are where those little mistakes get ironed out.
The distinctive avenues of the Versailles estate.
The first galloping stretch on course comes between fences two and three, and keeps competitors under the cover of those cooling trees. Somehow, this still doesn’t feel like just another event, or just another field, or just another bit of woodland – Versailles’ trees and avenues are so distinctive, and so revered, that it feels a bit like stepping into centuries worth of history.
“If these trees could talk,” muses EN head honcho Sally, “I wonder what stories they’d have to tell?”
They’d probably, we decide, say a thing or two about guillotines.
Fence 3.
Then, after a long straight run, fence 3 appears. It’s a table, which could be jumped straight on or at an angle, depending on how much set-up a rider feels their horse still needs. Also notable here, though, is the unjumpable fence decoration on the approach – that’ll impact the choices riders can make on their line, but it also gives them the chance to be watched over by… a carved peacock. Delightful!
A closer look at fence 3.
We’re starting to see a bit more dimension now, and this opportunity to jump on an angle is also a great chance to sharpen up ahead of the combinations to come.
Fence 4.
There’s one more single fence to jump before we’ll get to that first combination, and it’s a classic eventing question. The ditch and brush at 4 isn’t quite the same sort of spectacle as, say, the capacious and terrifying Cottesmore Leap at Burghley, but it’s still a fence that requires a positive, forward ride and a galloping approach. That a fence like this comes just after an angled option is no accident: that progression allows riders to ensure they can adjust the canter and go from a more accurate ride to a more attacking one. Once they find themselves in the thick of a combination, they made need to switch between those approaches in quick succession, so this is a way to ensure that all the gears are in place.
Fence 5ABC and 6AB (the pale, skinny fountain fence in the back middle of the photo.)
There’s a shorter galloping stretch that takes us out of the woods and into the striking open vista of the first water, which is situated in one of Versailles’s historic fountains – one that’s been reinvented to become a horse-friendly complex. It retains an amphitheatre-style historic seating area, which adds some serious gravitas to the scene, and xx
This actually wasn’t where Pierre had originally intended to place the first combination on course – but the logistics of placing the start and finish, he says, meant that the course had to start a little bit later in the reserved area, and so as a compromise, he’s made sure to keep this water friendly and inviting.
It begins with a log drop into the water (5A), after which our competitors will pop a left-handed brush corner in the water itself (5B). Then, they’ll cruise out of the water up a step (5C), and then head to a skinny, angled, MIM-clipped fountain fence (6AB). It’s all about putting the pieces of the puzzle together sensibly here – each element is dimensionally friendly and there’s plenty of space between them to plan a line, and there’s options, too, in case of any difficulties, including a long route that has two efforts at 6AB rather than one as in the direct route.
“It’s the first combination, so it comes quite early on the course. But this is also why it’s not massive for four-star,” explains Pierre. “At this level we could have had something a little bit tougher, but the technicality will stay the same. When you work on a project like that, the first thing to consider is where do you start from, where do you do the warm up, and the terrain. I would have liked to start earlier, but that would have been where is now the cooling area. I would have liked to have maybe 500 meters more and maybe have a combination where we have the [undergrowth] over there. But we went to a compromise. For the moment, nobody has complained — so far!”
Fence 7A.
The first three combinations on course come up in very quick succession, and after making it through the water, our competitors will head back into the woodland via an entry point at 7A – a step up onto a pretty sharp incline. Then, they’ll head straight to 7B, an angled white birch upright.
Fence 7B.
This is the straight route, but there is a slow option here – that’s another collapsible birch rail, but jumped in the other direction, and riders will need to be careful of the route they choose so that they don’t cross behind the fence (that is, on the landing side) on their way to present to it. Further defining their route is a set of carved wooden animals guarding the centre of this copse. Most should go straight here.
Fence 8.
There’s options, too, at fence eight, a wide, brush-topped bench with some cushions on it that look like they might have been nicked from Marie Antoinette’s bedroom in the palace. There’s a left-handed one and a right-handed one, and nothing notably different between the two – the choice made here will simply come down to the line the rider wants to place themselves on. This fence comes after one of the most significant galloping stretches on the course and will be best tackled out of the forward, positive stride that riders have set in the lead-up to it.
Fence 9.
They’ll land running from 8 and maintain their pace for another reasonable stretch, after which they’ll meet this wide, timber oxer, which still needs to be ridden positively but must be set up for properly, because it’s big, imposing – and MIM-clipped, so a tidy effort will be key here. It’s a simple fence made visually striking by the little sea of wildflowers framing it.
Just a little view from the Versailles summer house, darling.
This oxer needs to be used quite tactically: we’ve just finished a fast minute with lots of galloping and not much jumping, and then it’s just a short run on to the next combination fence, so by moderating the approach and ensuring their horses are listening, our competitors will put themselves in good shape to adjust again soon.
Fence 10A.
The next combination is the second water complex, which is jam-packed with options, and so horses and riders alike will need to be focused and committed to find their line and pick their way through. Any discombobulation, and a horse might be so busy wondering which fence is his next one that he drives by his intended route without even seeing it. First, they’ll jump this big bridge, which is set on a serious angle over a wide open ditch.
Fence 10BC.
Then, they’ll pick their route of choice though the water, the fastest of which will see the jump into the drink over a broad-armed skinny brush, and then up, out, and over a right-handed brush-topped corner.
The numbering here is very friendly, mind you – there’s a lot of options to mix and match without getting into trouble over missing or doubling up on a lettered fence, and there’s even an open ditch option if that angled bridge doesn’t appeal.
Here’s another look at that direct route into the water, which utilises a visually impactful style of brush fence that we’ve been seeing more and more frequently over the last couple of seasons.
This third of the course is really the gallop-y area, and from 10ABC, we get another little pipe-opener before completing the loop.
Fence 11 and 12.
Then, they’ll meet a pair of hefty tables, styled as a desk and a bookcase, which sit on a left-handed turn on a related distance. They’ll be able to make a few of their own decisions here, because there’s enough space to go wide and jump both elements straight on, or they could take a more economical line and save a couple of valuable seconds by allowing for more of an angled effort.
Fence 13AB.
The next galloping run takes us back into the cool, calm, and quiet of the woods, and when we re-emerge, we find ourselves right on the edge of the Grand Canal, dotted – for now – with visitors soaking up the sunshine in rowboats. But even if we don’t see rowboats on the water come Sunday, we certainly get them here – two of them, in fact, overturned and decorated with oars, half built and half a skeleton, once again paying tribute to master craftsman. These both sit on an angle, and as the riders tackle them, they’ll be able to see the grandstand in the distance, urging them on.
Fence 14.
They’ll continue to follow the Canal around to its left arm, and as they turn, they’ll leap over a huge picnic table dressed in gingham. Then, they’ll hang a right and take the first pontoon crossing on the course.
“What has been [the determining factor] for the choice of that final track was where we start, where we arrive, and do we go across the Grand Canal twice, once, or not at all?” says Pierre. “Everybody wanted to go across the Grand Canal twice, but then you have money issues, technical issues… Finally, everybody wanted to go twice, especially the broadcasters.”
The temporary pontoons were trialled at last summer’s test event with great success, and are immovable and dressed with arena surface – and, in the very unlikely case that someone jumps over the side of one and ends up in the Canal, a trained rescue team, who underwent drills at the test event, is on hand to safely guide horse and rider back out.
Crossing the first of the Versailles pontoons.
Safely across the Canal, competitors dip, momentarily, back into the woodland to tackle the combination at fence 15 and 16ABCD. The first fence is an open ditch with a lip on the take-off side that has horses landed on uphill ground, on which they’ll nip up to the top of a mound and make a decision between a left- or right-handed route.
Fence 15.
The left-handed route is made up of a drop (16A) to two brush skinnies (16B and 16CD), while the right-handed route has two drops (16A and 16BC) and a single brush skinny (16D), which is on the inside line and therefore a touch quicker, though there’s not a huge amount in it, so riders can pick their route based on their horses’ strengths.
The drops at 16, as viewed from the landing side.
“It’s not very difficult. The problem is it’s really much a test for the rider,” says Pierre. “He needs to be solid on his feet, elastic, fluid, and he needs to go with the horse, but stay balanced, exactly right in the saddle. So a step like that at this level is not a problem. But you still need to stay on your feet and you have the ditch, and you have a skinny there, so they can go left, they can go right. They need to be fast. But it is a very safe combination, and it’s spectacular. I don’t know, I love that fence!”
Skinnies galore at 16ABCD.
The next pontoon crossing is ‘the’ pontoon crossing – the one that runs our competitors directly across the heart of the Grand Canal, with the Château de Versailles sunbathing alongside in all its glory.
There. She. Is.
At this point, we’re past the halfway point of the course and snaking back towards the grandstands once again. On our way there, where we’ll find the feature water jump, we’ll first meet fence 17AB, which is a double of offset angled brushes with picket fencing in front of them.
Fence 17AB.
Then, it’s a right-handed turn into the woods, where we find fence 18 – one of the most visually striking jumps on course. It’s a cordwood pile shaped like a stag’s head, with antlers stretching up to the heavens.
Fence 18.
Fences 19 and 20 are separately numbered but the same profile of fence on a related distance. These big, beefy woodpiles will give a great feeling and demand a powerful jumping effort.
Fence 19.
Fence 20.
There’s a decent galloping stretch on this surprisingly open track before the combination at 21ABCD, which is actually a three-effort fence. On the direct route, this begins with an airy upright at 21AB, followed by a sharp downhill approach to a brush skinny at 21C. Then, they’ll jump another brush skinny at 21D. Again, cognisant of the fact that he has developing riders and nations here as well as major heavy-hitters, Pierre has given options – though the lettering means that no mixing and matching of routes can be done.
The Czech riders and support team walk the line from 21AB down to 21C.
The next galloping stretch winds competitors out of the woods and spits them out at the far end of the Grand Canal, in the shadow of the huge grandstands at the main arena. They won’t be entering the arena itself on this track, but the next couple of fences allow them to come very close to it. First, they’ll jump a beefy treasure chest at fence 22, before looping directly in front of the stadium to enter the water complex at 23ABCD.
Fence 22.
The first element of this water complex is a log drop in, facing towards the grandstand, which is followed by a brush fence in the water, marked as 23BC. Once on dry land again, they’ll jump an open oxer at 23D. There’s a number of alternative options here to replace various fences within this complex.
The water complex at 23ABCD.
The view of the complex from the other side.
The best method, Pierre says, is to jump that log drop on the left-hand side, giving enough space on the landing side to arc out the right-handed turn to the brush in the water, which is perpendicular to the log. We could see that final corner playing an influence – even without tonnes of terrain here, horses will be starting to tire at this late stage, and it’s a wide, big effort equipped with sensitive yellow MIMs.
Then, it’s a left-handed turn and a pop over fence 24, a dimensionally imposing elephant trap.
Fence 24.
Now, we’re heading back down the side of the canal once again en route to the finish – but there’s still a few more key fences to jump before we get there. Fence 25 is a brush fence that’ll be jumped on an angle to create a solid line to its twin at fence 26.
Fence 26.
Continuing straight along the canal edge, we then come to fence 27, an upright, bright white representation of the IOC headquarters, framed by a nod to the Hollywood sign and Paris’s successor, the LA Olympics in 2028.
Fence 27.
And from there, the finish is in sight – all our competitors will need to do is pop over 28, a house emblazoned with the French motto, Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. Add in a bit of cross-countré and we’ve got ourselves a deal, France.
Fence 28.
In all seriousness, though, this is the moment where dreams come true – whether those dreams are a clear inside the time and a shot at a podium finish, or a completion in an Olympic debut, and the extraordinary rush of making it here will be something beyond words.
Pierre, as course designer, is so conscious of those varying goals and wins within his field, and has had the tough job of designing a track that tests the best while nurturing and educating the developing horses, riders, and nations in the field.
“If you compare with the European Championships [which he designed last year], there may be more difference between the strongest team and the less strong, or some individual who has less experience, which means that we need to give a chance for everybody,” he says. “In terms of safety or respect, there needs to be an opportunity for everybody to achieve, but still be testing enough. I think the new format with three riders only in the team, and the possibility of changing, it’s not clear for everybody what is going to happen. How can you react, including for the Chef d’Equipe? What has to be the strategy, what instruction to give to the first riders, the second, the third. You can decide to play it safe, but can you win like that? So having multiple options… I will say, this is why some of them are very much longer and a bit more easy, because if it’s not lower, you still have a question, but you have more time between the question, so it gives more chance to achieve it. We know that it’s very important.”
“It’s more important here than in the Europeans, for example, where the density of the level of the teams is a little bit different,” he continues. “I had the experience of the Pan American Games last year, which was important too, because this was really, really what was at stake, and I have been briefed very seriously about that. And it’s always a team effort. So working with experienced Technical Delegatess and listening – I mean, that’s the way you learn, and I’m still learning. This is the most important year to find the right balance. Even if you can never tell what is going to happen, depending on the weather condition, and you don’t know the riders; you don’t know necessarily their last achievements. And doing that in a venue that has never hosted any competition, in a venue that is, like Versailles, with all the constraints, all the factors – economical, touristic, environmental. Every decision, every step needs to be considered from many different angles. It’s been a tremendous experience.”
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