Excluded from the early modern Olympics, women took more than a century to conquer their place in sports. The traveling exhibition Les Elles du Sport, labeled as the “Cultural Olympiad” of Paris 2024, tells this story.
They were called Alice, Christine, Marie-José, Laure. They ran, swam, fought, sometimes far from the playing fields. The traveling exhibition Les Elles du Sport, labeled as the “Cultural Olympiad” within the cultural program of Paris 2024, traces over 130 years of a conquest as athletic as it is political: that of women for their right to practice, compete, and exist in the world of sports.
When Pierre de Coubertin revived the Olympic Games in 1896, women simply did not have a place in them. The exclusion was not an oversight, it was deliberate. For decades, medical prejudices, institutional resistances, and social injunctions erected a barrier between female athletes and recognition. The woman who sweats, who asserts herself, who wins, disturbs. And yet, some choose to disturb.
It is precisely in this spirit that ASUL Lyon Volley and AMOS Sport Business School are organizing, on Monday, March 10, 2026 at Cinéma Pathé Vaise (Lyon 9th), the 1st edition of Les Elles du Sport, an event that comes at a fitting time, given that two days prior was International Women’s Rights Day.
The agenda includes a roundtable from 5pm to 6:30pm bringing together the journalist and doctoral student Assile Toufaily, the handball player Chloé Poitry, and the international para-athlete Camille Frison, followed by at 7pm an awards ceremony honoring women engaged in local sports. The “Youth Award” will be presented tonight to Mélina Robert-Michon by students from AMOS and young members of ASUL.
