The Beaublanc Sports Palace is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Inaugurated on November 28, 1981 opposite ASVEL, it was the scene of numerous feats of arms by Limoges CSP. Today in 100% CSP, it is the former pivot of Limoges and the French team Frédéric Weis, who goes back to the past. He who will never forget his first time at Beaublanc. Only 18 years old and while the club was doing everything to sign this young pivot full of the future, the leaders had made the sports center one more argument to make it come: “I was a kid and there was a seduction operation to get me. I arrived during the previous season. I started to visit. Everyone came to shake my hand. Richard Dacoury, Fred Forte, all the stars of the team. You go to this cathedral and you tell yourself that it is extraordinary. I was very impressed. The shape, the smell, the atmosphere. I liked it right away.“
It has always been something very memorable
Fred Weis for whom the transition from the changing rooms to the parquet floor was always a special moment. “I have always found it very impressive. The metaphor is not going to be very pretty, but I always had the feeling of childbirth. It’s a bit hard, we are a little stressed as always before the match. Then we pass and we are better as soon as we enter the field. This passage between the two where people pat on the shoulder etc., for me it has always been something very striking“explains the one who is now a consultant on TV after having started at the microphone on France Bleu Limousin. The former pivot of the CSP for whom the greatest memory dates back to the triplet 2000. Titles gleaned outside then when the team came to present the trophies to Beaublanc, he could not help and that’s all him, to sing the song in front of conquered supporters.
I had the impression that Beaublanc was exploding
– Jean-Francois FREY
“I had the chance to sing “Le petit vin blanc” in front of 3,000 people. I am with the late Guy Bost one of the rare singers absolutely void to have been able to sing in front of 3 thousand people“He is still having fun today. It is even his greatest memory at Beaublanc. On the field, there is an action that he has not forgotten despite the defeat that evening against the great rival Pau : “I will remember it all my life. It was in the 2nd half and I find myself with the ball with only 3 seconds left. I do not know what to do because no one is unmarked and I am very far from the circle. So I shoot and there, I had the impression that Beaublanc was exploding! Obviously, they weren’t used to seeing me score at 3 points -rais- and I too was very suspended. I tried again after the same shoot 3 times in training and barely touched the circle. I imagine it’s the Beaublanc effect“.
Beaublanc is one of the emblems of this city
But for the players who spend all their training days there, Beaublanc can also bring back some bad memories. “It was a nightmare with the Serbian coach Ivanovic who made us climb all the stairs of Beaublanc. There, I can tell you that we hated this room because there are a lot of stairs and the more you go up, the smaller the steps. But when you stop playing, you remember the good things. Not bad ones“evacuates the silver medalist at the Sydney Olympics. Frédéric Weis is from elsewhere happy that the sports center, which the town hall is going to modernize, does not disappear in the years to come :”if we had to bring down Beaublanc, it would have been a tragedy for me. It is one of the emblems of this city with the station. It would have really touched my heart. I am delighted that Beaublanc is staying there.“The architects who are working on the” new Beaublanc “must submit their projects next month.