Our history
The 1968
Winter Olympics
The 1968 Grenoble Winter Olympics
The end of Grenoble-Eybens aerodrome was sealed when Grenoble was chosen as the centre of the 1968 Winter Olympics. The famous crossed runways gave way to the Olympic stadium and village and other temporary facilities (railway station, huge car parks). The operation was presented as a “beneficial step forward” for aviation, as two aerodromes were planned to replace it:
- The small grass airfield at Saint-Étienne-de-Saint-Geoirs, 40 km north-east of Grenoble city centre, was turned into a commercial airport (originally called Grenoble-St Geoirs), with a 2,050 m paved runway, soon extended to 3,050 m, and a direct daily Grenoble–Orly service by Air Inter. (There was no TGV yet!) We will come back to it when the ACD formally set up there in 1999.
- The tiny grass airfield at Le Versoud, 10 km from the city centre, had been opened in 1948… by defectors from the ACD led by A. Girard-Blanc. It too was enlarged and transformed, with two runways – one paved, 900 m long, the other grass, 893 m long – and a control tower.
For the record (an old pilot's memory): at Grenoble-Eybens there was no control tower, no radio in the aircraft (except in the last few months), no restricted areas A, B, etc.… G…! Freedom, in a word!
What came next: the ACD at Le Versoud, from 1967 to today.
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