Calais jumps through hoops to get in on Games action

PARIS - It was first treated as betrayal in France and as a joke in Britain but is now gradually, grudgingly being seen as a smart move: the French region of Calais plans to link up with the London 2012 Olympics.

The Pas-de-Calais department, or county, is promoting itself as a training ground and fallback zone for the London Games - an idea that breaks the boundaries in European nationalism.

Little more than 33km separate the white cliffs of Dover and Cap Gris-Nez.

For hundreds of years English and French armies viewed each other with suspicion across the grey chilly waters, occasionally launching or contemplating raids across the narrow gap.

Calais, indeed, was part of the English Crown for a couple of centuries after it was seized in 1347 by Edward III in the Hundred Years' War.

France still has not quite forgiven the invader for starving the city into submission after an 11-month siege.

The act is immortalised by Rodin's sculpture of the Burghers of Calais: half a dozen notables agreed to be executed by the English if this would save their fellow citizens (the six were eventually spared by Edward after the pregnant wife of one of them begged for mercy).

If the French term for treacherous England was "la perfide Albion", xenophobic Englanders had an expression of their own: "Foreigners begin at Calais."

These ancient emotions rose swiftly to the surface when Dominique Dupilet, a blunt-talking Socialist who is president of the department (county) council, hatched the idea of associating the Pas-de-Calais with the Olympics.

He remembers the day well: It was July 6, 2005 when the International Olympics Committee announced the 2012 Games would go to London, to the gnashing of teeth in Paris, the other big contender.

Dupilet's response was to raise the Union Jack over the council building.

"At first, everyone thought I was traitor to France," he told the daily Le Figaro. Dupilet told his critics to take a look at the map.

"We are closer to London than to Paris. In fact, we are southern England! If the Games had been allotted to France, no one would come and see us."

Dupilet's idea is now building up steam.

The department has set up a spiffy website and mustered a budget of €20 million ($40 million) to back a promotion campaign, "Mission Pas-de-Calais 2012".

Supported by the French National Olympic Committee and the country's tourism industry, the Pas-de-Calais is even campaigning to get the Olympic Torch carried through its streets.

The hope is not only to put the region on the world map but bring in as much as €100 million ($200 million) in revenue, helping to invigorate an area struggling with a rustbelt legacy.

The region's biggest asset is proximity. Calais is 90 minutes from Dover by ferry and 35 minutes from Folkestone by the Channel tunnel's car shuttle.

And thanks to the Eurostar passenger train, it is just an hour and two minutes from the centre of London ("actually, it's only two minutes because of the one-hour time difference," quips Wulfran Despicht, in charge of the region's sport and youth affairs).

That makes it closer to London than a host of English cities, including Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, York and Bournemouth.

The region says it has a huge amount of facilities to offer athletes: it has excellent stadiums, sports halls and swimming pools, as well as a top-class velodrome for cycling, due to open in Roubaix next year, all of which are low-cost or free.

The weather is similar to that of southern England, which makes it ideal for athletes who want to get acclimatised, and the hotels are around a third cheaper than across the Channel, which makes the area look alluring for nations on a tight budget.

Training deals have been signed with Uzbekistan and Senegal, an agreement with Chad is in the works and the Russian swimming federation has sent out a team to scout out the area, say proud sports officials.

Calais is also pitching itself as a short-term venue for visitors to London.

It is putting forward its great beaches, forests, fishing, gastronomy and history, including war cemeteries, that tourism director Diana Hounslow hopes may draw many Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders.

Parts of the British press have responded with predictable francophobia ("Calais claims to be British in bid for Olympic gold," screamed the Daily Express), but others see a gentle irony - and shrewdness.

"How pleasing it is that after some seven centuries of argy-bargy over Calais, the French have finally conceded that the port just across the water from Dover is really British after all," quipped the Times.

"Maybe these Calais burghers are not so silly after all," admitted the Daily Telegraph.