Riviere du Loup | The backstage games, a buffet without crust sandwiches offered to the journalists and the beauty of the hostesses greatly helped Rivière-du-Loup win the first Quebec games. At that time, all means were good to boost an application.
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The frenzied rush that led to the reveal of the host city is worthy of an episode of Les Belles Histoires des pays d’en haut.
In the summer of 1970, the towns of Sainte-Foy and Rivière-du-Loup were practically neck and neck in this all-out battle when the leaders of Sainte-Foy decided to open the machine.
Gilles Dubé, author of a history book on the subject and member of the Rivière-du-Loup candidacy team at the time, worked at the forefront.
“Sainte-Foy had organized an important press conference. About fifty journalists were present, including several from Montreal. They were fetched by plane,” the seventy-year-old recalls with a laugh.
The press will be full of praise for Sainte-Foy’s candidacy, which can count on the new PEPS facilities at Laval University, believed to be the ultimate in Canada.
Archival photo provided by the Rivière-du-Loup Historical Society
The pool at Cégep de Rivière-du-Loup was built at a cost of $500,000 just months before the Quebec Games presentation.
The wonder
Months pass and even if another city, Verdun, and the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region submit their candidacy, Sainte-Foy seems to be alone in the running, with a lead over Rivière-du-Loup.
It was then that a great builder of the sport was involved in Rivière-du-Loup, Father Ronald Landry – who is compared to the priest Antoine Labelle, played by Antoine Bertrand in Les pays d’en haut.
“He called me and said, ‘Gilles, what are you going to do for Sainte-Foy? Because the others went all out with the big lunch for the journalists, the charter plane, they will win. It takes a bang, something needs to be done,” says Gilles Dubé.
The latter goes with Father Landry’s advice and discusses it with the mayor of Rivière-du-Loup, Dr. Yves Godbout.
“The mayor said to me: ‘It’s too expensive to bring journalists to Rivière-du-Loup, we’re going to Montreal.’ »
Important delegation
On December 8, 1970, a delegation from Rivière-du-Loup left for Montreal and held an important press conference at the Hôtel Le Reine Élizabeth, the house made famous mostly by the visit of John Lennon a year later.
“The conference was scheduled for 5pm, it’s 5pm and there’s no chat. Ten minutes later, two journalists arrive and in the end there were about fifteen,” said Mr. Dubé.
The media will get good press at Rivière-du-Loup, and three days later Minister Guy St-Pierre – who had just replaced Jean-Paul L’Allier as responsible for the Quebec Games file in Robert Bourassa’s government – confirmed this choice of Rivière-du-Loup.
Serge Chouinard will remember for the rest of his life August 14, 1971, when the young 15-year-old athlete from Louperivois, who had registered for the long jump competition, carried the torch.
Quite an honor
In the presence of Prime Minister Robert Bourassa and the Greek Ambassador to Canada, Bernard Théodoropoulos, he did a lap in the pouring rain in what the media then called the Olympic race to light the cauldron.
Archival photo provided by the Rivière-du-Loup Historical Society
Serge Chouinard, then one of the few athletes from Rivière-du-Loup to take part in the Quebec Games, had the honor of carrying and lighting the flame, as is tradition at the Olympic Games.
“It’s a great moment. When you say that you are the first to make this symbolic gesture. I was afraid of falling and the pool was not lit. When I saw the flame, I was so proud,” says Mr. Chouinard.
He also says that among his fondest memories was finishing a few laps behind journalist Richard Garneau, who was doing his morning run during the 1971 Games.
“I was not alone and our eyes lit up, it was an event and very impressive to see the press people. »