February 18 & 19, 2023

The first edition of our race was organized in 1983, but the story begins long before ...

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Strangely, the foundations of this mountain event are in… Paris!

With the Olympic Winter Games in Grenoble in 1968, France (city-dweller) discovered cross-country skiing.

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10 years later, city dwellers (especially baby boomers who were born immediately after the war) began to practice this not too sporty practice which opens the doors to nature in winter. The villages in altitude take advantage of this opportunity to trace (by scooter and quickly with small machines) a beautiful network of tracks.

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In France, cross-country ski centers are being set up to give these city dwellers the basics of technique and teach them how to ski. During this period, almost every Friday evening, a sleeper bus left Paris on Chapelle des Bois, filled to bring Parisians on internship to the Accueil Montagnard in Chapelle des Bois (Haut Jura) and brought them back to the capital on Sunday evening. All season !!!  

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Thus, since the 1970s, the Paris Championships have been organized every year in Les Rousses (Haut Jura). But this is only a caricature of championships: apart from 3 or 4 skiers, they are all “clampins” (according to one of the runners of that time). Finally, to increase the duration of the pleasure on the skis rather than to know the best Parisian skier, the decision was made to organize in 1983 the first championships of Paris (and skiers of the plains) of LONG DISTANCE cross-country skiing ...

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We still had to find the ground to organize this race, because in Chapelle des Bois there was already L'Envolée Nordique!

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On the other hand, another village in the Jura massif, La Pesse, was interested and immediately gave a favorable response .. and the provision of our initiative to a whole village passionate about the idea.

 

Here is the birth in 1983 of the popular race as we know it today, but which was called the “Paris Givré”.

 

Since 1983, the Paris Givré, a popular classic-style cross-country ski race, has been organized every year.

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First by the Parisians, then more and more the organization was taken over by the locals, who adopted the child of the Parisians and renamed in "  Les Belles Combes  », A name that honors its territory!