La Rochelle

In the spring of 2024 a team won the Pro B championship and, with it, a place in the top-flight Élite for the first time in its history. That single season summed up what had been a long climb: relegated in 1996 all the way down to the sixth tier, Nationale Masculine 4, the club needed until 2012, under coach Gregory Thiélin, simply to reach the third level again.

The turnaround traces back to 2017, when the basketball section merged with Stade Rochelais, the city's rugby club, and took on its yellow, black and grey colours. Aymeric Jeanneau, appointed director general in April 2020, is the figure most associated with what followed: promotion from NM1 to the Elite divisions, then into Pro B in 2021 after a 26-year absence from the second tier. Tray Buchanan, named MVP of both the Pro B regular season and playoffs in 2023–24, was the player who carried that title-winning campaign.

None of it erased the club's older identity. Founded in 1932 under the name Rupella, it went through several names before settling back on Stade Rochelais in 2023, and its home, the Salle Gaston-Neveur, is named after a figure from that founding era.

Stade Rochelais went straight back down to Élite 2 at the end of 2024–25, and the task now is the same one the club has faced before: finding a way back up.