Palais des Sports Robert Carpentier

The Palais des Sports Ghani-Yalouz in Besançon has always been a place where the floor matters. The synthetic layer was pulled up in 2023. The building opened in 1967. It was extended and renovated in 2005. Ghani Yalouz, an Olympic wrestler, had his name placed on the doors in 2017, but the hall was known simply as the Palais des Sports long before that. It hosts two teams, one men's and one women's, both playing in the French leagues. Heavy curtains hang along the side walls, drawn tight when the evening games are under way. They keep the echo from bouncing back and forth across the court. The stands rise in two tiers, separated by a walkway, and the crowd can fill the space quickly when the local side plays a European tie. The Taraflex surface is kept in storage for those matches, rolled out when the television cameras arrive and pulled back when the season ends.

The Palais des Sports Ghani-Yalouz sits on Avenue Léo Lagrange in the centre of Besançon, a city where the river Doubs cuts through the old town. The ground is not large, but it holds its own. The parquet floor gives a different sound to a game than a rubber surface would, and the players know it. The hall was extended in 2005, adding space for press boxes and changing rooms, but the playing area stayed the same. It works for handball, for basketball when the Taraflex is laid down, and for anything else that needs a flat wooden floor. The curtains are heavy, the roof is low, and the crowd is never far from the action. The name on the door changed when Yalouz died, but the place has always been for sport.