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Origin and history

The Monument to Sport and Maysonnié is a work by Antoine Bourdelle, installed in Toulouse in 1925 at the initiative of Paul Voivenel. He paid tribute to the athletes who had died during the First World War, with particular attention to Alfred Mayssonnié, a Toulouse rugbyman who died in action in 1914. Heraklès archer sculpture, symbol of strength and resilience, dominates the monument, completed by a stele dedicated to Mayssonnié, French rugby champion in 1912 with the undefeated club nicknamed the Red Virgin.

The project was born in 1922 under the leadership of the Pyrénées Committee of the French Rugby Federation, chaired by Paul Voivenel. He asked Bourdelle, a former student of the École des beaux-arts in Toulouse, to hand over a copy of his Herakles archer at a cost. Bourdelle designs a sober eight-column temple to house the sculpture, but the realization of the Mayssonnie stele requires a revival of Voivenel, which insists on its symbolic importance: "Do sport and beat your records! If the Mayssonnié isn't there, we'll be critical. »

Inaugurated on 19 April 1925 near the former stadium of the Twin Bridges, the monument becomes an annual memorial. Every November 11th, sports clubs place a wreath there. The friendship between Voivenel and Bourdelle, marked by a correspondence followed until the death of the sculptor in 1929, illustrates the common commitment to this project. In 1935 Voivenel re-used Bourdelle's work for another monument to the dead in Capoulet-et-Junac.

Listed as a Historic Monument in 2018, the monument is located square of Heraklès, at the crossroads of Lascrosses Boulevard and Paul-Séjourné Avenue, near the Brienne Canal. It embodies both a sporting tribute and an artistic symbol, mixing collective memory and Toulouse heritage.

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