Switzerland Guide
Lausanne and Lake Geneva
Musée Olympique
The much-touted Musée Olympique is a very grand affair, with formal gardens and fountains preluding the sweeping pomp of the interior design. However it's rather unsatisfying, a showcase more for the IOC administrators (International Olympic Committee, headquartered in Lausanne) than for the achievements of the athletes.
Displays on the Olympics of ancient Greece and the restoration of the games in modern times are moderately engaging, but the main focus of the museum – banks of video screens replaying events from past summer and winter games, to the accompaniment of suitably stirring music – ends up as little more than glorified TV. Rows of medals, sheets of Olympic postage stamps, and cases of objects from athletes past (signed swimming trunks, basketballs and Carl Lewis's old running shoes) do nothing to help tell any special stories, flung together here in a rather self-congratulatory manner.
In the basement, the computerized video library, which lets you select and view any of several hundred past events from the Olympics, the soccer World Cup, European championships, the NBA, Wimbledon or the Tour de France, would make the museum unmissable but for the fact that you're only allowed to choose two events, and they tend to comprise, for instance, a few minutes of goal action, or one single track event. Even for sports fans, it's a washout.
Opening time: Daily 9am–6pm; Oct– April closed Mon
Price: Fr.15
Website: www.olympic.org