| Full name | Toulouse Olympique XIII | ||
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| Colours | Navy blue White |
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| Nickname(s) | TO | ||
| Website | to13.com | ||
| Founded | 1937 | ||
| Ground | Stade des Minimes, Toulouse (Capacity 4,066) |
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| Key people | Carlos Zalduendo (Chair) Gilles Dumas (Coach) Sylvain Houles (Captain) |
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| League | Co-operative Championship | ||
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| Current season | |||
Toulouse Olympique are a French professional rugby league team from Toulouse, in the southwest of France. They were founded on 22 October, in 1937 two years after the founding of the French Rugby League Federation. Between 1995 and 2002 the club were known as Spacers de Toulouse, due to links with the local aerospace industry. They currently play in the Co-operative Championship, the second tier competition below the European Super League, having joined in time for the 2009 season. This followed being denied a Super League licence.
The club has played in six Lord Derby Cup finals, but has never won the competition, they have however been champions of France on four occasions, as well as runners-up in five years.
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In March 1937, the Fédération Française de Rugby à XIII decided to establish rugby league in Toulouse, they bought the Arnauné stadium (Stade des Minimes) and formed Toulouse Olympique.
The first match Toulouse played was on 24 October 1937 against Albi. In 1938, Toulouse Olympique merged with another club in the city, Galia Club Toulousain. In 1939, TO reached for the first time the Cup final in France. During the war years, the club opted (like other rugby league clubs in France) to play rugby union, following the ban on rugby league by the Vichy regime in France. In 1944, Toulouse reached the Semi-Final of the French Cup in rugby union. In the mean time the Arnauné stadium was confiscated by the State like most of the assets of the French Federation of rugby league. Following liberation by the Allies and the restoration of the French Championship, the club was on the losing side twice when they met Carcassonne in the finals for the 1944-45 and 1945-46 competitions. After a decade away from the top, another strong team emerged that included Pierre Lacaze and Georges Aillères.
In 1995, Toulouse Olympique changed their name to Spacers de Toulouse (or Toulouse Spacers) and kept this until 2002. In 2000, the club won the championship. Toulouse's ambition to join the European Super League grew but in 2003, their application was rejected by the Rugby Football League in favour of Union Treiziste Catalane.
In 2005 Olympique became the first French club ever to reach the semi-finals of the Rugby League Challenge Cup, when they defeated European Super League side Widnes Vikings 40-24. They went on to lose 56-18 to world champions Leeds Rhinos in the semi-final at the Galpharm Stadium, Huddersfield.
| Year of Competition | Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | Position | P | R | M | F | W | Challenge Cup | Lord Derby Cup |
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| 2011 Championship | 20 | 4 | 0 | 16 | 10/11 | R3 | - | |||||
| 2010 Championship | 20 | 8 | 0 | 12 | 8/11 | R4 | - | |||||
| 2009 Championship | 20 | 9 | 0 | 11 | 10/11 | R3 | - | |||||
| 2008 Elite One | 20 | 8 | 0 | 12 | 7/11 | R4 | QF | |||||
| 2007 Elite One | 20 | 15 | 1 | 4 | 2/11 |
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R3 | Round of 16 | ||||
| 2006 Elite One | 20 | 16 | 0 | 4 | 2/12 |
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R4 | SF | |||
| 2005 Elite One | 18 | 15 | 0 | 3 | 2/10 |
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SF | SF | |||
| 2004 Elite One | 18 | 12 | 0 | 6 | 3/10 | QF |
Toulouse Olympique XIII's main objective is to be accepted into Super League. In 2006, the Rugby Football League decided to introduce franchising for the 2009 Super League season with the number of clubs being increased from 12 to 14. Toulouse were one of the applicants, but failed to win a licence, losing out to the 12 existing Super League clubs, Salford City Reds and the Crusaders. After the announcement however, the Rugby Football League invited the French Rugby League Federation to nominate a team to enter the second tier Co-operative Championship (previously National League One) for the 2009 season. [1]
Toulouse Olympique will apply in the next round of franchising to be accepted in Super League in 2012.
In its first season in Championship, in 2009, the TO suffered a bad start with a lack of any real pre-season game (while other Championship sides had friendlies and Northern Rail Cup games). In its first match of the Championship, the TO team, largely revamped relative to the previous year suffered a massive defeat in Widnes 70-0. The rest of the season showed however great capacity in this new team who at some point took the 4th place in the league. However the loss of their play maker Nathan Wynn for several weeks in the defeat against Featherstone at home in June marked the beginning of a series of defeat which in the end prevented the team to reach its goal to make the playoff in their first year. The team finished 10th out of 11 teams in their first season.
At the start of the 2010 season, the club has made significant additions to the team with two players coming from Super League clubs (Vincent Duport and Simon Worrall) and three good French players from Elite 1 sides (Carlos Mendes Varela, Romain Mencarini, Yoan Tisseyre). The TO will also benefit from an agreement with the Catalans Dragons to register 3 dual players from the Super League team. To qualify for a place in Super League, the club needs to be in the Grand Final in 2012. The club will therefore be looking into finishing in one of the two top spots which give the highest chance to reach the Grand Final in the playoffs.
2011/12 squad[2]
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