TThe nerve center of most Summer Olympics is the “Olympic Park,” which usually houses a half-dozen or so sports venues in one place. Amazing, right? Here’s a little secret: most Olympic Parks are actually located in less lively parts of world-class cities. They all gather in a giant, sweltering car park in the middle of summer!
In Rio, for example, Barra Olympic Park, which hosted basketball, gymnastics, swimming, basketball, wrestling, diving and several other events, was an hour from Copacabana Beach, down a road dotted with apartment blocks and car dealerships. The park in east London had its charms, but it was also adjacent to a huge shopping mall.
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Paris deliberately avoided the traditional Olympic Park model. Instead, stakeholders used existing resources and built temporary facilities to bring the Games to the heart of the city. Paris’ version of the Olympic Park is made up of historic monuments and landmarks on both sides of the Seine, as well as its famous diagonal boulevards and charming side streets.
You can hop from event to event, but here you can take a break between matches and people-watch with a Café Allongée at a sidewalk café.
On Saturday, the first full day of sporting action, skateboarding was rained out, but the schedule was rearranged so that sports fans could catch the highly anticipated beach volleyball opener at 2 p.m. on the sand at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, pitting U.S. men’s Miles Partin and Andy Benes against Cuba’s Jorge Arayo and Nosren Diaz. From there, you could walk across the Seine to the Pont Alexandre III to watch the end of the women’s individual cycling time trial, where Chloe Dygert of the United States, a two-time world champion in the event, was the favorite to win. Could she bring the U.S. its first gold medal of the Paris Games before the swimmers took to the water on Saturday night?
After your bike ride, you can head back to the Champ de Mars, the green space behind the Eiffel Tower, where the city has built a temporary arena for judo and wrestling with a capacity of more than 8,000 people. The two judo gold medal bouts are scheduled to start close to 6pm, so there will be enough time to cross the Seine again and win two more gold medals. Fencing, the women’s epee and men’s sabre events at the Grand Palais, start at 9:30am.
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Not a bad way to spend the day, and after a rainy, quirky but somehow spectacular opening ceremony, I decided to try out the city’s twist on the Olympic experience.
Intrigued, I checked secondary market ticket sites on Saturday to see how much this adventure in Paris would cost for the average fan. Prices for each event ranged from $890 to $960 (remember, this is last minute), which adds up to about $3,800 per day. There’s a good chance that a similar multi-event itinerary in central Paris will become available over the next 15 days or so, likely for a similar price or even less.
We’re not advocating that you blow your retirement savings, but many people spend money on merely material things. It’s an experience you’ll never get to replicate again. If a Taylor Swift superfan can splash out big bucks on the Eraser Tour, there’s no reason a sports fanatic can’t do the same.
(I know, that’s easier said than done for me, and I won’t deny that if you have press credentials you can attend these events for free, but someone’s got to keep an eye on things, right?).
It looked like it was going to rain, so I rented a golf umbrella from my hotel on the east side of Paris ($21 deposit refunded on return) and hopped on the metro line 6 to the Eiffel Tower Stadium to play beach volleyball. I didn’t expect the beach to get so muddy, but when you build a temporary facility in public green space with a dirt path, mud is inevitable. Pro tip: don’t wear flashy shoes when playing beach volleyball.
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I had to leave my umbrella with security. Apparently it was too big. Not cool. I was instantly jealous of the other spectators who weren’t soaked. The view of the Eiffel Tower from the stadium was breathtaking, even in the rain. Food options were not great. For example, a Coca-Cola sponsored menu board listed a cheeseburger for $12. There aren’t as many appealing food options at the Olympics as there are at, say, the US Open, which is held at the venue. I guess that’s just how Parisian restaurants are.
At the beach volleyball event, the public address announcer doubled as the hype man. He promised that Partan was doing something that no one had ever seen before in American beach volleyball. I’m not an expert enough to argue with his claim. But Cuba, and especially Arayo, were the better team. They beat the U.S. in straight sets, 21-18, 21-18.
I got an umbrella from a security guard, walked, took one metro stop, and then got on my bike. Walking in Paris is easy, especially after the tight security of the Opening Ceremony has been lifted, but you never know when the road bike route will block a street and you’ll miss the finish line.
As I walked along Rue de la Rappe towards the Pont de l’Alma, I noticed some bicycles parked near the Seine and became concerned. It was a false alarm – they were locals. But I decided to take the metro as close as possible to the finish line of the cycling race at Pont Alexandre III, in case it was closed. I nearly hit a man wearing a Ghana national team jersey with my umbrella. I apologised. He looked to be in a bad mood.
Thankfully, I made it in time to grab a seat near the finish line of the time trial. My umbrella was probably too big for beach volleyball, but fine for cycling, so I barely got wet. Beyonce was playing “Break My Soul” over the speakers, which was a perfect song for a demanding sport like cycling.
Both American racers had a tough day in the rain. Taylor Knibb fell four times and finished 19th. At least she has a triathlon to look forward to on Wednesday. Dygert also finished a disappointing third place, but fell midway through the race. During a post-race interview under the gold statue on the bridge, she couldn’t put much force into her leg and grimaced in pain. She calmed down before speaking to the American media, refusing to blame the rain. “I’m going to get treatment and pray to God that my leg will be OK.” Dygert still has the team road race and team pursuit coming up.
Australia’s Grace Brown produced a brilliant performance to win the gold medal over Great Britain’s Anna Henderson by nearly 92 seconds, an eternity in cycling. Brown had announced a month earlier that she would retire from competition at the end of the year. She had vowed to win a medal in Paris and couldn’t believe she had won gold. She joins the same league as other Australian Olympic icons such as sprinter Cathy Freeman and swimmer Ian Thorpe. “It’s a bit unbelievable. They’re Australian legends,” she said. “I can’t believe other people are looking at me, a little girl, in the same way.”
It was around 5pm, and I was still hungry, so I snacked on a granola bar as I briskly walked south along Bosque Street on my way to the judo hall. I had no idea when exactly the gold medal match in the women’s under-48kg division between Japan’s Natsumi Tsunoda and Mongolia’s Bavdorjiin Basankhu was going to start, so I had to pass on the baguette.
We arrived at the Champs de Mars stadium, but security stopped me and several other journalists. We couldn’t move because French President Emmanuel Macron was nearby. We finally entered the building, at its southern end of which stood a statue of French Army General Joseph Joffre. It wasn’t placed in a judo hall; Paris 2024 simply built its structure around the statue, a staple of the Champs de Mars that was first erected in 1939.
I was surprised to see the judo hall packed and full of excitement. The crowd was buzzing because France’s Shireen Boukri had just won a bronze medal, France’s first medal of the tournament. After the match, Boukri said, “It’s such a beautiful color.” I missed the match because of Macron’s presence, but I was able to see Tsunoda win and Japan’s first gold medal of the tournament. But the main event was the men’s under-60kg final, pitting Kazakhstan’s Yerdosh Smetov against France’s Luca Mukeidze, who came to Japan as a refugee from Georgia in 2010. “Luca! Luca!” the fans chanted. They sang. Could France win its first Olympic gold medal in front of Macron?
No. Smetov won, and so did the Kazakhstan team, which had won silver in Rio and bronze in Tokyo. “I stood on the left and right side of the podium as the silver and bronze medalists,” Smetov said through a translator. “But today, naturally, I decided to come out on top.”
I had a little time to kill before the 9:30pm start of France’s second gold medal match, between epee fencer Auriane Mallot-Breton and Hong Kong’s Man Wai Vivian Kong, so I bought some cheese pizza and wine to refuel for the night. (If I buy a ticket, I’m sure I’ll be able to relax and not have press conferences or interviews interrupt my food and drink time.)
With a full stomach, I head north on the Rue du Rapp, stopping to watch a couple of French guys window-shopping for wine, before strolling one last time across the Seine to the Grand Palais on the Champs-Élysées. Built for the 1900 World’s Fair, dedicated by the French Republic to the “glory of French art,” the Grand Palais is the perfect backdrop for fencing, a sport with historical roots in France that is more popular there than, say, in the United States.
President Macron is back in the arena again. (Did he keep up with my schedule?) The French rugby sevens team has just won their first gold medal, but could Mallot-Breton win a personal trophy? The enthusiastic fans are hoping for gold. They’re as loud and rowdy as the New Yorkers who cheered on Coco Gauff at last year’s US Open. The acoustics at the Grand Palais are fine.
Gold medal fencing is full of tension. Malo-Breton leads 7-1. Everyone is celebrating. But Kong refuses to give up. The clock is ticking in the final round and the two fencers are tied. The next touch essentially decides the winner, but no one can touch them. Until Kong ends the duel in overtime.
Is Macron a jinx?
There’s a more plausible explanation for the defeat. The French sabre fencer Thomas Martine, who was sitting behind me and wearing a French flag wig, delivered a lengthy monologue after the match. He thinks Malo-Breton’s early lead fooled him. “When you start thinking you can be Olympic champion, the fans and the cheers put you under pressure, and it hurts you more than it helps,” Martine said. But Malo-Breton rejected Martine’s analysis. “She never gave up,” he said of his opponent. “Tonight she was just better than me.”
Oh Sang-gook of South Korea closed out the night by winning the sabre gold medal, beating Fares Ferjani of Tunisia. He came to the press box to be interviewed by South Korean reporters. He tried to get a drink from the refrigerator, but an attendant told him, with the gold medal around his neck, that he had to pay for the drink, just like any other ordinary person.
When it comes to $4 Fanta, even the gold medal has its limitations.
The Olympics are full of surprises, and of course, instead of traveling to the heart of Paris, you could start saving for 2028 in Los Angeles.
But if you do, don’t forget to book a rental car.
