The nerve center of most Summer Games is an “Olympic Park,” typically a collection of a half-dozen or so sports facilities clustered in one place. Sounds great, right? Here’s the dirty little secret: most Olympic parks are actually in a rather sterile part of a world-class city. Let’s all gather in a giant, overheated parking lot in the dead of summer!
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]In Rio, for example, the Barra Olympic Park—which hosted basketball, gymnastics, swimming, gymnastics, basketball, wrestling, diving, and a few other events—was located an hour from Copacabana Beach, past a road dotted by condos and car dealerships. London’s park, in the city’s eastern region, had its charms. But it was still adjacent to a giant shopping mall.
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Paris intentionally eschewed the traditional Olympic Park model. Instead, officials utilized existing resources and erected temporary facilities to bring the Games into the heart of the city. The Paris version of the Olympic Park essentially consists of historical monuments and landmarks—plus its famous diagonal boulevards and alluring side streets—on both sides of the Seine.
You can still event-hop. But here, you can take a break between matches while people-watching on a sidewalk cafe, sipping un café allongé.
On Saturday, the first full day of sporting competition, skateboarding got rained out, but the schedule aligned to allow a sports fan to watch the first match of much-anticipated beach-volleyball competition—the U.S. men’s team of Miles Partain and Andy Benesh against Cuba’s Jorge Alayo and Noslen Diaz—at 2 p.m., on a patch of sand at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. From there, you could hoof over to the Pont Alexandre III, over the Seine, to catch the end of the women’s cycling individual time trial, where American Chloé Dygert, the two-time defending world champion in that event, was the favorite. Could she win America’s first gold medal of the Paris games, before the swimmers got to it Saturday night?
After cycling, you could head back to the Champ de Mars, the green space behind the Eiffel Tower, where the city constructed an 8,000-plus-capacity temporary arena for judo and wrestling. A pair of gold-medal judo matches should start close to 6 p.m. That would leave ample time to cross back over the Seine, again, for two more golds: fencing at the Grand Palais, in women’s épée and men’s saber, starting at 9:30.
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Not a terrible way to spend a day. So after a wet, wacky but sort of spectacular opening ceremony, I decided to try out the city’s spin on the Olympic experience.
Curious, I checked a secondary-market ticket site on Saturday to see how much that Paris adventure would cost a casual fan. Each event was priced between $890 and $960. (Remember, this is last, last second.) In all, that comes out to about $3,800 for the day. Over the next 15 or so days, similar multi-event itineraries in the heart of Paris—perhaps at similar, or lower, prices—could be available.
I’m not recommending anyone drain their retirement savings. But many people have spent more money on mere material things. Here’s an experience you’ll never get to duplicate. And if the Taylor Swift devotees can splurge for the Eras Tour, why can’t sports nuts do the same?
(I know, easy for me to say. I don’t deny that my press credentials get me into these events for free. But somebody needs to test the waters, right?)
Given the rain threatening my parade, I borrowed a golf umbrella from my hotel on the east side of Paris—$21 deposit, to be refunded upon its return—and hopped on the No. 6 Metro line toward the Eiffel Tower Stadium for beach volleyball. I didn’t expect so much mud at the beach. But when you build a temporary facility in a public green space with dirt paths, you can’t avoid the slop. Pro tip: Don’t wear fancy shoes to beach volleyball.
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I had to leave my umbrella at security: it was apparently too big. Not cool. I was immediately jealous of the other spectators who were not getting drenched. The stadium’s Eiffel Tower view was breathtaking, even in the drip. The food options were less so: a Coke-sponsored menu board, for example, showed a cheeseburger on sale for $12. The Olympics don’t offer as many enticing culinary choices as, say, the U.S. Open on site. Guess that’s what Parisian restaurants are for.
At beach volleyball, the public-address announcer doubled as hype man. He promised that Partain is doing things on the American beach-volleyball circuit that no one has ever before seen. I’m not enough of an expert to counter his claims. But Cuba, especially Alayo, was better: they beat the Americans in straight sets, 21-18, 21-18.
I grabbed my umbrella from security for the walk and one-stop metro ride to cycling. Walking around Paris is easy, especially after the intense security apparatus of the opening ceremonies was dismantled. But you never know when a road bicycle course can close down a street and make you miss a finish.
Walking down the Avenue Rapp toward the Pont de l’Alma, I got nervous when I spotted some bicycles near the Seine. False alarm: just locals. But I decided to take the metro as close as possible to the cycling finish at the Pont Alexandre III, so as to travel under any potential closure. I almost hit a guy wearing Team Ghana gear with my umbrella. I apologized. He didn’t look pleased.
Thankfully, I got there in time for a seat near the time-trial finish. And while my umbrella was deemed too big for beach volleyball, it was fair game at cycling, so I could stay fairly dry. The loudspeaker played the Beyoncé song, “Break My Soul,” a fitting tune for such a grueling sport.
The two American racers had a tough day in the rain. Taylor Knibb crashed four times and finished 19th. At least she has the triathlon on Wednesday to look forward to. Dygart also crashed on her way to a disappointing, for her, third-place finish. She winced in pain, unable to put too much pressure on her leg, during her post-race interviews under a gold statue on the bridge. She collected herself before addressing the American media and refused to blame the rain. “I’m going to get treatment done and pray to God that my leg will be OK.” Dygart still has the group road race and the team pursuit coming up.
Australian Grace Brown turned in an epic performance, winning gold over Anna Henderson of Great Britain by nearly 92 seconds, an eternity in cycling. Brown had announced a month ago that she was stepping away from the sport at the end of the year. She vowed to win a medal in Paris, and she couldn’t believe she won gold, joining a club that includes Australian Olympic icons like sprinter Cathy Freeman and swimmer Ian Thorpe. “It’s a bit insane–these are Aussie legends,” she said. “It’s hard to get your head around other people viewing little old me in the same way.”
By then it was about 5 p.m. and I was starving, still subsisting on granola bars while on a brisk walk south on Avenue Bosquet, on the way to judo. I wasn’t not sure exactly when the first gold-medal match, in the women’s under-48 kg weight class between Natsumi Tsunoda of Japan and Bavuudorjiin Baasankhuu of Mongolia, would begin, so I had to bypass the baguettes.
I got to the Champs-de-Mars arena, but a security agent stopped me and a few other journalists: French President Emmanuel Macron was nearby, so we had to freeze. We eventually entered the building, where a statue of French army general Joseph Joffre sits at the south end. That wasn’t placed in a judo arena. Paris 2024 just built the structure around the Champs-de-Mars staple, which was first erected in 1939.
I was shocked to see judo packed and rollicking. The crowd was buzzing because Shirine Boukli of France had just won a bronze medal, France’s first of these games. “It’s a beautiful color,” she said afterward. While Macron’s presence forced me to miss that match, I was able to catch Japan’s first gold of these games, as Tunoda prevailed. The main event, however, was the 60-kg-and-under men’s final, between Yeldos Smetov of Kazakhstan and Luka Mkheidze of France, who came to the country in 2010 as a refugee from Georgia. “Luka! Luka!” fans chanted. They sang. Would France win its first gold of the Olympics, with Macron in the building?
No. Smetov prevailed, and the not insignificant Kazakh contingent also made their presence felt. Smetov had won silver in Rio, and bronze in Tokyo. “I was standing on the podium on the left side, and on the right side, as a silver and bronze medalist,” Smetov said through an interpreter. “But today, of course, I decided to stand on the top.”
With some time to spare before witnessing a second French gold-medal final—Auriane Mallo-Breton against Man Wai Vivian Kong of Hong Kong in épée fencing at 9:30—I grabbed a cheese pizza and a glass of wine to fuel up for the evening. (If you do buy those tickets, you’ll be able to relax, believe me. Press conferences and interviews won’t be encroaching on your eating and drinking time.)
Satiated, I headed north on Avenue Rapp, noting two Frenchmen who were window-shopping wines, to take one last walk across the Seine to the Grand Palais at the Champs-Élysées. The Grand Palais was built for the 1900 World’s Fair, dedicated by the French Republic “to the glory of French art,” and is a spectacular setting for fencing. The sport has historical roots in France, and it generates more excitement here than it does in, say, the United States.
Macron was back in the house. (Was he following my itinerary?) France’s Rugby sevens team had just won the country’s first gold, but could Mallo-Breton deliver individual hardware? The partisan crowd really wanted it—they were loud and boisterous, like New Yorkers rooting for Coco Gauff at last year’s U.S. Open. The Grand Palais acoustics play well.
And gold-medal fencing is tense. Mallo-Breton jumped out to a 7-1 advantage. We could all taste a celebration. But Kong refused to give in. The clock ticked down in the final round, the competitors tied. Next touch would basically win, but no one could connect. Until overtime, when Kong ended the duel.
Is Macron a jinx?
There are more plausible explanations for the defeat. Thomas Martine, a France saber fencer sitting behind me, went into a long soliloquy afterward, while wearing a French tricolor wig. He believes Mallo-Breton got in her own head with her early lead. “You start thinking you can be Olympic champion,” said Martine. “The fans, the roars, it adds pressure. That can hurt you more than it can help you.” Mallo-Breton, however, dismissed Martine’s analysis. “She never gave up,” Mallo-Breton said of her opponent. “She was just better than me tonight.”
Oh Sanguk, of South Korea, finished off the evening, winning sabre gold over Tunisian Fares Ferjani. He came to the press area for an interview with a South Korean journalist. He went to grab a drink out of a fridge, but the attendant told Sanguk, gold medal around his neck, that he had to pay for it, just like any old hack.
When it comes to $4 Fanta, a gold medal only goes so far.
The Olympics are full of surprises. Sure, you can start saving for 2028 in L.A., rather than jaunt to the center of Paris.
But if you do, don’t forget to book your rental car.
