PARIS — Merci beaucoup, Paris. When these were awarded seven years ago, there was no way the International Olympic Committee officials could have known how badly they would be needed. How desperate the world would be for an excuse to let loose from the melancholy that lingers from the COVID pandemic.
How essential it would be for a respite from the divisiveness that seems to be everywhere. . And then some, setting a standard that will be near impossible for any future host to top.
For 17 days, what is arguably the world’s most beautiful city was also its most joyous. Amazing athletic feats took place with serving as the backdrop. The stands, so eerily silent at both the delayed Summer Games in Tokyo and Beijing Winter Olympics, were once again filled with raucous fans.
In the streets and cafés and Metro stations, people from all over the world mixed and mingled. Hearing your own language, or seeing your flag on someone’s cheek, was all it took to start conversations. People who would be separated by icy silence if the topic was politics or social justice issues found common ground in the greatness of and , Leon Marchand and Rebeca Andrade.
And just weeks after an election that magnified the troubling fractures threatening France’s ideals of equality and fraternity, its people came together to raise their voices as one in cheers of “Allez!” and choruses of La Marseillaise. “France is beautiful. And when we’re all together and when we unite, it’s a wonderful.