I was hobbling, had cramp and felt sick. But to be part of The Beautiful Games was a joy beyond compare: Mail Sport's OLIVER HOLT takes on Paris' brutal marathon course and, inspired by Keely and Co, has the time of his life (sort of) The marathon was designed to let ordinary people be a part of the Games Oliver started the Marathon outside Hotel de Ville just before 10pm on Saturday He was inspired by the athletes who refused to give up during the Olympics By Oliver Holt Published: 02:00, 12 August 2024 | Updated: 02:00, 12 August 2024 e-mail View comments I have seen many things that have filled me with wonder and joy during the seven summer Olympic Games that I have covered. I have seen the white sails of the Mistrals and the 470s and the Lasers skimming and whipping and dashing across the waters of Sydney Harbour under an azure sky in 2000.
I have seen the Water Cube lit up at night, spellbound by its mesmerising design that made it look as if it were covered with brilliant blue bubbles, in Beijing in 2008 and Michael Phelps winning eight gold medals inside it. I have seen Bradley Wiggins sitting on a golden throne outside Hampton Court Palace after he won the men's cycling time trial gold medal at London 2012. And I have seen Britain's coxless four winning gold on the waters of Lagoa beneath the gaze of the statue of Christ the Redeemer, high up on Corcovado, at Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
But I have never seen anything as breathtakingly beautiful at an Olympics as the sight that greeted me and 20,023 other runners soon after we started the Marathon Pour Tous outside the Hotel de Ville just before 10pm on Saturday night. Oliver Holt has seen many things that have filled him with wonder and joy during the seven summer Olympic Games he has covered but none as much as running the marathon in Paris They started the Marathon Pour Tous outside the Hotel de Ville just before 10pm on Saturday Still giddy with the thrill of being allowed to run in a people's marathon on the Olympic course in the night-time window between the men's and women's races, we had only been running for a couple of miles when we turned off the Rue de Rivoli into the Place du Carrousel. From there, all eyes turned to the right to gaze at the stunning view of the Olympic cauldron, glowing beneath a hot-air balloon, tethered 50ft in the night sky above the Tuileries Gardens.
Paris is known as the City of Light and the Olympic flame, shining radiantly above it, felt like the perfect symbol for 17 days of sporting competition that have entranced the world and re-established the Games as the Greatest Show on Earth. After the sanitary cordon that was placed around the Olympics in Tokyo three years ago, this has been something splendid. Paris 2024 will forever be remembered as The Beautiful Games.
It has been a Games where the venues have competed for top billing with the athletes, providing them with the perfect backdrop for their astonishing feats of skill and endurance and spirit. And it has been a Games where fans have packed out every venue for every sport, from the sports climbing to the canoe slalom, and life has been breathed back into the Olympics. And so we ran on in the Marathon Pour Tous, the first time a host city has allowed ordinary people to run the Olympic course during the Games, an idea that had its root in making this a people's Games.
We ran along the right bank of the Seine, past the Grand Palais, sometimes hearing great cheers erupting from crowds watching giant screens showing the match between France and the USA in the men's basketball final at Bercy. We ran past crowded brasseries, humming with chatter and light and the clink of cutlery and the sound of laughter, and past the Trocadero, the epicentre of the Opening Ceremony that was almost washed away in a downpour but whose eccentricity and joie de vivre conquered all. The Marathon Pour Tous was conceived as a way of letting ordinary French men and women be a part of the Games, to experience the joy, not of winning, but of taking part They ran along the right bank of the Seine, past the Grand Palais, hearing cheers erupting from crowds watching screens showing the France vs USA men's basketball final We skirted the Parc des Princes where, a couple of hours earlier, the former Chelsea manager Emma Hayes had led her USA team to a gold medal in the women's football competition with a victory over Brazil.
We moved beyond Roland Garros where the career of one of Britain's greatest sportsmen, Andy Murray, had come to a close during the first week of the Games when he and his doubles partner, Dan Evans, had finally run out of miracle comebacks. Some still say that tennis and the Olympics are uncomfortable partners but one of Murray's many gifts to sport was that he disproved that. Playing a few weeks after a back operation, he knew he and Evans had little chance of winning but he put his heart and soul into taking part.
He was an inspiration right to the end. The same kind of spirit burned in those running in the Marathon Pour Tous. It wasn't about winning and for most, it wasn't even about setting a time.
It was about taking part. It was about being part of an Olympics. Everyone knew by then that this was a brute of a course.
So brutal that the two-time Olympic marathon champion, Eliud Kipchoge, had quit after 30 kilometres during the men's race on Saturday morning, destroyed by its long, steep hills. Kipchoge had started to walk after 28km. 'I walked for two kilometres,' he said, 'and I had more than 300 people on my side walking together with me.
Other runners were coming past me, encouraging me to keep going. I could feel the love and respect.' It was the first time Kipchoge had ever failed to finish a marathon and he struggled with the reality of it.
'This is my worst marathon,' he said. 'That's life. Like a boxer, I have been knocked down.
' My goal was simple: I wanted to finish. That was the limit of my ambition. Yesterday afternoon, after a female athlete from Bhutan took nearly four hours to complete the women's marathon and was given a standing ovation by the crowd at the finish, I read a quote from Tanzanian 1968 Marathon runner John Stephen Akhwari that said: 'My country did not send me 5,000 miles to start the race; they sent me to finish the race.
' Oliver shared several photos from the start line on his social media accounts (pictured above) These Games, of course, were full of examples of athletes who refused to give up Keely Hodgkinson produced Britain's signature moment of these Olympics, refusing to bow to the pressure of being the overwhelming favourite for the women's 800m My country hadn't sent me here but I felt the same way. I had one other goal. I wanted to run from the start to Versailles without stopping to walk.
The race route had been partly predicated on a moment during the French Revolution when 6,000 women marched from the Hotel de Ville to Versailles to protest against King Louis XVI and won concessions from him. The Chateau de Versailles was 24km into the course but 7km before that, the incline that is known as Paris's version of Boston's Heartbreak Hill came upon us. The four per cent incline mirrors the Boston Marathon's most famous feature but Paris's climb — at 1.
25 miles — is nearly double Boston's. I got to 300m from the summit, without knowing I was 300m from the summit, and then gave up and started walking. A few minutes later, I was struggling over the brow of the hill and looking down on Versailles in the distance, berating myself for giving up.
These Games, of course, were full of examples of athletes who refused to give up. After the traumas of Tokyo, where she lost her spatial awareness, Simone Biles re-established herself as the greatest gymnast of her generation with some jaw-dropping displays that brought her three gold medals and a bronze. Keely Hodgkinson produced Britain's signature moment of these Olympics, refusing to bow to the pressure of being the overwhelming favourite for the women's 800m and blowing away the rest of the field in the final in the Stade de France.
And Toby Roberts, a 19-year-old sport climber from Surrey, produced one of Britain's most memorable moments of the Games when he forced his great rival, Sorato Anraku, the Japanese prodigy, who is just 17, into a mistake that won gold for Roberts in the men's boulder and lead. Adam Peaty won a silver medal in the men's 100m breaststroke after all the mental problems he suffered in the aftermath of the Tokyo Games. Toby Roberts produced one of Britain's most memorable moments when he forced his great rival, Sorato Anraku, into a mistake that won gold for Roberts in the boulder and lead Rowers Emily Craig and Imogen Grant, who had missed out on a medal by 0.
01secs in Tokyo, blitzed their way to gold in the women's lightweight double sculls. I trudged away from Versailles down a majestic avenue of trees in the darkness. By then, I must have been starting to look rather bedraggled and woebegone because for the first time, and not the last, an onlooker by the side of the road shouted out: 'Courage monsieur,' as I hobbled past.
Not long after that, we reached the bottom of the hill that did for Kipchoge. I've never seen anything like it on a marathon course. I could barely walk up it, let alone run up it.
Hundreds of people all around me were doing the same. Quite how Tamirat Tola set a new Olympic men's marathon record on that course a few hours earlier was too much for me to comprehend. Maybe I should be more cynical but in that moment, I could only bow in awe to an athlete who can achieve that.
A route like this is not for mere mortals. It's for superhumans. I didn't care about my time any more.
I didn't care about my idea of preserving respectability by coming in under 4hrs 30mins or even 5hrs. It gets to a point sometimes when it is just about survival. It's just about finishing.
At the crest of that hill, an ambulance had parked, its crew tending to a fallen runner. Over the crest of the hill, marshals directed us to one side of the road, to avoid another man who was being treated as he lay against the railings. There were still eight miles left.
The support was amazing. Paris has embraced these Games like no other host since London. Many Parisians feel the Games have revitalised the city at a time when it has become preoccupied with social and racial issues and the rise of the far right.
It has been a wonderful Games for France. Leon Marchand, their superstar swimmer, was the face of these Olympics, carrying all before him. The men's football and basketball teams garnered huge support, reaching the finals of their competitions.
Thierry Henry, the France men's manager, is a national hero all over again. Teddy Riner, the judo star who lit the Olympic flame with Marie-Jose Perec, won his fifth Olympic gold. Adam Peaty won a silver medal in the men's 100m breaststroke after all the mental problems he suffered in the aftermath of the Tokyo Games The Games have brought France together and the marathon route was lined with supporters all the way, even in the early hours of the morning, cheering on friends and strangers alike.
Even revellers on their way home from bars and clubs in the suburbs got into the spirit as we staggered back down the hill towards the capital city and the lights on the Eiffel Tower shimmering in the distance. 'Tout Paris vous attend,' one of them laughed in exaggerated encouragement. 'All of Paris awaits you.
' I was running less and less now. 'Courage, monsieur,' seemed to greet my almost every step. My legs started cramping and I was terrified the cramp would get worse and stop me running at all.
I saw more and more people bent over the railings at the side of the course, retching. I couldn't stomach any more of my gooey, sweet, energy gels. I felt sick.
But the Eiffel Tower got closer and closer and even though it was nearly 3am by the time I reached it, some of the brasseries along the route were still packed with life and vitality and people consumed by the thrill of watching something connected to the Games. The finish line was at Les Invalides. I was only 2km away.
Relief began to flood over me. I knew I was going to make it. I had been going for more than five-and-a-half hours by then and I began to look around.
Rowers Emily Craig and Imogen Grant, who had missed out on a medal by 0.01secs in Tokyo, blitzed their way to gold in the women's lightweight double sculls There were still hundreds of runners like me, ploughing on, running and limping and jogging and walking and acting as a crutch for a friend and swearing softly to themselves and encouraging each other and moving closer and closer, step by step. The soul of Paris 2024 was right here.
The Marathon Pour Tous was conceived as a way of letting ordinary French men and women be a part of the Games, to experience the joy, not of winning, but of taking part, to get their own chance to show the Olympic spirit, too. My time was 5hrs 39mins. It was the slowest marathon I've ever run.
It was also one of the best things I've ever done. After the quarantine of Tokyo, the Olympics without a crowd, Paris and its beauty gave the Games back to the people. Share or comment on this article: I was hobbling, had cramp and felt sick.
But to be part of The Beautiful Games was a joy beyond compare: Mail Sport's OLIVER HOLT takes on Paris' brutal marathon course and, inspired by Keely and Co, has the time of his life (sort of) e-mail Add comment.
