Team Ireland’s roll call of medals hasn’t left much time to venture out into the wider world of these Games. That’s the Olympics, it draws us in from near and far and, while we share metros and breakfast buffets, it's all too easy to get stuck in your own lane. The access-all-venues media pass is a ridiculous luxury in that respect.
One piece of laminated plastic draped around your neck opens up a world that is catnip for anyone into their sport. Think Homer Simpson daydreaming in the ‘Land of Chocolate’, taking bites out of chocolate lampposts and chocolate dogs. And still being drawn to .
.. chocolate on sale at half price in a chocolate shop.
The Olympics always leaves you wanting more. So we looked up the schedule one day and, after chewing through the BMX and skateboard possibilities, we landed on the fencing at the Grand Palais. That was the sum total of our knowledge.
It could have been a nothing in a half-empty shell. But of course it wasn’t. What we walked in on was the end game of the men’s team sabre semi-finals (good) with South Korea facing the hosts (wow, excellent) in a sublime venue (could this be any better?) in front of a charged French crowd (magnifique).
The place was built for the Universal Exposition of 1900 and it’s all imposing stone facades, ornate ironworks and glass ceilings. Apparently there’s an inscription on a wall somewhere that reads: “a monument dedicated by the Republic to the glory of French art” but you’d be hard pressed to find it. Closed in 2021 for a refurbishment, cranes and miles of covered barriers are enmeshed between the surrounding trees.
Vast tracts of the building lay empty, rooms bare and ghostly as if the peasantry had just rushed it and carried the royalty within off to the guillotine. And it still makes the eyes boggle. The main hall is all TVs and lighting and purple Paris 2024 paraphernalia hanging from walls and ceilings.
The magnificent glass roof and nave is covered from within by white tarpaulin. The main floor, all 240 metres of it, is taken up by two stands that stretch from floor to ceiling. Think ‘The Wall’ at Borussia Dortmund’s Signal Iduna Park.
Or the copycat stand behind the goal at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Then picture them facing each other with little more than four thin pistes separating them and imagine the noise and the colour. This is another thing about the Olympics.
You can watch as much coverage as is humanly possible across the two weeks or so and never come across some of the biggest, most integral chapters. The fencing spanned nine days here. There were 12 different events held morning, afternoon and evening with over 200 athletes.
Did any of that cross your radar? The sport itself is all quick lunges and thrusts of the sabre, usually followed by shouts from both athletes, and invocations to the judges to reward their actions. It’s like opera: you don’t need to understand the language to get the gist of the story. OH Sanguk of South Korea was especially worked up as we took our seat.
Maybe he felt the need to hammer home his case with judges standing alone and small in front of thousands of bellowing French fans. And boy were those judges busy. Time and again they retreated to TV monitors just behind them to check their own decisions, or on request by the athletes.
Each review took mere seconds and it made you cry when you remembered the lost hours you’d spent waiting on VAR and TMOs. Even the match itself was a riot. The Koreans built up what looked an unassailable lead.
Then France started to reel them in and the place went really wild until the Asian team scrambled across the line and into the final. "If somebody says fencing, I want to be the person that immediately comes to mind,” Sanguk said three years ago. Job done, fella.
Jack Woolley competes there in the taekwondo this week. We’ll be back..
