PARIS – The face of these Olympics was the City of Light, all bright and shining and historic, so full of screaming happy people and a city in need of a new enhanced nickname and a better reputation. The gold-medal winner for the 2024 Summer Olympics was the city itself, its people, its landmarks, its charm and those who came from all over the world to be part of this special event – the people who helped supply these spectacular venues with noise and unforgettable atmosphere some of that previously foreign to Olympic sport. And spectacular the venues were.
So many of them looking like postcards come to life. The beach volleyball stadium at night, all lit in the backdrop of the beaming Eiffel Tower. The breathtaking history of Roland Garros and the first glance at the red clay you’ve only heard about before.
The crescendo noise and then silence of a jam-packed Stade de Paris before the 100 metres – the signature event of any Olympics is run. The crazed cheering and chanting fans at Grand Palais when just about the least interesting sport in the world, taekwondo, was performed. So much noise for so little action.
It was like that almost everywhere the past two weeks. It didn’t matter the building. It didn’t matter the sport.
When done right, the Olympics can accomplish what no other sporting sequence can match. It can make you laugh and cry almost at the very same time, make you elated and nervous, make you care about sports and people you otherwise wouldn’t know – and then you wake up the next day and do it all over again. The ever-present sound of these Games – the cheering – was loudest for national hero Leon Marchand at the pool; For the men’s and women’s basketball teams, both in Lille and at Bercy Stadium, both playing for gold.
And it wasn’t just for the French. As great as the home country performed – France went from 33 medals in Tokyo in 2021 to 64 medals at home – they cheered for Summer McIntosh , for Andre De Grasse, for almost anything but Americans, and most of that was understandable. This was not the Paris we were warned about.
The city wasn’t cold and distant and occasionally rude. If there were protests, I didn’t see them. If there was hatred anywhere, I didn’t feel it.
The biggest controversies of the Games came when a Canadian was detained by police for using a drone to tape a soccer practice that began the unravelling of Canada Soccer – and later a boxing scandal that really wasn’t a scandal – when a woman, who was a woman, hit another one too hard and the assumption was the woman was a man. The assumption was wrong. The world has been ready for years to watch Mike Tyson, or anyone else, knock out someone in 91 seconds.
The world does not seem ready to watch Imane Khelif, or anyone else, obliterate another woman in the ring. And now the Olympic authorities have to find a way to deal with a sport that is basically unregulated and in need of some kind of organization. The future of women’s boxing at the Olympics is somewhat in peril.
This story may be alive all the way to the opening of the Los Angeles Games of 2028. The Canadian soccer controversy went from Olympic to yesterday’s news around here. it may have been big in Canada, but by the end of the Games it seemed small everywhere else in the world.
That’s what happens at the Olympics. There is always a next day here, a next event or story to get to. That’s the charm and chaos and confusion of an Olympics that packs 45 sports, some of them dubious, into 17 days.
And now it’s time to say goodbye. And it’s hard to leave a place this special, a Games that shone so brightly in the greatest of atmospheres. It seems the bigger the name here, the more accomplished the athlete, the larger the celebration.
Novak Djokovic, the tennis star, is probably still walking around with his gold medal around his neck. He wasn’t paid to be here. The same with LeBron James and Steph Curry, NBA giants, the later of whom won the two games for Team USA they needed for gold, with Curry putting on a performance for the ages.
He hit 17 of 26 three point shots against Serbia and then France on the way to gold 65% from three. For all the great performances here in every sport, few individually were better than what Curry accomplished in the final two basketball games. In the pool it was Marchand, the great French swimmer, who was the only athlete to take home four gold medals.
Canada’s teenage sensation Summer Macintosh was just one medal behind with three golds and one silver. No athlete won more than the six taken home by Chinese swimmer Zhang Yufei, five of them bronze. Team Canada had its most impressive Games in terms of medals – 27 won, nine of them gold: They moved up in the world and didn’t move up all at the same time.
Canada finished 11th in the medal count in Tokyo and 11th here in France. Of the countries ahead of Canada in the medal standings, nine are much larger in terms of population. Only Australia and the Netherlands win more with fewer people.
Canada punched above its weight class here, even with some disappointments. Especially the Canadian women who took home almost two-thirds of the 27 Canadian medals won. And always there is elation and heartbreak – and events decided by one one-hundredth of a second.
On Saturday, Canadian canoeist Katie Vincent won gold by the smallest of margins while 800-metre sprinter Marco Arop lost gold by the same tiny click of stopwatch. That happens every Games. That doesn’t change when the venues aren’t packed, when the noise of the crowd isn’t inspiring.
It just feels better and means more when the crowd is engaged the way Paris 2024 was engaged. This was a Paris that opened its arms to the world – an Olympic Games that worked, that stood out, that has had few equals from the eight Summer Games I’ve been fortunate to be assigned to. Sydney 2000 stands alone and probably always will as the most fun and alive any Olympics can be.
Paris wasn’t that kind of constant glee: Not sure any Olympics will ever match Sydney but Paris is spectacularly beautiful, a city wonderfully organized and easy to get around in – even for someone who can lost daily – and only the organizers by occasional tripping over themselves with fences and signs and rules and more fences and signs made life challenging for the public, the tourists and those here to cover the Games. The Games began for Canada with DeGrasse and weightlifter Maude Charron carrying the flag in the rain, in a boat, during the Opening Ceremony. De Grasse went on to win relay gold here and Charron followed her gold in Tokyo with silver here.
The Games will officially conclude Sunday night here, with Macintosh returning from Canada and gold medal winning hammer thrower, Ethan Katzberg, combining to carry the flag and say goodbye to the world. It is that time again. Time to go home.
The Games are over. This one was special. This one is worth holding onto for a few more days.
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