Olympics – Paris

Our next stop after Marseille was Paris.

We visited Paris in 2019 to see the city and watch the US in the Women’s World Cup. In April that year, just months before our trip, the roof of the Notre Dame Cathedral caught fire. Since we could only see the cathedral from afar then, we were hoping it would be open this visit. We did get closer, but it was still closed to the public.

Women’s rugby was the first event we saw in Paris. We made a few stops on our way to the rugby matches. We saw the house of Nicolas Flamel, now a restaurant.

We also stopped at the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre. It sits at the top of the hill of Montmartre, and has a beautiful view of the city. It’s a hike to walk to it, especially on a warm day.

Watching rugby is a lot of fun. I knew a lot of the players on our college teams, and I liked watching their matches. The setup for the Olympics was perfect for me – 7 minute halves and only about 5 minutes between matches. It moved at a fast pace. The US women’s team won the match we saw that day.

We headed over to Olympic village after we left rubgy. It was crowded, and we were tired of walking, so we didn’t get close.

We also saw the torch in the balloon, but didn’t realize you had to book a time in advance to go up to it. It was all sold out for the week once we realized that. So, we got a view from afar. And it didn’t raise up the night we were there in the park – too windy.

Our second day was rowing and kayaking. I’ve never been to an event for either, so I was excited to check them out. It was entertaining to see how energetic the fans would get. Everyone was pretty respectful though, no negative yelling or going at other fans. We saw our one and only medal ceremony for one of the men’s rowing races.

I think France did a great job of locating venues and having public transportation available. However, almost every venue was a hike from the metro – 30 minutes or so of walking…and it was very hot while we were there. We definitely got our steps in each day. Sitting in the stands was pretty uncomfortable – sweating next to sweaty strangers. We had a fan and a neck cooling cloth to make it bearable. Each venue had free water stations. There was a size limit for water bottles, so I couldn’t bring in my large hydroflask. We’d fill bottles several times at the outdoor events.

The kayaking course was cool to see. I bet it’s fun to be part of the team that plans and builds these venues. But I also have to wonder how many resources are expended for something so temporary.

In the event we saw, athletes had to kayak around each gate as they went down the course. Most gates were green, which meant you were to go through them moving down stream. Red gates had to be cleared going up stream. This meant the kayaker had to go past the gate, turn to go through it, and then continue down the course.

Gate 17 was a red gate that caught many of the athletes we saw. There seemed to have been a nasty swirling current right at the gate. If they didn’t hit it right, it was an uphill (upstream?) struggle to get through the gate. Lots of time was lost to gate 17. Again, the fans were so supportive, cheering for each participant. They were especially loud for anyone caught at a gate, and the crowd was very happy to see them clear it finally.

We saw one American competing. She made it to the semi-finals, but didn’t move on after that.

We watched water polo on our 3rd day in Paris. It was a nice break from the heat to be inside for once. The venue was beautiful, it housed the diving events as well.

We watched two men’s matches, one of them being US vs. Greece.

We stopped at a cafe that afternoon to eat and relax. This was a slower day for us, one we needed by this time! I’ll wrap up our time in Paris in the next post, along with our visit to Lille.