PARIS — Well into the evening on Saturday, outside a cafe on a small street running through the South Paris neighborhood of Vaugirard, a scrambling server dropped a beer bottle. It popped on the sidewalk, smashed into a million teeny pieces, and sent streams of suds running through the cracks in the concrete.
The server let out a guttural ugh and, pairing heavy eyes with a wry smile, said, “I didn’t expect all of you.”
This poor man was trying to serve a growing crowd filling the 20 or so small round tables outside Crêperie Ty Fanch. A large television was positioned to face outward to the street for the France-United States gold medal men’s basketball game. At Bercy Arena, about 7 miles away, the game was close and the home crowd was detonating an explosion of pride for the other red, white and blue. In Vaugirard, cheers could be heard from outside the crêperie, and from every other brasserie and bistro on the street, and from the open windows of all the apartments above. One big love song. When the game ended as a 98-87 win for the Americans, something so wonderful came that even the worst cynic or the biggest doom merchant had to smile.
The sound of clapping. From everywhere. Through the whole neighborhood. Clapping for the French team. Clapping for themselves.
The writer came upon Crêperie Ty Fanch on Saturday evening, before the crowd grew beyond the curbside seating. (Brendan Quinn / The Athletic)
It was a jarring recasting of what we were told these Olympics were going to be. All that talk of dysfunction, disinterest. Two days before the opening ceremonies, a poll conducted by Elabe, an independent French research and consulting firm, found that only 25 percent of the French population was enthusiastic about the Olympics. The rest were indifferent (47%) or skeptical (25%). The same poll found 74 percent did not believe the Games would improve French morale. There was, both domestically and internationally, concern building that Paris 2024 could devolve into a total and complete cluster.
But then the cauldron rose and the Games began.
Every venue, every day, every event. Full, alive, loud and proud. From the opening ceremony on, the French filled the cup till it runneth over, delivering an Olympic Games that mixed art with sport, and history with future, and national flag-waving with a worldwide welcoming.
For those who watched, and especially those who attended, these were the Games we needed. The Pandemic Olympics were still so vivid at the start of Paris 2024. The 2020 Games were played in 2021, and while broadcast all over the world, were seen live by almost no one. It was the anti-Olympics. As American rower Nick Mead put it: “Part of the Olympic experience is meeting all these people from all over the world, who are doing what you’re doing, maybe in a different sport or a different country, to have that same lifestyle.” The Games bring them together and introduce them all to the world.
Everything in Paris was always going to be viewed through the keyhole of sadness left lingering from Tokyo. There was a feeling, a desire for the Olympics to mean something more, maybe to return to what you remembered as a kid. With that as a shared mood, everything felt like a full embrace.
More than in recent memory, athletes were out in force watching other athletes. Katie Ledecky rang a cowbell in the crowd while Bobby Finke won the 1,500-meter freestyle in world-record time. Learning that Simone Biles attended her gold-medal-winning performance in the long jump, 25-year-old Tara Davis-Woodhall combusted, sounding like a hyperventilating teenager. “Bruh, she freaking watched,” Davis-Woodhall said. “I can’t believe it.”
Biles told NBC investigative reporter Snoop Dogg that Thursday’s track and field competition was the first non-gymnastic Olympic event she ever attended. She wanted to see Davis-Woodhall, Noah Lyles, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and others.
Stars like seeing stars, and one of the great payoffs of Paris was the Games’ most marketable characters mostly delivering all the goods. Biles did what Biles does, winning three golds and a silver. Katie Ledecky did her thing, swimming in one direction as a school of fish tried to catch her from the opposite direction. Sha’Carri Richardson came from behind in the final leg of the 4×100-meter relay, turning her head a full 90 degrees, not as a glance to see if she was pulling ahead, but as a glare to enjoy the view. Teddy Riner, the French judo god, and one of the most popular athletes in the country, won a third career gold at age 35, bringing some fans to tears. Steph Curry made a 3-pointer over human Eiffel Tower Victor Wembanyama and placed his hands together in solemn prayer, resting his cheek atop them, telling the French it was time to go to sleep. Novak Djokovic not only won his first gold medal in his fifth Olympic appearance, but climbed into a time machine for a match against Rafael Nadal along the way.
At Paris’ city hall, fans watched the women’s handball final on Saturday. Watch parties and fan gatherings were a common sight throughout the Olympics. (Antoine Gyori – Corbis / Corbis via Getty Images)
The list goes on, but no name rose above Léon Marchand. The French swimmer began the Games pegged as a potential face of these Olympics. He ended the Games wearing a designer black suit and lowering the Olympic flame. He alone produced four of France’s 16 gold medals.
Then all the other stories. The ones that can’t be planned, but instead come to life. Monet never intended to paint his waterlilies when he planted them.
American gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik showed what it means to be so profoundly good at one single discipline, that spending one’s life perfecting one skill is the ultimate dedication. In Nedoroscik’s case, it was the pommel horse. Now he’s a hero. Rebeca Andrade of Brazil won individual gold in the floor exercise and, upon stepping atop the podium was met by a bow from Biles and Jordan Chiles, a snapshot that’ll stand the test of time. Mondo Duplantis, pole vaulting for Sweden, followed a gold-winning leap with a world-record-setting leap and made a mad dash to kiss his girlfriend. The introduction of a new sport, breaking, drew a line of thousands winding through Jardin des Tuileries, next to Musée de l’Orangerie, where Monet’s lilies cover the walls.
Yeah, there was the stuff you can’t shake. Like clockwork, another doping issue arose, this time with Chinese swimmers. There was contrived culture war outrage arising over female boxers’ gender identity that was both shameful and cruel. There was COVID-19 still offering reminders that the pandemic never fully retreated. There was the IOC, an organization forever open to critique and criticism. Sending elite athletes to swim in the polluted Seine was unthinkably stupid. The judging snafu that has resulted in Chiles, the American gymnast, likely having to return a bronze medal was horrible. And just because the visitors had fun, doesn’t mean the citizens whose lives were impacted are going to change their survey responses.
But in the end, against what so many thought Paris 2024 would or wouldn’t be, these Olympics delivered on the largest scale. The Games were a return to what everyone was looking for.
The light.
People sit under the Eiffel Tower and its glowing Olympic rings in June, a month before the Games began. (Ryan Pierse / Getty Images)
(Top photo of the scene at beach volleyball at the 2024 Paris Olympics: Christian Petersen / Getty Images)
