Au Revoir to the Paris Olympics
Sunday marks the closing of the Games as the Paralympics are set to start
Two weeks ago, when the 2024 Paris Olympic Games opened, I was at my friend Jenny’s house getting all emotional watching the opening ceremony.
Today, I watched the closing ceremony from my sister’s house. It began with a lovely serenade of a traditional French song by a young singer, followed by images of France’s champion swimmer Leon Marchand taking back the Olympic flame from the floating balloon/cauldron that held it for two weeks.
I can’t believe it’s over.
I regret not watching more of the Games, but I’m glad I was able to catch as much as I did. Volleyball, diving, synchronized swimming, sprinting, cycling, shotput, and of course, gymnastics. As a child, the gymnastics were the highlight for me. Who didn’t want to do floor exercises or learn how to balance on the balance beam?
I would argue that one of the stars of this year’s Olympics, at least for American viewers, was none other than Snoop Dogg, the rapping champion of marijuana. He was very entertaining! The best part was hearing him describe how much he loved the horses in the equestrian competitions because they had some swagger to them.
Here’s my brief look at what I thought were some fun highlights:
Breakdancing entered the competition for the first time. I’m old enough to have been around when breakdancing was big in the 1980s, so it made me wonder, why didn’t we incorporate it into the Olympics then? (I’m guessing it was not an international phenomenon like it is today.)
It was amazing to see Simone Biles perform alongside the Team USA gymnasts, many of whom are well into their 20s (inconceivable in years past!).
petite powerhouse Simone Biles for Team USA/photo: @USAGym Team USA faced France in both Men’s AND Women’s basketball for the first time ever. I think it says a lot about France’s strength in that sport.
I loved watching French swimmer Leon Marchand outpace his competitors by a longshot.
France’s swimming champion Léon Marchand with the Olympic flame From a TV coverage point of view, it was cool when NBC (US channel) would do live interviews with competitors’ parents or US Olympians like Katie Ledecky while she was holding the US flag during the closing ceremony. It’s a technology/broadcast achievement!
What about the not-so-highlights?
The controversy around the Algerian women’s boxing champion Imane Khelif was absolutely infuriating to me (questioning her eligibility to compete as a woman, which she is). I’m glad she won GOLD. And she’s filing a complaint over the harassment she had to endure.
US champion sprinter Noah Lyles having Covid WHILE running in the 200m race. Seeing him sprawled out on the track was alarming to say the least.
Watching a really annoying NBC interviewer painfully ask Simone Biles to rehash her traumatic experience of having to drop out of the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. In my opinion, it was obnoxious to do a whole segment on it. Why take her through all of that again for entertainment value?
Paris now will have a two-week hiatus (it’s the August summer holidays in France and God forbid you get in the way of that!) before the Paralympic Games open on August 28.
It was nice to have two weeks of something besides than far-right lunacy, genocidal attacks, and other horrors making the news headlines (though there was still plenty of that). In today’s negative, bad-news world, it is especially refreshing to see the kind of comaraderie that gymnasts show each other.
It really does give us a little bit of hope, non?
What were your highlights and lowlights?
Nice piece!