LetsRun Goes to Paris: Allez Les Bleues, The Loudest Event of the Olympics, and…Celtics Jerseys?

PARIS — There are many, many cool things about covering an Olympic Games (and some not-so-cool things, but hey, I get paid to do this, so I’m not going to complain). But the coolest thing of all is the Olympic press credential, which gets you into everything. Thanks to this magical piece of laminated paper, I was able to go straight from watching Carlos Alcaraz defeat Tommy Paul in the tennis quarterfinals at Roland Garros on Thursday afternoon to watching Simone Biles win her second gymnastics all-around gold medal on Thursday night. I used it to watch beach volleyball in front of the Eiffel Tower on Wednesday afternoon and Léon Marchand win two golds in the pool on Wednesday night. For the next nine days, it will be my ticket for every track & field final. If I wanted to, I could have added on golf, handball, or 3×3 basketball this morning, but there was a World Athletics press conference and I had, you know, actual work to do.

The last two days have served as a tasty hors-d’œuvre to get into the Olympic spirit. A few highlights and observations before the main course begins Friday morning at the Stade de France:

The fans are back and they are incredible

The Olympic Games are about competition, sure. But they’re also about national pride. About losing your mind because some athlete you’ve never heard of has done something amazing in a sport where you don’t know most of the rules. That was what we lost during the COVID Olympics of 2021, and I didn’t even have to step foot in a stadium in Paris to notice the difference.

There aren’t many cooler backdrops for a sporting event than the Eiffel Tower

My first stop upon arriving in Paris was my Airbnb (a 90-minute nap is crucial after an international redeye). My second stop was the beach volleyball stadium. I had two must-sees in Paris before track started: tennis at Roland Garros and beach volleyball beneath the Eiffel Tower, one of the most iconic backdrops for any event in the 129-year history of the Olympics. As I approached the arena for a women’s pool play match between France and Spain, I could feel the crowd’s energy radiating out from the temporary bleachers, and the atmosphere inside was even better.

There were tricolores everywhere you looked, and they were waving after every point the French won as the crowd chanted Al-lez les Bleues! Al-lez les Bleues! Immediately I began to think of all the athletes who missed out on this experience in Tokyo. This is what the Olympics are meant to feel like.

Of course, Spain had its own set of vocal supporters as well, and then there were the neutrals who cheered anyway because they were at the Olympics watching a great game of volleyball in the shadow of one of the most famous structures in the world. It was hard not to smile.

Editor’s Note: While Jonathan and many fans/spectators love the noise of crowds, it may be overrated on its sporting impact as Spain won both sets of the match 21-12, 21-15)

All of this made me even more excited for track & field. There were no fans in Tokyo, of course. And while Rio de Janeiro got a couple of big crowds, there were plenty of empty seats there too. Now we’re back in Europe, the heart of track & field, in one of the world’s great cities — one that has not hosted an Olympics for 100 years. After night after night of great crowds at Worlds last year in Budapest, I’m expecting an even better atmosphere in Paris. Don’t let me down, track fans.

The loudest sporting event I have ever heard

This is the third Olympics I’ve covered for LetsRun.com, but I did not make it to swimming in Rio or Tokyo. I resolved to change that and since Simone Biles was competing in the women’s gymnastics all-around final on Thursday, I circled Wednesday as my night at the pool.

I knew I had made the right decision when I walked into the media center at La Défense Arena and bumped into NBC Sports’ Nick Zaccardi, who told me I had come on the right night. You can count on one hand the number of people who know more about the Olympics than Nick.

His words could not have been more true.

The night began with the women’s 100m freestyle — the swimming equivalent of the 100m dash — but that was soon overshadowed by the men’s 200m butterfly. It was the greatest swimming race I’ve ever seen in person.

Okay, so maybe that does not count for much: I had only seen one race in person before this one.

How about this: it was the loudest sporting event I’ve ever seen in person. As they approached turn for the final 50 meters, France’s Léon Marchand, the golden boy of these Olympics, trailed world record holder Kristóf Milák of Hungary by almost a body length. The race looked over.

Then Marchand went underwater for what felt like an eternity (in reality, it was six seconds), and when he emerged, he was right there on Milák’s shoulder. Marchand had a real shot at gold now and the French crowd realized immediately, almost tearing the roof of the place with their screams. I didn’t think an arena could get any louder than that — and then Marchand touched first in an Olympic record of 1:51.21. If the stadium had been at an 11 during the race, now it was at 13.

Don’t take my word for it. The venerable David Woods of the Indianapolis Star and DyeStat felt the same way. So did Yahoo’s Henry Bushnell.

Cannot explain how loud it was here during Marchand’s final 50.

Not sure I’ve ever heard anything like this. pic.twitter.com/edD87NCTbD

— Henry Bushnell (@HenryBushnell) July 31, 2024

That was the race of the night — which is saying something, because Marchand followed it up later that night with a second gold in the 200-meter breaststroke. Before Wednesday, no man had even medalled in both events at the same Games. Marchand won ’em both in two hours flat.

And as if that was not enough, the USA’s Katie Ledecky won her eighth career gold medal by claiming the women’s 1500 freestyle before the night ended with a world record by 19-year-old Pan Zhanle of China in the men’s 100 freestyle, an undeniably epic swim (he took the world record from 46.80 to 46.40 and won by more than a second), albeit one that comes in the wake of two Chinese doping controversies — though Pan has not been linked to either of them.

I’m no swimming expert, but there cannot have been many better nights at an Olympic pool than July 31, 2024.

There are plenty of NBA jerseys in Paris, and the Celtics are the most popular — but not the players you might think

After two days in Paris, I’ve been struck by the number of NBA jerseys in the streets — about the same as the number of soccer jerseys. And it’s not the jerseys you’d expect. I haven’t seen any LeBrons, Currys, or Wembanyamas, but did see a dude in a Cade Cunningham Pistons jersey on my walk to pick up a pastry on Thursday. The number one team represented is the Celtics, with three, which you might expect considering they just won the title a few weeks ago. But the names on the back surprised me: Jayson Tatum (duh), but also Kevin Garnett and even Rajon Rondo. Either these guys are diehards or they were able to get a deep discount on 2008 title merch after the Celtics won again in 2024.

Okay, that’s enough non-running stuff for now. On Friday, it’s back to lap splits, reaction times, and all the track minutiae you’ve come to expect from LetsRun.com. Can’t wait!

Talk about this event on the world-famous LetsRun.com messageboard: Boots on the ground in Paris: Jonathan Gault just attended the loudest sporting event of his life at the Olympics .