My Olympic Experience

It was early May 2023 when I got the Email I had been waiting for: “your timeslot is going to open.” I had been thinking about this for years. For me, going to the Olympic Games felt like one of those things you say you want to do but it feels like it will never happen. I had entered the ticket lottery god knows how long ago but getting that Email really marked the start of things and yet through the moment I opened the last set of doors in La Défense Arena and I was actually looking at the pool, it all felt almost too good to be true.

The athlete woes of the Games are all too familiar: the refusal of Anne Hidalgo to install air conditioner led to NOCs bringing their own, food shortages followed by food numerous deficiencies, potential pool depth issues, and supposed 2-hour cramped bus rides, not to mention the Seine Saga. Yet the spectator experience was amazing. The only time I ever had an issue using public transport was right after the 70,000 people left Stade de France. While they probably did not need three separate apps, it was easy to get around at a low cost.

All the crowds I was in across the 5 sports I watched were electric. The DJs, the light shows, the chants, all of it contributed to the greatest sporting atmosphere I have ever been in, and I have stormed the field after a Michigan/Ohio State game at the Big House. The Olympics were undoubtedly the greatest experience of my life. I was able to watch my high school English teacher’s son place 5th in the 1500m track final (shout out to the Kesslers). It inspires patriotism but just as much, it inspires love and passion.

I told anyone who asked me if I was going to do anything else while I was in Paris “I was going to the Olympics not to Paris.” I had little time to sightsee (though I did go to the Museum of Cheese, 10 out of 10, would recommend) but that’s just a fact of jampacking your days with sporting events, but I had been to Paris before and I must say, the city was very different during the Games. It was cleaner and felt, at times, abnormally devoid of people.

Paris gave itself a facelift and a good one but you cannot hide everything. I was walking back from the gymnastics venue after witnessing the Jordan Chiles saga and on an out of the way street, I noticed a series of tarps pulled over wood pallets. At first, I thought it was some sort of gardening or construction thing but as I looked closer, I realized I was looking at a homeless encampment. The pallets were too evenly placed for these people to have naturally settled here.

I knew, when I was buying my tickets in that 48-hour timeslot that swimming was the top priority but I also wanted to go see what else the Games had to offer. Because I was getting into Paris on August 2nd, I could only watch 3 nights of swimming. I may be biased, but if I were to pick 3 back-to-back nights of all of them, I probably would still pick the ones I saw.

To watch swimming at the Olympics in-person is otherworldly. For some reason one detail sticks in my mind. The final set of doors before you can see the pool has little windows on them but the organizers had covered them mostly. I could see just a little bit of blue around them. This built my anticipation even higher. To step through those doors is something I will never forget.

The environment at the pool was off the walls. The fans were amazing. People I chatted with in lines actually cared about the sport. Everyone I talked to loved what I loved, and all for different reasons. There was a family that came to see their daughter’s old teammates, the Walshes, race. There was the Norwegians with their son who was about to enter their Olympic hopeful squad. There were the Irish fans who I joked with about the paradoxical nature of Michelle Smith’s career and talked about what it takes to do open water. Everybody had heard of SwimSwam and some even knew my work. This was the swimming community like I had never seen before.

In all aspects of the night, the crowd cared about 2 things: French and/or fast. The people who got the loudest roars were those fierce Frenchmen and Frenchwomen. Florent Manadou, being the bombastic sprinter that he is, played into the crowd more than anyone else.

I got to see Marchand complete his 4-event sweep, Ledecky’s 4-peat, the fastest time to ever cover 100 meters in a relay and other all-time splits, McEvoy complete his comeback, Manaudou’s historic 4th consecutive Olympic podium, Olympic Records galore, Sarah Sjostrom solidify her legacy, a historic women’s 200 IM final, and 3 world records (Men’s 1500 free, Mixed 400 medley, Women’s 400 medley).

All of that was amazing but what was more amazing was just how powerfully I could feel the elation and the agony of the athletes across all the sports I watched from the stands. This is why sports is so compelling: it concentrates the human experience into just seconds.