Paris diary: Sticky start but Paris ‘24 Games shone in the end
What first struck you about the queue for the media entrance at San-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome on Sunday morning was the length of it.
Just nine sports took place on the 16th and final day of Paris 2024 and a good number of people with the right passes had clearly decided a day at the cycling was for them.
Inside, seats in the press tribune were already at a premium. It wasn’t quite Simone Biles levels of craziness but the extra bodies may have raised the temperature further, in a building which has seen records tumble on the track and has quickly earned a reputation among visitors as the warmest in the world.
Ironically, or perhaps to be precise perversely, it is the only Olympic venue which doesn’t sell fans.
The last day of an Olympic Games can feel strange. In reality, it is half a day, everything wrapped up by tea-time with only the closing ceremony to come. It feels like an effort to wean us off the Olympic drug slowly. Where once everything was sport, tomorrow there will be none.
Conversation switches from where are you going next, to what time are you leaving? It’s been a long fortnight of 16-hour days and everyone is looking forward to the end. It has to end.
But at the same time, on Monday you’ll know you’ll miss it. The adjustment to a life not lived round the clock on a sporting schedule will take time. Relief at the promise of rest is mixed with disappointment.
After an iffy start, with train sabotages and an opening ceremony which took place in a deluge, it feels these Games have been a triumph.
It is possible Los Angeles four years from now and Brisbane in eight will deliver better sport. They won’t have the same backdrop as Paris, which has placed its famous monuments centre stage.
Who cares if it has made the centre of town a bit more fiddly to get around? Spending an hour watching taekwondo in the splendour of the Grand Palais soon makes you forget any inconvenience.
