Paris 2024

Last week a dream came true. Back in 2001, when I was an RA in college, I chose the Olympics as our hall theme and made everyone watch the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City with me. Grandly I announced, “Maybe in 2004 I’ll be in Europe and can go to the Athens Olympics.” Ha! Fast-forward 20 years and throw in a little savings, a free apartment to stay at, a friend willing to be adventurous with you, and the Lord’s personal kindness, and you get three days at the Paris 2024 Olympics. Eek! 

Affordable tickets included a water polo match, a volleyball game, and entry to some Track & Field events. Specifically, we saw women’s pole vaulting, hurdles, men’s discus, 200m semi-finals, triple jump, men’s final steeplechase, and 400m final races (yay Quincy Hall). The atmosphere, especially in the Athletics stadium and at the volleyball arena, were absolutely enjoyable. When we entered the warm-up area for volleyball, you could immediately tell which teams were on which court by the mass of flags fluttering around the cage and the cheers that erupted for every spike. At each event we attended, people clapped for every point and performance, hooting extra loudly if it was their country’s team, but I loved the sportsmanship I got to see and the many, many conversations with the people around us. Whether from Ireland, France, Australia, Turkey, the Netherlands, a fellow American, or an occasional Austrian, one of my favorite things about this experience was the international flavor that permeated Paris. As we walked around the city, we saw people from every corner of the world, proudly draped in their flags with colorful stripes on their cheeks. This TCK felt right at home. 

It was fun to see both super-natural human feats that I could never achieve (hello, Katie Moon of the pole vault) as well as human flaws I could definitely have accomplished (I’m talking of you, scoring debacle in the Turkey-Italy volleyball match). There was the usual volatile bustle of mass transportation in a big city that irked at times, and then there was the kindness of strangers who sold ice-cold bottles of water for a Euro and let you take it for even less when you didn’t quite have the change.

I know full well the Olympics are deeply, deeply flawed in many ways, but I can’t help but glimpse a bit of gospel in the coming together of the nations, the unified task each team faces, and the fight for something bigger than ourselves. How we react to success or failure is extremely telling, and the motivation of why we do anything we do is an opportunity for truth-telling (a nod to you, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone). I’m beyond grateful for my own dream-come-true to witness this.