Welcome to French Crawl's Paris 2024 Olympics Recap
It was an immense privilege to attend these games in France. Over the course of nearly three weeks, I walked over 200 miles and experienced a plethora of sights and sounds from venues new and old, captured here, in twenty episodes documenting it.
Getting here was also a milestone in my language learning journey, having the opportunity to use French, talk with people, and experience the games in this manner.
But even if you didn't know the language, the faces said it all, no matter which country you came from, or didn't.
One of the most touching moments was seeing the IOC Refugee team's boat during the Opening Ceremony passing by. As a fellow refugee, it was a great reminder of the opportunity this event provides for people to be human and work out their talents.
Below you'll find links to each day and what events are covered. There's also an option to watch it all as one film. As time goes on, I hope this can be a a resource to see what life was like on the ground. Profitez-en bien!
Click on the link above to navigate to your choice
Individual Episode Guide
Click on an episode below to go to its page, full of background information, links and more.
One Single Film
All episodes as one supercut, nearly 2 hours
A Playlist of 20 Episodes
All 20 episodes organized in one playlist
Project Background
Artist Marielle Durand, Tirage 30 x 40 cm – JP. Hôtel de Ville, Fan zone Paris 1 er, more about her at the end**
I wasn't sure how this would turn out when I decided to document this journey to the Paris Olympics. I never spoke much on camera before. I'm much more comfortable writing or doing other things, but here we are and it turned out to be a fun (and painful lol) exercise.
Perhaps it will be a madeleine in old age when the joints have bid adieu. At worst it'll be a time capsule of memories that would have faded over the course of life. In the end, it was simply a glimpse into this grand spectacle. There was so, so much that these games offered.
Back in 2019, the fire at Notre Dame stirred up a desire to learn French again. So I restarted my journey back into the language by signing up for A0 classes at my local Alliance Française chapter in Dallas.
By A2, we were using the Défi 2 French manual. Unit 4 was about sports and the upcoming 2024 Paris Olympics.
“For as grand of a spectacle as it was, it was these smaller moments that made the games for me. It is a human affair after all.”
"Do you like sports, Quan?" my professor asked in French, fully knowing the answer. I would stream baseball games on my phone during class, much to her chagrin. "Oui!" I'd respond with a smile. Fortunately, she was a sports fan.
I'd scribble notes and translations onto the pages with Olympic imagery. These were the games I wanted to attend. And my hope was to get to some level of French where I'd actually be able to have a decent conversation with the locals. At least the ones who stayed.
After the end credits of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (which was delayed until the summer of 2021), I watched Paris 2024 President, Tony Estanguet, present his dynamic vision of the games to come. An Opening Ceremony by boat. Beach volleyball in front of the Eiffel Tower. Swimming in the Seine. Fencing at Grand Palais. A marathon for the public. It seemed as delusional as it was grandiose sitting there during another wave of covid. All I could think was 2024 could not come soon enough.
My first memory of the Olympics was in 1988 inside a hospital room. My brother was dealing with some health issues that fall (the '88 Summer Games took place in September and October) and so I would spend time in his room watching various competitions taking place in a far off country called South Korea, in a city named Seoul. It was the Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis Olympics for me. Carl was from Houston, where I grew up, so the connection had stricken me with a case of hometown pride.
That emblem of the Seoul games found me again some 36 years later during the Opening Ceremony in the form of a t-shirt. On Pont de la Tournelle, a fan from South Korea was wearing a 1988 Olympics t-shirt and I went over to comment how much I liked it and how it was my first memory of the games. In their limited English we managed to share a laugh and they explained how they wanted to attend the LA Olympics in 2028.
This was one of the many interactions I would have while out at the games. And pleasantly in French at times. For as grand of a spectacle as it was, it was these smaller moments that made the games for me. It is a human affair after all.
It was people like Melissa and Chris who invited me, a stranger from the internet, out to volleyball, after they had found the guide I created, which helped them. There was a volunteer in Marseilles at Stade Vélodrome, who complimented me on my accent and quickly went onto asking me about U.S. politics en français (monsieur, this is a Wendy's). Or Laura, the wrestling aficionado from Missouri who provided inside baseball on wrestling and Team USA.
One of the most encouraging moments came on the Paris metro as I was having a conversation with a Frenchman about the games in his native tongue. His wife, an expat from New York, was listening in and then said to me, "You need to move here." I thanked her for the gracious compliment.
There were other Americans in Paris, like Erica, a Detroiter turned Parisian guide who shared her volunteering experience at the games (and what the 'Emily in Paris' effect was to me) while at Le Golf National. Anne Stark Ditmeyer and Zoë Petit (a fellow Texas Longhorn alumnus) had found and kindly shared some things of mine, resulting in a great correspondence with them during the course of the games.
And surprisingly, a couple from Brisbane came up to me after the Closing Ceremony and asked if I vlogged. Much to my surprise, videos of mine helped them prepare for the Olympics. I was glad the time studying French turned into helping others. "Come to Brisbane," they said, sharing that they were hosting the Summer Games in 2032. It's a small (digital) world after all.
You were also reminded spectators weren't just fans, but loved ones as well. Like a husband I met whose wife was throwing discus for Lithuania, or a young woman whose friend was running for their home country of Australia, sitting nearby at Stade de France.
Many here were cheering on family and friends, people who you could only imagine the sacrifices and toil they had gone through in darkness, and were now competing on the biggest stage of them all, in front of billions around the globe. Along with that came all the emotions in tow.
There was heartache when Team USA's CJ Nikolas loss to Firas Katoussi in Taekwondo at the literal last second in the semifinals. Sportsmanship followed when Tunisia's team raised CJ's arms in the air in a moment of admiration for his effort. And unexpected joy when Blake Fisher became only the second American to medal in the 10,000m run. His face beaming while taking a lap around Stade de France with the American flag swaying to a crowd singing "I Will Survive." And countless other moments too.
It would happen in and around some of the most iconic places in Paris like the Eiffel Tower, Grand Palais, and the grounds at Versailles. And even nearly forgotten ones like Yves-du-Manoir stadium where Pierre de Coubertin restarted the modern games in 1924. Tony Estanguet's presentation came to fruition in a bold way.
Paying respect to the OGs of the Games.
My friend Océane remarked, "I'm Parisian, but the Olympics make me feel like a tourist in my own home." And that of course would not have happened without the army of people and volunteers who brought this vision to life.
It's refreshing to see those who still dare and decide to pursue their hopes and dreams even when it doesn't make sense, even if it were never to see the light of day. The Olympics, for all its faults and controversies can do what no other event can. It brings together whose who would possibly never, or could ever, be together, in our world full of borders. And what transpired over the course of weeks in Paris and beyond was something that I think a lot of people will cherish, and hopefully build on, for a very long time.
A 100 years from when Paris first hosted what we know as the modern Olympics, they truly reimagined it in a fresh new way. It was a privilege to be able to experience the games there and I hope you enjoy this small slice of it all.
Avec plaisir,
Quan
** P.S. The watercolors throughout the Olympics Recap come from French artist Marielle Durand who I came across while researching Grand Palais. She had attended the games and created a series of watercolors that I found absolutely delightful. She created a book called Paris Jeux T'aime of her work and also sells prints of them on her site. The images you see throughout will link directly to the page of that print. I'm in no way affiliated with her. I'm simply a fan who thought others who had attended might find it as charming as I did.
