The Paris Olympics 100 Years Later

By Quan | 14 August 2024 | 8 min read

France Welcomed the World to the Games. And the World Saw a New France Emerging

An Olympics Parfait read the headline from the Athletic’s newsletter the morning after the Closing Ceremony. You could replace it with any hyperbolic adjective and most wouldn’t have objected. A thought then popped into my head, a perfect Olympics would be none at all.

But since we live in this reality, this gathering will continue every few years.

Before the Opening Ceremonies, people were taking pictures on Pont de la Tournelle. As I was walking to my seat I spotted a young couple and the man was wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the 1988 Seoul Olympics logo. I went up and told him that his shirt was awesome, explaining that the Seoul Olympics were the first games I watched, the infamous Ben Johnson one.

Delighted, we interacted in a little bit of English they knew. I shared how I had been to Jamsil Stadium to watch baseball, which was Seoul Olympic Stadium for the games. “You know Seoul,” they replied. “A little.” I threw out the two lines of Korean I knew, thank you and good bye, which drew a laugh, and we waved to one another.

Vo Thi My Tien swimming for Vietnam

A few years after those Seoul games I met my grandfather for the first time in Vietnam. He lived in Binh Duong province, which was about a 45 minute scooter ride from Ho Chi Minh city. On the first morning, he asked if I wanted to get xiu mai for breakfast, which is a meatball in tomato broth dish. Of course I did so we went for a walk. After breakfast he showed me around. This was Vietnam in the early 90s, before diplomatic relations were established by Clinton.

We walked by a gym where boys and teenagers were lifting weights. It was dingy, ill-equipped, and a cultural shock for me to see anything that impoverished. But they were working out hard. Next to it was a pool. The water colored like the Seine, crowded with too many kids to take a proper lap in. I looked up at the wall next to the pool and the image of that has stayed with me since. It said Olympics and had the five colored rings under it.

I looked up at the wall next to the pool and the image of that has stayed with me since. It said Olympics and had the five colored rings under it.

During one of the heats for the women’s 200m medley at Paris La Défense Arena, I saw a swimmer named Vo Thi My Tien. She represented Vietnam. 1 of 16 athletes who competed for them.

A Colorless France

The women's marathon medal ceremony

Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, had a vision for sports in education. For him, a true Olympian possessed skills in athletics along with the arts. For the first four decades, medals were awarded for painting, architecture, music, sculpture and literature.

Since then only Athletics has remained. He designed the Olympic rings, choosing the five colors that could be combined to represent every nation’s flag.

In contrast, Paris is rather gris. From the clouds to the concrete, its canvas is gray, colored by sunrises and sunsets, weather permitting.

And inside Stade de France on Sunday, every imaginable color representing nearly every nation stood to honor the medalist for the women’s marathon, 100 years since Paris last hosted. It was as though everyone casted from Babel reconvened. Gold medalist Sifan Hassan wore her hijab, which was banned for the Paris Olympics. Despite all the colors, France is color-blind as a nation.

The word “race” was taken out of its constitution in 2018. Talking about race is considered taboo. No data is collected about race for policy. How it all works in reality is a whole other topic.

Hyphenating ethnicity in France is much like the subjunctive tense in English, it doesn’t exist (for the most part). When people here ask me where I’m from I say the United States. There’s no follow up question.

When I met my teacher Patricia years ago, she said to me, “Quan, je suis française.” Her family came from Vietnam, but there’s no such thing as being French-Asian.

Laïcité, roughly secularism (more nuanced and complicated), is there to provide neutrality and conformity to public life through manners. Its universalist approach goes back centuries to the middle ages.

It’s an inverse to E pluribus unum. They both have their cracks and issues. It just forms differently as things constantly change. The repercussions unfolding in time.

France Remixed

The Opening Ceremony had France’s most listened to musician (Nakamura is Spotify’s all-time most streamed French Album), Aya Nakamura, singing her songs that had verlan in it. Verlan is a remix of letters of a word to mean the same thing (or not).

For example, cimer is merci, tromé is métro. This is something you come across at some point the longer you study the language (as if it wasn’t hard enough). This is believed to have emerged out of the immigrant populations in the banlieues of Paris. Its usage was a method to skirt around the police while discussing drugs and such. Now many words are mainstream and come from other languages including English, which then defeats the purpose of it being a secret language. So then words get further remixed.

The remix of words is a way for certain populations to express intersections of their identity. When it was announced that she was performing it caused controversy over who and how France would be represented to the rest of the world. Meanwhile, they had Lady Gaga pre-tape her performance (I'm still trying to figure out her connection to France).

Aya’s singing of her hit songs took place in front of the Institut de France which houses the Académie Française, who determines what the French language is and what belongs. The Pont des arts is the footbridge that links it to the Louvre. It was a moment that wasn’t lost on most in the area.

People here have renamed it Pont d’Aya Nakamura.

The Franco-American Connection

The relationship between the US and France goes back to America’s birth, of course. France being the first friendly country to the US after aiding in the Revolutionary War.

In many ways, it’s an opposites attract type of relationship. One defines the other by what they’re not. The exchange has been storied, Tocqueville, Louisiana, the Statue of Liberty, french fries, Macdo, Emily in Paris (sorry?), pourboire (tipping, seeing it more here), and even as recent as these games with Bob Bowman, who coached Léon Marchand, the French swimmer who catapulted into superstardom during these Olympics.

Bowman coached Michael Phelps and came on to be part of France’s 2024 coaching staff to continue to be with Léon. Marchand swam under Bowman at Arizona St. and followed him to Austin, as Bowman took over the University of Texas’s program.

“Swimming in America unlocked Marchand’s potential,” Thierry, the owner of the place I’m renting from told me.

Marchand blossomed under Bowman, miles away from Toulouse, his home. An ocean away from France’s ever present spotlight, he was able to go about life in Arizona in relative anonymity. He was able to just be a normal student. Well, as normal as a prodigy like him could be.

Léon Marchand extinguishes the Olympic Flame

The ability to try and try again was something Thierry told me is wonderful about the US. “America is the land of second chances.” he quipped. He and his wife studied briefly in the US, which helped influence their careers working internationally.

He’d reached out via email to Bowman to coach him in 2020. Bowman accepted after figuring out who had emailed him out of the blue. He quickly recognized the name Marchand, as Léon’s father, Xavier Marchand, swam as well. And on Sunday, Léon extinguished the flame to close out these Olympics. A raucous crowd welcomed him to chants of “Léon, Léon, Léon,” when he entered Stade de France.

His fame does come at a price though. He mentioned how he can’t go out to a restaurant normally any longer.

The Imperfect Perfect

As the Closing Ceremony drew to a close, a singer clad in stunning black attire appeared on stage.

She began to sing My Way. My first thought was, is she American? Her enunciation didn’t have the typical French accentuations. Her outfit reminded me of a funeral.

Yseult performs My Way

Then I recalled the song is originally French, Comme d’habitude. But she wasn’t singing the French version. Those lyrics talk about the dread of going through the motions of a fledgling marriage.

Paul Anka heard it and re-wrote it for Sinatra. It became his signature song.

The cover by Yseult was stunning. A French tune re-imagined in English. Perhaps it was a way to bridge the two countries. But I’m not sure if a song that self-indulgent was right for France. Or maybe it was. Or maybe it signaled the passing of what France was pre-Olympics into a new one emerging post Olympics. The funny thing is Sinatra grew to dislike the song, thinking it was too self-serving. He sang because his audience demanded it.

As she belted out the final line the sky began to light up with a barrage of fireworks. I thought to myself, is this what a Pop Tart feels like when it’s in a toaster?

The Paris Olympics were truly a spectacle. Things like playing beach volleyball in front of the Eiffel Tower is AI prompt engineering territory, but it happened.

It’s impossible to sum it all up in a few words but Team USA’s now four-time gold medalist and most prolific scorer, Kevin Durant, had the most dialed in quote of the Olympics for me. When he was asked about patriotism and playing for Team USA, he said, “A lot of bullshi*t happens in our country. But a lot of great things happen, too.”

“A lot of bull**** happens in our country. But a lot of great things happen, too.” ~ Kevin Durant

The same could be said about the Olympics. It has its own baggage, but a lot of great people made amazing things happen here. To paraphrase the words of former Mavs now Knicks basketball player, Jalen Brunson, the vibes here were immaculate.

So much so that the ever too cool for school Parisians (at least the ones who stuck around) and their froideur ways were warmed up by something other than a canicule. You’d often hear them cheering from a kilometer away.

And that was pretty parfait.