Paris 2024 Olympics 03: Diving, Canada House & Volleyball

Monday, July 29, 2024

This morning we were up early and my parents again at breakfast at the hotel. At 08:30 we walked over to Gare de Lyon and took the RER train north to Saint Denis, where the aquatic center was located. The train station was located some distance away from the venue entrance, but the 25-minute walk was easy in the cool morning weather. We arrived slightly early and had to wait for a little while before the security checkpoint opened.

The venue was located next to the Stade de France stadium, where we would be attending athletics next week, and the two venues were separated only by a small pedestrian bridge (which was currently blocked off for security reasons). Once we were allowed inside, I stopped to get something to eat for breakfast at one of the food stands. They had a quinoa salad that mom “dared” me to try (I think she expected that I wouldn’t like eating quinoa). I ordered it and it was quite tasty, though the portion size was a bit too small. I ate the salad outside the venue while my parents walked around.

Event 03: Diving – Men’s Synchronized 10m Platform Final

Today’s first event was one that I was particularly looking forward to because the British diver, Tom Daley, would be competing. I had seen him dive at the Rio Olympics in 2016, winning bronze, and we’d had tickets for this same event at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, but Covid-19 ruined those plans (Tom Daley ended up winning gold in Tokyo). This was also the first medal round event that we were attending at the Olympics, which adds a bit more excitement to the event.

When we entered the arena, the divers were all busy practicing and warming up. Divers competing in all events, not just today’s synchronized diving, were there practicing. We had about an hour to spend watching them all dive, which was a lot of fun because we got to see many athletes who would be competing at events that we wouldn’t be attending.

Our seats for today’s event were good, though not great. We were sat close to the diving boards, higher up in the stands and part of the lighting fixtures blocked our view of the 10m platform (so disappointing!). Regardless, we had good seats, and I was excited for the event to begin. Before beginning, a light show was projected into the water of the nearby water polo pool and was set to music. The arena also played a variety of videos about the Olympics, explaining the rules of the sport about to begin, etc. One series of videos thoroughly entertained my parents: old black and white photos of Olympians were digitally manipulated to make it appear as though they were singing along to modern songs. It was brilliantly done and it made my parents laugh while they watched the videos.

Then the somewhat strange ceremony of the “Trois Coups” took place, which we had also seen at our previous two events as well. This involved someone notable (former Olympians, etc) coming into the arena and ceremoniously banging a large stick on the ground three times. This tradition was taken from the theatre, where the sticks are banged upon the stage prior to a performance as a way to silence the audience in preparation for the show to begin. At the Olympics, the bearer of the stick would hit it on the ground while a loud banging sound effect was played. It had confused us the previous two days, but today I finally Googled it and learned the history of the tradition.

At 11:00 the divers were all announced as they entered at the far side of the arena. There would be eight pairs of divers competing today: Australia, Canada, Ukraine, Mexico, Germany, Great Britian, China and France. The team from France received thunderous cheers, and the team from Mexico had quite a few fans in the stands as well. Team GB and Tom Daley fans were everywhere, enthusiastically cheering him and his diving partner on today.

Each pair of divers would be performing six different dives throughout the event. They were all extremely talented and performed quite well. Mom and I had our own running commentary throughout the diving, commenting on the divers who performed perfectly and also noting those who unfortunately were less synchronized.

The Chinese team came out strong in the first dive and their performance continued to excel throughout the event. Britain and Canada were both diving extremely well too and the scoring kept the rankings neck and neck – they were tied during the first two dives! I kept hoping that the Chinese divers would make some error so that Britain would overtake them, but that hope proved fruitless.

Each team of divers went through their dives in quick succession: no sooner had one team completed their dive than the next team was preparing on the platform. The entire event lasted just over an hour and it was exhilarating the entire time. The Mexican divers did a very good job and came in fourth, just behind Team Canada, who claimed the bronze medal. Team GB performed strong and won the silver, but no one could overtake the Chinese, who won gold.

Once the diving itself was over, we remained in our seats while the medal ceremony was prepared. The platforms where the athletes receive their medals were brought out and setup at the far end of the arena, while the flags were carried in by members of the French military. The entire setup process took about 20 minutes and then the ceremony began. It was a lot of fun to see the three teams get awarded their medals. Tom Daley had now won all types of Olympic medals during his career: bronze, silver, and gold. Once the Chinese anthem had played and the ceremony ended, the winning athletes posed for several photos before heading over to the press area for interviews.

My parents and I made our way back to the RER metro station to head back from the aquatic center. We had to change trains twice during our journey to reach the area known as La Villette, where many of the hospitality houses were located. I had prebooked our tickets to Canada House prior to leaving on the trip and I had high expectations for today’s experience.

Canada House was located inside the Museum of Science and Industry, which was closed during the Olympics. Entry to the event space was much quicker than when we had visited Korea House the day before. Inside were several stations selling drinks, including Moulson’s beer from Canada, which I eagerly ordered. It was nice to have a proper beer after the non-alcoholic version that was being sold at all of the venues.

The entire place was decked out in Red, with a large store on the lower level selling Team Canada merchandise (all of it woefully overpriced). Two outdoor patios flanked either side of the store, the largest of which had a stall setup to sell food. The three of us ordered something to eat for lunch (I had the poutine!) and we grabbed seats at one of the nearby picnic tables to eat and relax.

Several TVs were setup to showing Olympic coverage broadcast from Canada. As with the French coverage, the Canadian version focused on their athletes and I enjoyed getting to see yet another side of the Olympics. Next to the patio was an indoor seating area where visitors could watch events on the largest of the televisions. There was also a small stage where announcers would come out to talk about various Canadian athletes, the medals they had won, and interview some of the athletes representing Canada this year. As we ate our lunch two fencers were being interviewed – they had recently competed in their respective fencing disciplines.

My mom and dad were content to spend the afternoon relaxing at Canada House, so we spent several hours there watching the various events on TV and enjoying the down time. Quite unexpectedly, the divers who we had just watched win bronze at the synchronized diving in the morning visited Canada House while we were there! They had come to visit family, friends and other Team Canada supporters as well. They were each wearing their bronze medals around their necks too! It was thrilling to see them up close and to get a really good view of the Olympic medals. All of the medal at these Olympics had a small piece of the Eiffel Tower embedded in the front of them and I could clearly see it on their bronze medals.

While the divers were being interviewed by the media, we had to take our leave to head to our next event. We walked back over to the metro station, passing by several other hospitality houses along the way. It was unfortunate that we didn’t have sufficient time to visit more of them because several looked quite lively. I suggested that we swing by the Olympic cauldron so Todd could see it himself.

The crowd around the cauldron wasn’t too huge this afternoon which afforded us some good views over the gardens with the balloon and cauldron. We then walked over to Place de la Concorde in search of some water for us to drink. Todd sat down on a bench at the Pont Alexander III while mom and I went around to find some place selling water. Our search was fruitless, which was frustrating. I also wanted to try and go to the Olympic store to buy the jersey shirt, but the queue to get in was far too long for us to wait.

Our event this evening was in the southern part of Paris, so we hopped on the metro for the short journey to the venue. As we were walking to the entrance, we all wanted to find somewhere to get a drink. There was a small Vietnamese place called Banh Mi Hanoi nearby and we ended up stopping there for lack of anywhere else for a quick drink. I ordered a Vietnamese coffee, and my parents had juices. The staff all spoke Vietnamese, and I tried to use my very basic Vietnamese to speak to them, but they didn’t seem to care. The coffee was good though – very close to what I have back home in Hanoi.

Tonight’s venue was indoor and we were all excited to feel a gust of air conditioned air as we entered the stadium. The venue itself resembled a large warehouse more than a sports arena, with makeshift stands constructed to one side and various food stalls scattered about the rest of the space. We searched around for something to eat and I settled on getting some pizza, while my parents had sandwiches (they’d wanted salads, but they were sold out). The sandwiches turned out to not be very good and we stumbled across another food stall with proper deli sandwiches!

Event 04: Volleyball (women’s) – France vs. Serbia

The indoor volleyball game began at 21:00 with France facing off against Serbia. We had been allocated seats in the “Fan Section” for Team France, which included a lot of free swag for spectators: French flags to wave and cardboard signs with the French flag on it that could be folded up into fans. The seats in the temporary bleachers felt rather unstable, swaying around as fans cheered throughout the game. The seats themselves continued the uncomfortable trend of other venues: they were very shallow and narrow.

The match itself was very exciting and we joined in with the French fans to cheer on Team France. Everyone routinely chanted “Allez Les Bleus!” to cheer the players. Both teams started out evenly matched, both winning points back and forth. Serbia pulled ahead and won the first two sets of the match, making it seem like they would dominate and crush France. However, France came back strong and won the third set handily. In the even though, Serbia played hard and eked out the win in the end. It was a far more exciting and enjoyable event than I had anticipated.

When my parents and I reached the metro, the queue for the train was quite long, requiring us to wait a bit for a train with available space. Once on the train, it was incredibly hot inside and I eventually had us exit the train one station early to get some relief from the stuffiness. We walked back to the hotel from the Bastille station, reaching the hotel around 23:45 – just in time to get ready for bed.

Today stepped up our experience at the Olympics, with two events and a full day of things planned in-between. This was going to be our routine for the remainder of the Olympics and, while it was exhausting, it was also quite a bit of fun!