Paris 2024 Olympics 06: Swimming & Archery (again)

Thursday, August 1, 2024

This morning my parents once again had breakfast at the hotel before we left for the day. Today’s schedule was the same as the previous day: swimming, followed by archery, so we knew the route that we needed to take to reach the venues.

After taking the train back out to La Defense Arena, we made our way through the by now familiar security screening. Our seats for today’s swimming were in Category A, which is the most expensive and considered the best in the venue. We didn’t have to climb up the long staircases this time, thankfully, since the seats were in the first level. When we entered the swimming area, we discovered that, while we were in the lower section, we were located at the far end of the pool. This didn’t provide us with as good a view as our seats from yesterday since we couldn’t properly see the entire pool. However, we were located near the starting point for the swimming, which allowed us to see the swimmers better.

Before the event began, the Olympic mascot Phryge made an appearance near our section of the stands, posing for photos with spectators. I decided to head down to take a photo with Phryge, while my parents remained at our seats. The queue for photos moved quickly and an Olympic volunteer was there to snap photos for those of us who had queued. It was a bit of silly fun, but the photos turned out quite well!

Event 09: Swimming

Today’s swimming had a wider selection of swimming events for us to watch: women’s 200m backstroke, men’s 50m freestyle, men’s 200m medley, and women’s 4x200m freestyle relay.

At 11:00 the first of four women’s 200m backstroke heats kicked off. The first heat had just three swimmers, representing Hong Kong, Moldova, and Mauritius. Heat Two had eight swimmers from around the world (Canada, Great Britian, Spain, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Australia, and Israel). The third heat had an American, along with others from China, Italy, Canada, Poland, Portugal, Israel, and an AIN (Athlete Independent Neutral – which is what athletes from Russia were competing under due to the ongoing war in Ukraine). The final heat consisted of swimmers from the USA, France, Great Britain, Spain, South Korea, and Hungary. The big start of this final heat was Kaylee McKeown from Australia, who currently holds both the world record and Olympic record in the 200m backstroke.

Each heat lasted just over two minutes as the swimmers raced down the pool and back again. The longest performance was 2:18 by the athlete from Mauritius, while the fastest was by the Chinese swimmer. The 16 fastest swimmers from these four heats would move on to the semifinal round. Kaylee McKeown qualified, as expected, as did two swimmers from the USA.

Up next was the men’s 50m freestyle, which required them to swim just one length of the pool. Since these heats would be quite quick, there were a total of ten different heats scheduled for today. During the 50m freestyle we saw an even wider array of nations being represented! The first heat had just three swimmers from Guinea-Bissau, Niger, and the Central African Republic. In the second heat we saw representatives from the Marshall Islands, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Saint Kitts, and Timor Leste. These heats would typically not be aired during the Olympic coverage in the United States since that understandably focuses on American athletes, so it was exciting to be able to watch all of these talented swimmers from around the world!

Each of the 50m freestyle heats was completed in less than 30 seconds, so they would over and done with very quickly. Throughout the next few heats, we saw swimmers from Burundi, Togo, Maldives, Aruba, Eritrea, and Djibouti!

In later heats, we saw many countries from Europe (France, Italy, Great Britain, Sweden, Ukraine, Norway, Croatia, and Portugal) as well as a couple Americans, Aussies and New Zealanders. At the end of the ten heats, which lasted a total of 30 minutes, the top 16 spots were primarily filled with swimmers from European and North American countries. White the swimmers from the other countries may not have qualified to move to the semifinals, they still did an amazing performance!

My parents and I were thoroughly enjoying this swimming event. The heats were flying by and we had great seats to watch at the swimmers either started or ended their races. For the 50m freestyle, the men had started at the opposite side of the pool from us, so we could watch as they made their way from the pool to the press stand nearby.

The men’s 200m individual relay was up next, which had four heats. Heat one was small, with only three swimmers from Paraguay, Seychelles, and Bolivia. Heat two increased to six swimmers from the USA, Canada, Turkey, Argentina, South Africa, and New Zealand. A seventh swimmer, from Spain, was supposed to be part of the heat, but he did not appear (DNS was noted next to him name on the scoreboard, indicating he did not start).

Heat three was the main event for the day because French swimmer Leon Marchand was swimming! He was the swimming champion of these Olympics, and he won a total of four gold and one bronze medal at the Paris games. The crowd erupted with cheers when he came out to swim – the excitement was electric! Marchand was swimming against others from Great Britain, Italy, Israel, Switzerland, Greece, and Australia. It was exciting to be able to see him competing live after watching so much coverage about him on French television each night at our hotel. Marchand finished second in his heat, a mere 0.09 seconds behind the British swimmer – still easily qualifying for the semifinal round. With our seats at the starting and ending side of the pool, we were able to watch them all grabbing their badges/passes from a nearby table as they exited the pool. Marchand waved to the cheering crowd as he walked by as well.

At the end of the four heats, the Japanese swimmer was in the first spot, with Marchand in third. The rest of the spots were filled with athletes from the USA, Grean Britain, China, Switzerland, and Italy. The 200m relay was definitely the most exciting of the swimming events we had seen, due in large part to Leon Marchand and the home crowd’s energy.
 

The final round for today was the women’s 200m freestyle relay, which was a nice change of pace from the previous rounds. This time we would be watching teams from different countries compete in the relay-style round, over the course of two separate heats. This time, only the top eight teams would move on to the finals.

Heat one was teams from the USA, Brazil, Great Britain, New Zealand, Germany, Japan, France and Turkey. All eight of the teams did a great job throughout the relay, and it was exciting to watch each new swimmer start once their teammate had completed their laps. The second heat consisted of teams from Australia, Hungary, China, Canada, Italy, Israel, the Netherlands, and Spain. Each of the heats lasted around eight minutes while all four swimmers completed their 200m swims.

Swimming concluded around 12:30 and we had to make a rushed exit so we could make our way over to archery. Unlike yesterday, we had a short break between events with no time to go anywhere else. We took the train back into the city center and made our way back to Les Invalides. Our seats for today’s archery were on the opposite side of the stands from yesterday, putting the sun to our backs which provided some relief from the heat. There wasn’t much cloud cover today, but it was nice to not have the sun glaring in our eyes.

Event 10: Archery

Archery began at 15:30 with the men’s individual 1/32 elimination rounds. First up was the Netherlands versus Israel. The Dutch archer easily won the match and we then moved onto the second match between Mexico and Turkey. The Mexican archer was very good, but the Turkish archer managed to pull ahead and with the match. Later in the day, the Dutch and Turkish archers faces off in the 1/16 elimination round, with Turkey winning that match as well. Up next was Colombia facing off against Luxembourg, with the final score 6-4 in favor of Columbia.

The next match was the true highlight of the event for me because a Vietnamese archer would be competing! I got out my flag and waved it around to show support for Vietnam – the only supporter in the stands, as far as I could tell. I made it onto the jumbotron a few times while I was waiving the flag and cheering on archer Quoc Phong Le. Before the match began I shouted cheers in Vietnamese, hoping that he might hear it and know that there was someone supporting him in the stands. His opponent was from Moldova and, unfortunately, he swept the matches: Quoc Phong Le didn’t score any points during the three sets. Nevertheless, I enthusiastically cheered for him when it was over. Later in the day, the archer from Colombia faced off against the Moldovan and won their match in the 1/16 elimination round.

The next set of archers were from Great Britain and China. It was a close match between the two of them and Great Britain pulled out the win. The final archers in the 1/32 elimination round that we watched were from Kazakhstan and France. The stands erupted in cheers for the French archer, who managed to easily win the match. The last match we watched for the day was later, when the British and French archers faced off in the 1/16 elimination round. It was an exciting match up between the two of them and France ended up winning to advance to the next round.

The women and men were taking turns throughout the event: the men would have their two matches of the 1/32 elimination round, followed by the women’s two rounds. This would then be followed by the men’s 1/16 elimination round.

The first women’s match up was between France and Australia, which France won. The next one was between Taiwan (Chinese Taipei) and Japan. Mom’s interest peaked when we heard that Japan was competing since Team Japan had become her personal favorite at the Olympics. The Japanese archer swept the match and won the first three sets to advance to the next round. Later, the French and Japanese archers faced off, with mom and I cheering on Japan (who happily won the 1/16 round).

Mom and I were both impressed with the Korean archer in the next match, who was playing against Great Britain. In fairness, we were really interested in her stylish hat since most other archers had a lack of any fashion. The archer from Korea won and advanced to the 1/16 round. I was thrilled when the next match began because there was a German archer, who would be shooting against an archer from Mexico. Team Mexico had quite a few people in the stands cheering them on, but I was happy when Team Germany won this match. When the 1/16 match began a little while later, the Korean archer swept the floor with the German to advance to the next round.

The final two women’s archery matches we saw this evening were between Korean and Puerto Rica, and Canada and Indonesia. Korea and Indonesia won their respective matches, and they would face off against one another in the 1/16 match later in the evening. We did not stay long enough to watch that round though. We had been at archery for over three hours by this point and we all felt like it was time to go. The archery from the previous day that had been postponed due to inclement weather was scheduled to take place during this event as well, meaning it would last for several hours more. A female Vietnamese archer was scheduled to compete later on, but not for at least another hour.

My dad wanted to return to the hotel to rest for the night, while I wanted to head out to see the Olympic cauldron flying in the air. Each evening the cauldron would be flown in the air like a hot air balloon, which sounded quite excited to witness. My mom was interested in going as well, so we dropped dad off at the hotel before heading over to the Louvre.

Mom and I got off the metro at the rear of the Louve and leisurely walked around the exterior of the massive palace/museum. Across the street was a beautiful old church that I had never seen before. We then made our way into one of the courtyards of the Louvre so we could better admire the stunning architecture. Mom was fascinated by the intricate detail work, along with the dozens upon dozens of statues lining the top level. When we reached the main courtyard where the glass pyramids are located, we were just in time to catch a beautiful sunset!

Still having some time before it was dark and the cauldron flew, we walked across the nearby Pont Royal to see if any of the stalls lining the Seine were open. The few that were still open weren’t selling any souvenirs that we wanted to buy, but it was still nice to wander around for a bit. We returned to the Tuileries Garden to grab a good spot to watch the cauldron.

We managed to get a good spot quite close to the fence at the edge of the gardens, giving us a perfect view of the cauldron and the balloon. We remained there for over an hour as the sun fully set, eagerly waiting for the cauldron to lift into the air. We saw several people running around inside the fenced area taking photos and we kept hoping that the balloon would lift off at any minute.

The weather had other plans for this evening though. While we waited, dark storm cloud began to blow in, we could see lightning in the distance, and the wind began picking up. It soon became obvious that the cauldron would not be flying tonight due to the weather, so we made the decision to head back to the hotel. Unfortunately, the same thought seemed to occur to the rest of the large crowd that had gathered and it was madness while people tried to head towards the metro. It began to lightly rain, which only increased the sense of urgency to get to the shelter of the metro stations. Mom and I darted through the Louvre courtyard to avoid the worst of the crowd and managed to get under cover of an entryway just as the rain began in earnest. We had both left our umbrellas back at the hotel, so we had to brave the rain and run across the street to the covered walkway that led to the closest metro stop. Mom and I were both laughing as we did our best to stay dry.

The metro station was crowded, but it didn’t take too long for us to get to our train back to Gare de Lyon. At the train station we were confronted by a torrential downpour of rain when we got off the metro. There was nothing for it but to walk in the rain and get soaked – we didn’t want to run and risk slipping or falling. After bundling up our electronics as best we could, mom and I ventured into the rain and were quickly soaked. We were thankful that the hotel was so close to the train station and, by the time we reached the room, we were dripping wet and laughing about the experience.

Dad was shocked by our appearance when we got back – he had spent the evening watching Olympic coverage on television. Mom went to take a shower before bed, while I decided to head to the café across the street for a quick beer. The rain had let up while I was changing clothes in the hotel room, so I was able to sit on the patio at the café while I enjoyed my beer, watching the Olympics on tv as well.

When I returned to the hotel room, my parents were fast asleep so I quietly got ready and went to bed myself.