PARIS — C’est magnifique.
Over the past two weeks the French blew away the well-worn stereotype, if it was true at all, of being aloof to downright rude.
The streets were awash with joy and celebration for Paris 2024 in what may have eclipsed Sydney 2000 as the greatest staging of Summer Olympic Games. So much so that when asked by a reporter if he thought there was anything that could have been improved upon, International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach replied in his closing press conference: “That’s not a serious question is it?”
It couldn’t have been.
These Games were near pitch perfect in expression and execution. The French didn’t get their Sidney Crosby-like golden goal like host Canada in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games — which would have been a golden hoop against the U.S. in the men’s basketball final here Saturday night — but they got just about everything else right.
“It was a love story. You could feel the enthusiasm. The French people took the Games to their hearts,” said Bach.
“It was a celebration coming from their hearts. Thousands, I would say maybe millions, of French people were on the streets of Paris and the stadia were full.”
It translated to a planetary audience, added Bach: “These Games inspired us all and were the most followed Olympic Games in history with half the world population following them via broadcast or digital.”
The finale goes today at noon. PT with the closing ceremony. It is almost guaranteed the Edith Piaf classic, Non, je ne regrette rien, will be sung at or near the end. There won’t be a dry eye in the place. Nor should the French have any regrets. From this vantage point, the $10 billion US was well spent lifting a national psyche. There will always be enough money for sewers and roads. The pre-Games critics melted away with the rain in the stunning opening ceremony.
The closing ceremony, also choreographed by opening ceremony artistic director and brilliant French theatre director Thomas Jolly, promises to be as compelling.
It will feature the traditional segment on the next Summer Olympics host city, in this case Los Angeles 2028, which will have an entirely different conceptual feel with Tom Cruise rumoured to rappel into the Stade de France or something to that effect. But Paris will be a hard act to follow, even for the City of Angels.
From triumph to heartbreak, here are 10 Canadian moments, with a bonus one thrown in, from 16 unforgettable days as the 2024 Paris Olympic Games go into the books:
CELINE: The Francophone world, in all its hues and colours, is on display everywhere you look here on the streets. The French clearly value it. So having Canadian Celine Dion singing a Piaf classic on the Eiffel Tower to close out the unique opening ceremony, which used all of Paris as a dazzling canvas, made so much sense. “Even the rain will remain in all our memories,” said Bach.
SUMMER OF SUMMER: Summer McIntosh’s four medals, including three gold in the pool, will go down in Canadian Olympic history. Island fans can see her swim in person next year at Saanich Commonwealth Place in the Canadian trials for the 2025 FINA world aquatics championships in Singapore as the sporting calendar moves on.
HAMMER TIME: Hair flowing and singlet billowing while he spun seamlessly in the circle, Ethan Katzberg of Nanaimo destroyed the field with his first throw to win gold in the men’s hammer at Stade de France and had fellow B.C. hammer-thrower Camryn Rogers of Richmond follow up with women’s gold.
4xWOW: Men’s Olympic track 4x100 relay gold for Canada in Atlanta 1996 and now Paris 2024 in such a marquee event. Throw in silver at Tokyo 2020 and bronze at Rio 2016 for good measure. Who would have expected this from a country of puck heads?
SEVENS HEAVEN: From Starlight Stadium to Stade de France, the Langford-based Canadian women’s rugby sevens team struck a vein in a seriously thrilling run to the silver medal.
ELITE EIGHT: All that training on Quamichan Lake in North Cowichan paid off as the Canadian women’s eight dug deep when it mattered most to win the silver medal and keep alive Canada’s streak of having won a rowing medal in every Olympics.
OUT OF RYAN’S SHADOW: Josh Liendo and Ilya Kharun delivered Canada’s first Olympic male swim medals since Ryan Cochrane of Victoria at London 2012.
RIP CURL INTO HISTORY: Sanoa Dempfle-Olin of Tofino became the first Canadian to surf in the Olympic Games, her named etched forever for that reason alone, on the iconic waves known as the Wall of Skulls in Teahupo’o, Tahiti.
HOOPS HORROR: Not all the Canadian memories will be happy ones at Paris 2024. The one that will sting the most over the next four years is the highly-touted, NBA-dominated men’s basketball team bouncing out in the quarter-finals against a motivated and energized French side playing in front of a frenzied home crowd. Through Steve Nash of Victoria captaining Canada to the quarter-finals at Sydney 2000, the semifinal appearances by University of Victoria stars Eli Pasquale, Gerald Kazanowski and Greg Wiltjer at Los Angeles 1984 and Billy Robinson of Chemainus at Montreal 1976, the only Canadian basketball team to make the Olympic podium remains the 1936 Berlin silver-medallist squad that included Victoria players Chuck and Art Chapman and Doug Peden.
DRONE DRAMA: Welcome back from that cave if you haven’t heard. That it might have also tarnished the Canadian women’s soccer gold medal from the Tokyo Olympics is probably the saddest part of the story.
GIRL POWER: It was the summer of women as 17 of Canada’s 27 medals heading into today were won by women, including six of the nine gold medals and five of the six silvers. The Canadian women’s cycling track pursuit team, with Victoria riders Erin Attwell and Sara Van Dam, were a legitimate threat to add to that total but were laid low by a bacterial infection at the Paris Games and were winners just to make it to the competition start line despite their physical distress.
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