(Paris) Léon Marchand paraded there bare-chested, gymnast Rebeca Andrade smiled while others danced, jumped or cried. At the Parc des Champions, a new concept for the Summer Games launched in Paris 2024, the medalists from the day before are celebrated to a sold-out crowd.
Almost every day, dozens of athletes from all nationalities and sports share the spotlight at the foot of the Eiffel Tower for a late afternoon show, a “really fun and kind of awesome new way” to celebrate, says Olympic hammer throw champion Camryn Rogers.
“I’m a big fan, I want them to do this at every Games,” enthuses the 25-year-old Canadian just after the crowd bath.
On the long black podium set up in the Trocadéro gardens, surrounded by stands that could accommodate 13,000 spectators, “I danced, I vibrated, I did a little half-cha-cha slide going up the dance floor”, with the Eiffel Tower as a backdrop, and in perspective the Montparnasse Tower topped with a giant portrait of Marchand.
PHOTO JACK GUEZ, ARCHIVES AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Camryn Rogers
After the Tokyo Games, which were deprived of spectators due to the pandemic, the public effect has been multiplied for these 2024 Olympic Games, and the free events or trials have been popular with the crowds.
On Wednesday, the Parc des Champions is playing to a sold-out crowd.
This “Parc des champions” concept is similar to “a real “walk of fame” like what was tested with the French medalists on their return from the Tokyo Games” in 2021, indicate the organizers.
The music and selfies with the crowd for those of the more than 5,000 Olympic medalists who will be coming is “a cool and really beautiful way to celebrate all the athletes and their successes and reconnect with all the people who came here to not only celebrate us, but to enjoy a sporting spectacle,” Rogers said.
“It’s crazy,” commented the American fencers, “grateful” to be performing in emblematic monuments of the capital.
On Wednesday, the three-man French basketball trio “had an absolute blast”, as Franck Seguela summed up, after the honours to the tune of the Queens, a claquade and the Marseillaise, before the Brazilian Andrade was carried like a hero on the shoulders of Australian athletes in the grand finale.
“Free and awesome”
“In Tokyo, we didn’t have an audience because of COVID-19 and we went straight back to the Athletes’ Village after competing, but here in Paris, there are a lot of people and the atmosphere is incredible. That makes the Olympics really enjoyable,” says Japanese skateboarding silver medalist Cocona Hiraki, “really happy to have been able to experience a “real Games.”
PHOTO LEAH MILLIS, REUTERS ARCHIVES
Cocona Hiraki
Fellow wrestler Ken’ichirô Fumita posed with his daughter, a “truly incredible sharing with everyone, from fans to my family members!”
To enhance the ceremony, an hour of entertainment precedes the athletes, with DJs and parades by great choreographers, including Angelin Preljocaj and Mourad Merzouki.
“We only waited 40 minutes, it’s free, and it was great: Mourad Merzouki, it was magical as always, and these people who are in unison, all nationalities in front of athletes from all countries, it’s really beautiful, and the athletes play the game,” assures Julie Guitard, a 55-year-old spectator from Lyon.
“To offer the opportunity to experience something like this, this permanent emotion, I find it incredible both for us who come for the Games and for the Parisians who were unable to afford tickets,” notes Mathilde Lemesle, based across the Rhine and delighted to have seen the German triathletes before an evening of celebration, between light shows, broadcasts of Olympic events and dance floor in the stands.