Faced with the athletes they sometimes idolize, the 45,000 volunteers hired by Paris 2024 for these Games are officially required to “show reserve, discretion and neutrality” towards all participants.
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Usually, in the call room, athletes clear their minds. But on Sunday, August 4, as she was getting ready to enter the track at the Stade de France, Rénelle Lamote had to ask a volunteer to stop taking pictures of her. On Instagram, the French cross-country skier recounted this scene that occurred before her 800-meter semi-final. A confession after the fact and with a smile, because it didn’t stop the Montpellier native from securing her ticket to the final.
According to the Olympic and Paralympic Volunteering Charter, the 45,000 volunteers are required to “to show reserve, discretion, neutrality”But it is sometimes difficult for these volunteers, most of whom are sports fans, to put away their fan caps when they find themselves alongside their idols.
Those involved in Roland-Garros for the Olympic tournament were even given a warning. “Players have complained about volunteers insisting on taking pictures with them. We have been asked to be careful, the instruction is to leave the phone in the locker to avoid any temptation,” relates Melvil. Between two years of scientific preparatory class, this 18-year-old tennis fan became a ball boy again, after a first experience three years ago.
On the Philipe Chatrier and Suzanne Lenglen courts, Melvil was even able to attend Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Gaël Monfils, Andy Murray and Carlos Alcaraz. “I had to put a towel around Nadal’s neck, it was a bit scary,” he confides, still stunned days after the end of his mission.
“There is a sense of wonder when we hold the umbrella for them and when they thank us at the end, a bond is created.”
Melvil, volunteer in Paris 2024to franceinfo: sport
“It’s difficult emotionally to contain yourself. You have to stay neutral, serve the player,” even if, in front of him, Andy Murray says goodbye to tennis or that Rafael Nadal exits the Olympic singles tournament in the second round. Melvil evokes a “dilemma” shared between volunteers: “A part of us, the fan, would like to take a photo with a player but the other part, the volunteer, has to take control, telling ourselves that we have to leave him alone.”
At the entrance gate to the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome track, Florent sees the cyclists taking part in the Olympic events parade before him.C‘is dur. We can’t even take out our phones to create memories.” This 25-year-old cycling enthusiast has to be content with “of“n smile”. A consolation that “already delights our fan hearts.”
“We have to set an example, everyone is looking at us, we can’t mess up our mission for a souvenir photo!”
Florent, volunteer at track cycling eventsto franceinfo: sport
Instructions were given to volunteers during online training in recent months and repeated during daily briefings. In cycling, Florent even received “the order not to speak to athletes”only for coaches. “The goal for us is to blend into the background, to be as invisible as possible,” sums up Melvil. That’s the theory.
In practice, Auréline, a 20-year-old from Nantes, had to reframe a volunteer during the opening ceremony. With other volunteers, the STAPS student had to guide athletes “tired and soaked” towards their buses at the end of the show. Seeing these athletes arrive, a volunteer thirty years his senior becomes “mad”ready to do anything for “to have photos, flags. He would even tap the athletes on the shoulder to ask them for them.” “We’re not here for a signing session,” explains this conscientious volunteer.
The guidelines remain vague and unevenly applied, depending on the sites and the zeal of superiors. Luc, 61, has had bitter experience of this. This RATP employee is involved in wrestling, of which he is a former practitioner at a good level. At the Arena Champ-de-Mars, he had no “no problem” to shoot short videos there which he then posted on social networks. “I showed a video to [Mijan] Lopez the Olympic champion. And an attaché from the Cuban embassy thought the film was great, I sent it to him.” says the Parisian.
When Luc was sent for the day to an athletics training site on Saturday, August 3, he was delighted: exactly what he had hoped for when he became a volunteer: to witness what he would never have “never got to see as a spectator”. He then starts filming until a chef intervenes: “He told me it was forbidden, that no one had dared, that I had to stop immediately.” If the matter is brought back to light, Luc will not be subject to any sanctions, just like the volunteers Florent met at the Vélodrome, “totally absorbed by the event, who took photos as each runner passed by.”
It seems difficult for Paris 2024 to sanction these volunteers, on whom the organization counts so much. If the withdrawal of accreditation hangs over heads, reminders of the rules have been enough to calm the most fiery, who have been patient ever since.
Because one sentence keeps coming back: “It’s a question of timing.” “You have to feel when you can ask for a photo“, they say. Avoid doing it before an entry into the competition, after an injury or an elimination. Never ask, but wait for the athletes to propose themselves, which they often end up doing. : Auréline and Melvil received flags and pins. Anatole, 22, was even invited by the American basketball team to participate in their warm-up before the quarter against Brazil.
“You have to push it back and come back as a fan later” concludes Florent, smiling. Besides, he apologizes for ending the conversation: it’s not so much that he has to return to his mission, but that he would like to take advantage of being at the Vélodrome to attend a final, which is about to begin.