Merci Paris Part 1 – Olympics Review

What a glorious summer of sport this is proving to be. I don’t usually watch or write about a lot of sport, but the Olympics and Paralympics are one of those things I make an exception for, because they’re such massive and special events that I get sucked into very easily.

After the very quiet and stripped back events that had to be held in Tokyo in 2021, the first post-pandemic Olympics in Paris brought back the traditional atmosphere of excitement and drama that everyone loves about the Games, as we watched lots of incredible feats of speed, strength, coordination and agility in a wide variety of sports. It made such an enormous difference having the crowds back again to cheer on the athletes, for whom there was gender parity for the first time, with 5,250 men and 5,250 women competing. It’s not yet equal for the Paralympians though, so there’s still work to do there, and I’ll also be posting a review of those Games next month of course.

Once again Team GB have done very well, with a similar number of total medals to the last few Games. Not as many golds, sure, but some of the silver results have been very close indeed. The competition has certainly been stronger this year, and indeed there have been some notable stars from other nations who caught my attention as well.

So here I’m going to review a lot of my favourite highlights from the last couple of weeks, mainly related to the British team but with a few other people mixed in. I’m not affiliated with anyone involved, it’s just nice to relive the memories, and I hope you enjoy looking through it all too!

Contents

BBC Coverage

The BBC had limited coverage of the Olympics again this year, only able to show 2 live streams at once (1 on TV and 1 via digital services), as Discovery+ have been awarded most of the rights until at least 2032. So they had to make difficult decisions about what to show, just as they had to in Tokyo 3 years ago.

They did their best to squeeze in a lot of the action though, filling their TV and radio schedules every day, recapping on earlier events during the evening broadcasts, and posting frequent updates including video highlights on their website, Youtube and social media throughout each day. And for me that was enough to be getting on with. I really liked their animated title sequence as well.

It would have been much better to see more of the big results live as they happened of course, and there were times where the BBC had a bit too much studio chatter, or cut away just before something I really wanted to see, or brief moments where they ended up showing the same event on both streams at once. But they did keep you up to date on all of the important things that were happening, even if they couldn’t show it all live, and I couldn’t see everything live when I was busy working during the daytime anyway. So I was able to watch all of the events and results I was interested in, even if it had to be via catchup sometimes.

I did have access to the 9 Eurosport streams via my existing Virgin Media package as well, but they were a bit confusing, as the listings in the on-screen programme didn’t always match the sports they were actually showing, the 7 pop-up channels were in completely separate positions to the 2 main ones, and they didn’t have a central channel keeping you up to date across the board like the BBC did. They do have lots of clips on Youtube though.

I also really like the presenters and commentators on the BBC, especially as I’ve got so used to hearing them over the years, as they’re very knowledgeable and enthusiastic, and often former Olympians themselves, so they’re able to give useful insights and explanations to put things into context. Clare Balding was wonderful and very professional as always, for example, and will also be one of the presenters during Channel 4’s Paralympics coverage. And it was the final athletics event with the BBC for Denise Lewis after 15 years, as she’s moving on to be the new President of UK Athletics, where she’ll be a fantastic ambassador for the sport, so they gave her a special farewell.

So while the restrictions on the BBC meant the level of coverage could sometimes be frustrating when there was lots going on at once, I still felt they were informative and accessible, and I didn’t miss anything important that I really wanted to see.

Opening Ceremony

The Opening Ceremony was directed by the cheerfully named Thomas Jolly, who also did the Closing Ceremony as well. And it was an extremely ambitious affair, taking place outside of a stadium environment for the first time in Olympic history. It made extensive use of the River Seine, with the athletes being paraded in boats, interspersed at regular intervals by a variety of performers who were on the riverbank, in nearby buildings or in vessels of their own on the water.

The final formalities then took place in front of the Eiffel Tower, naturally – which the BBC and other broadcasters had a perfect view of from their studios for the duration of the Games.

The ceremony was certainly admirable in terms of its scale and organisation, and also the security that must have been in place, especially given the earlier arson attacks on the railway and the general political unrest in the country. And amongst the various performers we had the triumphant return of Celine Dion following her diagnosis with Stiff Person Syndrome. I’m not a fan of her music, but I’m still pleased for her after the struggles she’s been through.

Lady Gaga was the other big headline act, while there was also a duet of John Lennon’s Imagine on the river by pianist Sofiane Pamart and singer Juliette Armanet, and a heavy metal band played high up on the historic Conciergerie building, evoking memories of Brian May on the roof of Buckingham Palace.

There was also a banquet sequence featuring drag artists, which was a direct reference to Greek gods, but it caused controversy online when some people chose to interpret it as mocking Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper painting instead. I don’t think it looked anything like that from what I saw, and I’m willing to bet a lot of those who complained never actually watched it and are just going by carefully chosen or modified photos or other posts on social media that tell them what conclusion to reach, as is commonplace on social media nowadays. It’s the same type of phenomenon that has led to our own troubles in the UK these past few weeks. Still, the organisers decided it was best to apologise for any inadvertent offence they had caused, and a DJ who took part made a complaint over the online abuse she received.

There were various other acts as well, I’m not going to list them all. But for me it just lacked the atmosphere and pace that really brings an opening ceremony to life and makes it feel special, because it was so spread out. Maybe if you were actually there it was a different matter, but as a viewer at home, it rather dragged at times and felt rather odd in places.

Without the acoustic containment of a stadium, you couldn’t hear the crowds much, so it didn’t have that exciting live feel. Plus it was pouring with rain, which didn’t deter the public it seemed, but you could constantly hear it in the background on TV, and it looked awful for the participants and audience members to endure (although our British Prime Minister Keir Starmer made a savvy move by going viral for wearing a Team GB cagoule). And because of the long distances involved on the river, big moments like the arrival of the Olympic Flag on a metallic horse (which was then erroneously flown upside down), and the final journey of the Olympic torch to the very impressive cauldron attached to a hot air balloon, took absolutely ages.

All in all, therefore, the opening ceremony was a mixed affair. It was admirable in scale and complexity and contained some nice performances, but it feels like a lesson as to why stadiums are a better venue for a big occasion like this, where the various acts and the important set piece moments can happen at a quicker pace and have a much greater impact. Or maybe I’m just biased, given that I’m still a huge fan of the London 2012 Opening Ceremony, which seems unbeatable to me.

Diving

Bronze for Yasmin Harper & Scarlett Mew Jensen in the Women’s Synchronised 3m Springboard

Yasmin and Scarlett won our first medal on the first day, marking the first time in 20 years that Team GB had won a medal in any sport on the opening day of the Games. It was also our first ever female synchronised diving medal, and it was also our first Olympic medal in any women’s diving event for 64 years. So there was a lot of reasons to celebrate!

Throughout the contest it looked like they were just going to miss out on a podium spot despite their performance, which was already impressive considering Scarlett had only had a month to prepare after recovering from a back fracture three months previously. But then Australian Anabelle Smith messed up her final dive when her foot slipped on the board, causing her to come off it sideways, which threw her out of sync with her partner Maddison Keene. She was devastated, and I do feel sorry for her, but it worked in Team GB’s favour.

Yasmin also competed in the individual Women’s 3m Springboard final, but came 5th in the end, while teammate Grace Reid came 10th.

Bronze for Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix & Lois Toulson in the Women’s Synchronised 10m Platform

This pair had a slightly mixed performance due to a poor third dive, but they saved their best until last to grab their medal. After the 64-year drought of women’s diving medals, thanks to Andrea and Lois we had our second in the space of five days.

Andrea also competed in the Individual 10m Platform final later in the Games, hoping to become the first British woman to win 2 Olympic diving medals, but ultimately came 6th. She was still proud to have made it to the Olympics though, given her mental health struggles in recent years.

Silver for Tom Daley & Noah Williams in the Men’s Synchronised 10m Platform

Tom and Noah put on a stunning display, which earned Tom his 5th Olympic medal, and the first for Noah. They hadn’t had long to train together, as Tom lives in Los Angeles, but they clearly made the most of the time they did have, as it paid off superbly. I love how excited the commentators got as well, and also the fact that Tom Daley had been happily knitting while in the crowd watching the women’s events, later revealing that he had been making a sweater.

It was great to see Tom back, as he’d originally retired after the Tokyo Olympics and didn’t compete for two years, but he made a comeback after his son Robbie said he wanted to see his “Papa” dive at the Games, which is really sweet. So that wish was granted this year, as Tom’s husband and two children were in Paris to cheer him on. And of course Tom’s late father Rob, who died of cancer in 2011, was also there in spirit.

Noah also suffered a tough loss of his own more recently, when his coach Dave Jenkins died at the age of just 31 after the Tokyo Games in 2021, so he was understandably very emotional after winning his first medal in Paris. Tom was extremely supportive of him too, he’s such a nice guy. So they made a perfect pairing.

Following the conclusion of the Games, Tom has just announced his actual retirement from diving, 16 years after he first appeared at the Olympics. He feels very proud of everything he’s achieved in his career, as he should, and I hope he has a wonderful time whatever he ends up doing next. We’ll miss seeing him in action. Maybe he’ll appear as a pundit on TV at future games, who knows?

Bronze for Jack Laugher & Anthony Harding in the Men’s Synchronised 3m Springboard

Considering these guys have only been paired up for 3 years, they had already come into these Games with European, Commonwealth and World medals, and now they have an Olympic one to complete the set. For Jack it’s the 4th Olympic medal of his career, while for Anthony it’s his first, on his Olympic debut. Having saved their most difficult dives for last, and performing them well, they were absolutely delighted when they discovered they were guaranteed a medal.

Bronze for Noah Williams in the Men’s 10m Platform

After an already great run of 5 dives up to that point, Noah spectacularly nailed the forward 4½ somersaults in tuck for his final display – the same dive that he and Tom had won their silver medal with earlier in the Games – to more joyful outbursts from the commentators and hearty applause from his coach and the audience.

As well as earning him his second Olympic medal, It made him only the 4th British person in history to win bronze at this event. It also meant that Team GB had won 5 medals in the diving pool in total, our best ever result, placing us second in the diving medal table.

Swimming

Silver for Adam Peaty in the Men’s 100m Breaststroke

This was very close, as Adam only missed out on the gold by 0.02 seconds, which would have made him only the second man after Michael Phelps to win the same swimming event at 3 consecutive Olympics. Still, it gave Adam his 6th Olympic medal of his career, which isn’t to be sniffed at.

Unfortunately he then came down with Covid the following day, resulting in uncertainty as to whether he would take part in any more events. But he did return to the pool 5 days later and helped Team GB to qualify for the Men’s 4x100m Medley Relay Final, in which we just missed out on a medal by coming 4th.

Gold for Team GB in the Men’s 4x200m Freestyle Relay

This marks the first time that any British relay team, on the track or in the pool, has ever successfully defended an Olympic title. It was a perfectly executed performance to add another Olympic title to the one that the same quartet (Matt Richards, James Guy, Tom Dean & Duncan Scott) had secured in Tokyo. Gold medals for our male swimmers are also very rare – this is only the 8th won by GB’s men since 1912 (in 1976, 1980, 1988, 2016, 3 in 2020 and now this). So it really is a significant achievement.

Silver for Matt Richards in the Men’s 200m Freestyle

It was incredibly tight between the top four at the end of this exciting race, all of them touching the wall within the space of 0.15 seconds, and Matt was just 0.02 seconds off the gold medal.

His teammate Duncan Scott just narrowly missed out on a medal in 4th, much to his disappointment, as he had been hoping to match Sir Chris Hoy’s tally of 7 Olympic medals, the most ever won by a Scottish Olympian.

Silver for Ben Proud in the Men’s 50m Freestyle

After gold medals in the World, European and Commonwealth championships, Ben was keen to add a long-awaited Olympic medal to his collection and finally did it this time. He was only 0.05 seconds off the gold in fact, so he was very close!

4 Golds for France’s Léon Marchand

Léon is France’s golden boy of these Games, because he gave a spectacular performance in the pool for an ecstatic home crowd. He certainly had the foundations to do well, as his parents were Olympic swimmers and he has the same coach as the magnificent Michael Phelps. But even Michael wasn’t brave enough to try and win 2 events in one night, whereas Léon was, despite being advised against it by Michael and others – and he who dared won!

After coming first in the Men’s 400m Individual Medley earlier in the week, he was then victorious in both the Men’s 200m Butterfly & 200m Breaststroke in the same evening session, making him the first person ever to complete the double for those two events. He also became the first swimmer to win two individual golds in one night at the Olympics since 1976.

And then 2 days later he won the Men’s 200m Medley as well, beating Team GB member Duncan Scott into silver medal position. That, incidentally, was Duncan’s 8th Olympic medal of his career (including the gold he won in the relay earlier in Paris), the most for any Scotsman at the Games, so that’s noteworthy as well. It was also GB’s fifth and final medal in the pool, and that’s a respectable number.

Anyway, the atmosphere was truly electric in the venue, for all the swimmers in general but especially for Léon, as the crowd absolutely adored him, cheering madly during his races to help push him to the finish. It was particularly amusing when he did the breaststroke, because they chanted “Allez!” (French for “Let’s go!”) every time his head came out of the water! I’ve never seen a race with that kind of audience involvement before, which made it all the more thrilling. And of course everybody belted out the French national anthem at the top of their lungs every time he stood on top of the podium.

Silver for Kate Shortman & Izzy Thorpe in Artistic Swimming

Getting adequate funding has been a big issue for this sport, particularly after Kate and Izzy came 14th in Tokyo. But they persevered, doing whatever it took to keep their training going, even if it meant using a community swimming pool and taking on occasional coaching jobs. It’s been a long, hard journey for them.

And thanks to their determination – along with the support of their mothers who used to do the sport as a pair as well – they’ve now made history, by winning Great Britain’s first ever medal in Artistic Swimming!

This is where they do an elaborate dance routine in the water that has to be well executed and in perfect synchronicity with one another, and in time with the music, and their display was beautiful. The look of absolute shock on their faces followed by an outpouring of delightful tears when the marks came through, and the emotional interview they gave to the BBC afterwards, really showed how much it meant to them.

Canoe Slalom

Bronze for Kimberley Woods in the Women’s Kayak Single (K1)

It’s always impressive to watch the kayakers navigating the choppy waters on the course, having to get through the gates and make tight turns with pinpoint precision. So Kimberley was overjoyed after doing so well, and hopes this will help to inspire others after her well publicised struggles with her mental health. Meanwhile Joseph Clarke came fourth in the men’s final.

Silver for Adam Burgess in the Men’s Canoe Singles

This was also an exciting display of skill as Adam navigated the slalom course. He had missed out on the podium in Tokyo by a tiny margin, so was determined to do better this time, and he did so. Our World Champion Mallory Franklin, however, sadly had an off-day, and couldn’t get a medal after her silver in Tokyo.

Silver for Joe Clarke & Bronze for Kimberley Woods in Kayak Cross

Kayak Cross is a new event for these Olympics that sees 4 riders going down the course all at once. And it’s not simply a case of getting to the end first, because they have to pass through 8 gates along the way, two of which are upstream, and there’s also a zone where they have to do a 360-degree eskimo roll. So it gets pretty manic and exciting as the paddlers jostle for position, which can lead to some being pushed off course, getting caught behind the poles for the gates or even capsizing.

Kimberley is the World Champion and did very well, but was hampered at the final gate, causing her to come last. But she was upgraded to bronze medal position when the German athlete in front of her was disqualified for a fault. Then, soon after, Joe got a silver medal in the men’s event.

That marked the end of the Canoe Slalom events, in which Team GB came away with a respectable haul of 4 medals, the best they’ve ever done.

Rowing

Gold for Team GB in the Women’s Quadruple Sculls

Lauren Henry, Lola Anderson, Georgina Brayshaw and Hannah Scott won Team GB’s first ever Olympic gold in this event, after coming from behind in a thrilling race to beat the Dutch in a photo finish. Our men finished fourth in their event, which is still respectable.

Lola’s story is very sweet, as she was inspired by watching Helen Glover and Heather Stanning in the London 2012 Games to write a note in her diary saying: “My name is Lola Anderson and I think it would be my biggest dream in life to go to the Olympics in rowing and if possible win a gold for GB.” She tore it out and threw it in the bin, thinking it was a silly idea, but her father secretly retrieved it and passed it back to her seven years later, after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, urging her never to give up on her dreams. He died a couple of months later, so Lola was rowing in his memory, and has done him very proud.

Georgina has had an incredible journey as well, as she had a serious horse-riding accident 15 years ago that left her in a coma for 9 days and she was paralysed down her left side, meaning she had to go through extensive rehabilitation and physiotherapy to get back to her normal self. To recover from that and become an Olympic Champion is amazing!

Silver for Team GB in the Women’s Four

Helen Glover was aiming for the third Olympic gold of her career in this event, but our ladies were narrowly beaten by the Netherlands in a finish that was almost as close as that for the Quadruple Sculls above. Nevertheless, it was a brilliant display of rowing by Helen and her teammates Esme Booth, Samantha Redgrave (no relation to Sir Steve) and Rebecca Shorten.

Bronzes for Team GB in Men’s Four & Women’s Double Sculls

On the same day as the Women’s Four event above, there were also bronze medals for the Men’s Four (Oli Wilkes, David Ambler, Matt Aldridge & Freddie Davidson) and the Women’s Double Sculls (Mathilda Hodgkins Byrne & Becky Wilde), so we were quite busy on the water!

Gold for Emily Craig & Imogen Grant in the Women’s Lightweight Double Sculls

The current European and World Champions Emily and Imogen made this look easy, but you could tell from their faces it was anything but. They really meant business, and for them it was glorious redemption after missing out on the medals in Tokyo by just 0.01 seconds.

Silver for Oliver Wynne-Griffith & Tom George in the Men’s Pair

Oliver and Tom gave it a valiant effort, staying ahead for most of this race, but Croatia just pulled ahead in the last 20 metres to clinch the gold.

Gold & Bronze for Team GB in the Eights

Sholto Carnegie, Rory Gibbs, Morgan Bolding, Jacob Dawson, Charlie Elwes, Tom Digby, James Rudkin and Tom Ford, led by their cox Harry Brightmore, powered ahead of the Netherlands in the second half of the 2,000m Men’s Eights race for a commanding victory, and they all roared with pride on the top of the podium. It’s Team GB’s fifth medal in consecutive games for the Men’s Eights, for which they also won a gold in Rio in 2016.

Meanwhile the ladies got a well-earned bronze in their race, courtesy of Heidi Long, Rowan McKellar, Holly Dunford, Emily Ford, Lauren Irwin, Eve Stewart, Harriet Taylor and Annie Campbell-Orde with cox Henry Fieldman. It’s the second time the women have won a medal in this event, following the silver they got in Rio.

Overall Rowing Success

Altogether Team GB’s rowers won three golds, two silvers and three bronzes, which is a total of 8 medals from the 10 British crews that competed. It placed us second in the medal table behind the Netherlands.

It’s our best ever medal haul for rowing at an overseas games, and our best performance since London 2012. It’s also a considerable improvement from the last Olympics in Tokyo, which was hampered by Covid restrictions and the departures of a couple of experienced coaches, where we only won 2 medals. The team have clearly been reinvigorated since then and are back on top form again.

Gymnastics

Fourth for Team GB in the Men’s & Women’s Team Finals

Great Britain’s men (Max Whitlock, Jake Jarman, Joe Fraser, Luke Whitehouse & Harry Hepworth) and women (Alice Kinsella, Becky Downie, Abigail Martin & Ruby Evans) just missed out on the podium by coming fourth in their team finals against very tough competition, but they can still be proud of their amazing performances, as they did absolutely everything they could with barely any faults. For example, Becky’s score of 14.966 for her stunning uneven bars routine was the highest individual score in the women’s final, and our ladies only just missed out on Bronze position by 0.2 marks, it was that tight!

Indeed, the fight for the medals was intense and dramatic. China were surprisingly shaky this year, with a few falls in both the men’s and women’s events that cost them dearly, so their men were pushed into silver position by Japan, and their women ended up below the GB team. Whereas the Brazilian women, on the other hand, were delighted to get their first ever team medal at the Olympics when they picked up the bronze.

But all eyes were on the American team in the women’s event, mainly because of the return of Simone Biles, who got a rapturous reception, and they didn’t let the pressure get to them, as they blew everyone away with their exceptional displays.

USA’s Simone Biles

Simone had plenty more to do after the team finals mentioned above. She went on to be victorious in the individual All-Around and Vault finals as well.

A couple of days later she then competed in the Beam final, but uncharacteristically came off it, meaning she lost out on a podium spot. But she wasn’t alone, as half of the gymnasts came off the apparatus in that event, while several men had falls during the High Bar final soon afterwards, it was quite strange!

She did win another medal that afternoon though, having to settle for silver in the Floor final after a few imperfect landings allowed Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade to get the gold (who Simone had previously beaten in the All-Around final).

Altogether that means Simone now has 11 Olympic medals to her name, 3 of them gold, along with 30 World Championship medals, making her the world’s most decorated gymnast. It’s not yet clear if she’ll compete at her home Games in Los Angeles in 4 years time, but she’s also asked people not to keep asking athletes about what’s next so that they can “soak up the moment we’ve worked our whole lives for”, which is a fair request.

If you want to find out more about Simone’s journey back to these Games, you can watch her 4-part Netflix documentary series called Simone Biles Rising, which was released in July.

Gold for Bryony Page on Trampoline

After winning silver in Rio and bronze in Tokyo, current World Champion Bryony completed the Olympic set after nailing a spectacular final routine on the trampoline. When she found out her score, she screamed and broke down in delight, whilst being congratulated by her two coaches and the huge roar of the crowd. She later explained that she’d been so caught up in the moment that she’d forgotten there was one more person to go after her, and thus assumed she had the gold already!

So she had to calm down and wait, knowing she was guaranteed at least a silver but desperately hoping for the gold. And as it happened, the final gymnast continued China’s surprising run of bad luck by having a spectacular fall when she hit the end of the trampoline, so it was all over pretty quickly.

Bryony had won our first gymnastics gold of these Games and, moreover, our first ever trampoline gold since the event was introduced at the Sydney Games in 2000. And that made her the first British female individual Olympic Champion in gymnastics as a whole. So it’s a really big deal and she was in utter disbelief for quite a while after her victory.

But she totally deserved it, as she’s worked so hard over many years, overcoming injuries and having operations along the way. Her unwavering dedication to the sport was well worth it in the end – just as her previous focus on her university studies, including a dissertation on dinosaur noises, had earned her a first class biology degree, which is a fun bit of extra detail about her.

Bronze for Jake Jarman on Floor

Jake delivered a beautiful routine with lots of impressive and difficult tumbles, and just minor penalties for a few of the landings, to clinch third place.

Gold for Ireland’s Rhys McClenaghan on Pommel

Rhys won Ireland’s first ever gymnastics medal at the Olympics with a perfect performance on the pommel horse, adding to his previous World, European and Commonwealth titles.

The defending Olympic Champion, Max Whitlock OBE from Team GB, could only make it to 4th place, in what was his farewell event before retiring from the sport. But he was openly emotional about the fact that his daughter Willow could be there to see him take part, and he remains proud of his legacy of being Britain’s most decorated gymnast, including 3 golds and 3 bronzes at previous Olympics, 3 World Championship victories (plus 5 silvers), 4 European titles (plus 3 silvers and a bronze) and 4 golds at the Commonwealth Games (plus 4 silvers and 2 bronzes). That’s not bad at all!

Bronze for Harry Hepworth on Vault

Harry is now the first ever British man to have won a medal on the vault, thanks to a couple of stunning leaps. Every attempt is over so quickly in this event, but it’s amazing how much each gymnast packs into their brief flights through the air before somehow landing on their feet. He also has a condition called Legg–Calvé–Perthes disease, which affects the hip joint and means one leg is 4cm shorter than the other, but it hasn’t stopped him doing this, and he thinks it helps him with his twisting skills.

Jake Jarman, the reigning World and European Champion, came 4th. But Harry and Jake had already made history by becoming the first British men to qualify for the vault final, so to come 3rd and 4th is fantastic.

Equestrian

Charlotte Dujardin’s Withdrawal

Our equestrian team’s entry to these Games was overshadowed by the video that emerged of Charlotte Dujardin cruelly whipping a horse, which forced her to withdraw from the Olympics and has destroyed her successful career, while also fuelling calls for equestrian sports to be banned.

Charlotte has apologised and expressed shame for her actions, but it’s hard to accept that it was an “error of judgement” and an isolated “out of character” incident, because it doesn’t seem to make sense. You can’t just do something like that by accident, and if she truly loved those animals it would surely never have crossed her mind to do that in the first place. But in any case, she has a lot of explaining to do during the investigations that are taking place. As does the person who was filming it and laughing, it must be said, they’re also complicit in this.

Still, despite Charlotte’s absence from Paris, Team GB didn’t let the additional pressure get to them and were very successful, which was quite a relief for them I’m sure.

Gold for Team GB in Team Eventing

The British team (Laura Collett, Tom McEwen & the appropriately named Ros Canter) retained their Olympic title to give us our first gold in any sport at the 2024 Games, and that was despite an unfair jumping penalty of 15 incurred by Ros during the cross country section.

Bronze for Laura Collett in Individual Jumping

Laura, who had set an Olympic record in the dressage section of the team event above, went on to earn this extra medal of her own later that same day on her horse London 52.

Gold for Team GB in Team Jumping

Ben Maher, Harry Charles and Scott Brash won our first gold in team jumping since London 2012 with a near-perfect score, just picking up two small time penalties. It’s always quite tense watching them go over the different fences and it’s not an easy course to do in the time available, so to consistently have clear runs is no mean feat.

Ben and Scott also competed in the Individual Showjumping, but they weren’t able to get through to the jump-off final to compete for a medal, as they both hit the same fence early on in their round, whereas other riders had clear runs. Harry was also going to compete, but had to pull out as his horse was injured.

Bronze for Team GB in Team Dressage

This is a fascinating discipline, as those beautiful horses bounce, dance and walk in a variety of ways, because it’s hard to imagine how you can train a horse to do all of that, and I know it takes a very long time. So for our team – Carl Hester, Lottie Fry and Becky Moody (making her Olympic debut as the replacement for Charlotte Dujardin) – to come away with the bronze is very respectable. Team GB have now won medals at this event in four consecutive Games, including gold in London 2012.

Bronze for Lottie Fry in Individual Dressage

With strong competition from the two Germans who surpassed her, Lottie gave a beautiful display on her stallion Glamourdale to win the third Olympic medal of her career. I like the mix of music she used as well, including a brief cover of Another One Bites The Dust by Queen.

Skateboarding

Bronze for Sky Brown in the Women’s Final

Despite dislocating her shoulder the previous week, and clearly still in some pain on the day of the final, 16-year-old Sky – yes, just sixteen – gave a thrilling run with some cool tricks to secure a bronze medal. It matched her result from Tokyo 3 years ago when she became Team GB’s youngest medal winner. She had actually attempted to qualify for the surfing at these Games, but when that didn’t work out she returned to the skatepark.

Her teammate Lola Tambling from Cornwall, also 16, didn’t make the final, but thoroughly enjoyed the experience of her first Olympics and showed a lot of potential. So she’ll be one to look out for at the Los Angeles Games in 4 years time, as she’s keen to carry on and has the right attitude for it.

Andy Macdonald in the Men’s Event

For the men, Team GB were represented by 51-year-old Andy Macdonald, the oldest ever skateboarder at the Games. He’s actually from the USA but was able to represent the UK thanks to his father, who was born in Luton. He didn’t make it through to the final, sadly, but loved experiencing the atmosphere anyway. And he is highly decorated already, with a record-breaking 22 medals from the X Games, 8 of them gold, and 8 World Cup Skateboarding victories. So it’s fair to say he’s a legend in the sport.

Tennis

Andy Murray & Dan Evans in the Men’s Doubles

This was Andy Murray’s last event before his retirement, and he was partnered with Dan Evans for the Men’s Doubles competition, as he wasn’t playing in the singles.

It got off to a fantastic start when they won the first round in style, after an incredible comeback in a tiebreak set where they saved 5 match points in a row! And then 2 days later they did it again by winning the second round after saving 2 match points, earning them a spot in the quarter final. They were absolutely over the moon and full of emotion after both wins, it was wonderful to see.

Unfortunately they didn’t get any further, as they were beaten in straight sets by an American pair in the quarter final. But it was still a very respectable result for them, and a very emotional Andy was cheered with love and admiration by the crowd before he left. He’s achieved a huge amount in his tennis career, including two Olympic gold medals, which he’s rightly proud of, and his fans will miss him. He also has a delightfully dry sense of humour, tweeting afterwards: “Never even liked tennis anyway.”

Triathlons

Gold for Alex Yee in the Men’s Triathlon

Following delays due to concerns about the water quality, the triathlons finally took place on Day 5. And towards the end of the men’s race, Alex was up to 15 seconds behind New Zealand’s Hayden Wilde, only to then push through in the exciting final moments to clinch the victory, which surprised everyone, including the commentators. Hayden then sat down and put a congratulatory arm around Alex, showing the sportsmanship that lies at the heart of the Games.

Bronze for Beth Potter in the Women’s Triathlon

Beth’s bronze in the women’s race was also a remarkable achievement. Seeing the Brownlee brothers competing together in 2016 had inspired her to get involved with the sport and she’s made a name for herself ever since, getting the World title last year.

Bronze for Team GB in the Mixed Team Relay Triathlon

Alex Yee and Beth Potter were back in action again here, alongside Georgia Taylor-Brown and Samuel Dickinson, for what proved to be an extremely close contest, with Team GB starting as the defending champions.

Each athlete had to do a 300m swim, a 7km cycle and a 1.8km run. And we were leading by 5 seconds as our final triathlete, Beth, got underway, until she was overtaken by Laura Lindemann from Germany and Taylor Knibb from the USA during the cycle section.

However, Beth fought back so strongly that she crossed the line at the same time as Taylor and was initially awarded silver. But a closer review of the photo finish by the judges showed that Taylor had just pipped her to the line by the tiniest of margins!

Outdoor Cycling

Gold for Tom Pidcock in the Mountain Biking

Despite suffering a puncture on the fourth lap, which allowed Frenchman Victor Koretzky to take pole position and gain a lead of over 50 seconds, Tom fought back and pulled off an incredibly tight pass amongst the trees near the end to retain his title.

Silver for Anna Henderson in the Women’s Road Cycling Time Trial

The heavy rain made the course very treacherous and some people did fall over. But us Brits are used to rain, so Anna was able to battle through it for a well-earned medal. In the men’s race, Josh Tarling suffered a puncture so was only able to come fourth in the end.

Silver for Kieran Reilly in the Men’s BMX Freestyle

While Charlotte Worthington sadly failed to qualify for her final this year after her incredible success in Tokyo, her male teammate Kieran put on a phenomenal display of tricks in his event to secure second place.

Track Cycling

Gold for Team GB in the Women’s Team Sprint

Great Britain wasted no time making their mark to pick up the first gold medal on offer in the velodrome, when Emma Finucane, Sophie Capewell and Katy Marchant flew around the track in the Women’s Team Sprint, setting new world records 3 times along the way! And their stunning victory was even more special given that it’s the first time Team GB have won a medal of any kind for this specific race. The beaming smiles on their faces when they stood on the podium said it all, and the huge number of British supporters in the crowd were in fine voice during the national anthem.

Silver for Team GB in the Men’s Team Sprint

Jack Carlin, Ed Lowe and Hamish Turnbull repeated their result from Tokyo, being beaten by the Netherlands, who broke the world record to retain their title. Ed and Hamish were both making their Olympic debuts, not that you’d have guessed it from watching them all in action, as they still broke the British record, so for a relatively new team of riders they were excellent.

Silver for Team GB in the Men’s Team Pursuit

There was last-minute drama in this race, when Ethan Hayter lost control and nearly crashed on the final lap, just as Team GB seemed to be catching up with Australia. So that was unlucky, but our guys – Dan Bigham, Charlie Tanfield and Ethan Vernon, along with the other Ethan above – had a strong race otherwise, and Ollie Wood deserves credit for helping them to get through in the earlier rounds too. Their silver was also Great Britain’s 1,000th Olympic medal, counting both summer and winter Games, which is a major milestone!

Bronze for Team GB in the Women’s Team Pursuit

Our ladies were hampered by the absence of two-time Olympic Champion and five-time World Champion Katie Archibald, who broke her leg in a freak accident in her garden just a few weeks before the Games. Nevertheless Elinor Barker, Josie Knight, Anna Morris and Jess Roberts held off Italy, the European Champions, to get the bronze, thereby continuing an unbroken run of medals in the women’s event since it was introduced at London 2012.

Bronze for Emma Finucane in the Women’s Keirin

The Keirin is a strange event, which is taken very seriously in its home country of Japan, where cyclists have to follow a pacer bike at a slow but gradually increasing speed for a few laps, before the pacer moves away and it becomes a mad sprint for the title over the next 3 laps.

Emma scraped through her semi-final in a photo finish, and started in 6th place at the back of the pack in the final. But once the derny pacer bike left the track and the sprint got underway, she quickly worked her way up to second place, but was just narrowly beaten to third at the finish line, while her teammate Katy Marchant was just behind her in fourth place. Emma was perfectly happy with her result though, as she gave it her all in a tough field.

Bronze for Emma Finucane in the Women’s Sprint

The individual sprint event is much simpler, pitting two riders against each other, and Emma won her bronze medal matches in two straight rides on the final day of the Games.

It means she’s the first British woman in any sport in 60 years (since Mary Rand in 1964) to win 3 medals in a single Games. That’s pretty special for a 21-year-old taking part in her first Olympics!

Silver for Team GB in the Women’s Madison

Elinor Barker and Neah Evans worked together in this 120-lap relay-style race that involves sprints to earn points every 10 laps, plus bonus points for lapping opponents. So it gets pretty messy as the riders get spread out all around the track. Our ladies did get the most points in total out of all the nations on the sprints, but they were the only team not to get a 20-point lap, which set them back a bit. They were within the medal positions all the way through, however, and managed to hang on for silver at the end, which is very good going.

We didn’t get anywhere in the Men’s Madison, however, as we weren’t anywhere near the medal positions and then Ollie Wood was accidentally knocked down by a Dutch cyclist, which was one of several crashes affecting different countries during the rather messy race. So Ollie and his teammate Mark Stewart could only finish 10th in the end.

Bronze for Jack Carlin in the Men’s Sprint

These sprints are quite tense one-on-one races, as the two competitors track each other slowly and carefully around the track for a few laps, before launching into a sprint for the finish.

It was nearly cut short for Jack Carlin, however, who feared that he had been disqualified from the bronze medal race after accidentally swerving into his Dutch opponent Jeffrey Hoogland. But fortunately he was allowed to have a restart, and this time he managed to stay ahead to get the third spot on the podium, where he looked quite emotional.

Overall Cycling Success

Our cycling team had some very good results in Paris, and had the most medals in total (11). But with only 2 golds, our lowest number since Athens in 2004, we were fifth in the cycling medal table, ending our two-decade run of being at the top. For comparison, we’d had 8 golds in Beijing and London, and 6 in Rio and Tokyo.

But the competition is tougher than ever before, as other countries have risen to the bar we’ve laid down for them. Plus our team were hampered by Katie Archibald’s absence, along with various injuries or medical issues with other cyclists in the build-up to the Games. So when put into context, our team have actually done very well all things considered.

Athletics

Bronze for Team GB in the 4x400m Mixed Relay

The British team ran a strong race and set a new national record to come third in this event. Amber Anning, making an impressive Olympic debut, took us from third to second early on in the final leg, having been put in a great position by Samuel Reardon, Laviai Nielsen and Alex Haydock-Wilson on the previous laps. But on the home straight Femke Bol from the Netherlands overtook both Amber and the USA athlete she was chasing to snatch the gold.

Gold & Bronze for USA’s Noah Lyles in the Men’s 100m & 200m

The Men’s 100m is the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it 10-second spectacle that the athletes, coaches, pundits and fans always enjoy analysing in depth for a long time afterwards, and there was certainly plenty to pore over with this one.

American sprinter Noah Lyles has often spoken about being the new superstar of athletics to take the mantle from Usain Bolt, but you can’t talk the talk unless you can… well… run the run. And having had the slowest reaction out of the starting blocks, he wasn’t even in a medal position for most of the race. By the halfway mark he’d only moved up one position to 7th.

But then he hit his stride in the second half and powered through, catching the leader Kishane Thompson from Jamaica in the final 10 metres. And even then it took a photo finish to determine that Noah had won by a minuscule 5-thousandths of a second!

Indeed, all 8 men crossed the line in under 10 seconds for the first time, making it the fastest wind-legal race ever, with just 0.12 seconds between the first and last positions. So that’s how excitingly close it was!

Noah wasn’t at his best in the Men’s 200m, however, which allowed Letsile Tebogo from Botswana to come through for an impressive and surprising victory. Noah had to be taken off in a wheelchair after the race, and later revealed he had come down with Covid a couple of days after the 100m final, which he’d kept secret from his 200m competitors for the next few days so as not to give them too much advantage.

Gold for Keely Hodgkinson in the Women’s 800m

“Gold for Keely, gold for Great Britain, gold for being brilliant!” Commentator Steve Cram always knows how to find the right words. There was so much expectation on Keely’s shoulders going into this, as she’s been a rising star in recent years, winning an Olympic silver in Tokyo at the age of just 19, followed by 2 more silvers in the World Championships since then.

But she knew what she wanted most, and everyone knew what she was truly capable of. So having already become the fastest woman in the world this year, a full second ahead of everyone else, and with one of her key rivals out of the picture, all the pieces were in place in Paris. She was ready. All she had to do was dig deep and deliver, and she did it in style, controlling the race from the outset and winning by a clear margin. It was glorious.

It was also wonderful to see her celebrating her victory around the stadium for a while afterwards, posing with a crown she was given and ringing the victory bell that all the winners in the stadium got to do. She absolutely earned every moment of that.

Gold for Sweden’s Armand Duplantis in the Men’s Pole Vault

I know they’re strongly made, but it still seems incredible that the poles rarely snap in this event, and that the vaulters are able to fly so high into the air. And nobody soars as high as Armand, because not only did he get the gold, but he managed to break the world record yet again, for the 9th time in his career, by clearing 6.25 metres! Absolutely incredible.

Silver for Josh Kerr in the Men’s 1500m

This race was all about the battle between Josh and Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen, and Josh stuck to his opponent like glue all around the 3½ laps of the track, finally breaking away to take the lead at the end.

What they hadn’t bargained for, however, was American athlete Cole Hocker putting on a spurt and passing both of them on the inside to take the gold. Even the commentators were left stunned and speechless by it. Cole totally deserved the win though, being his first global outdoor title, it just caught everyone off guard.

For Josh it was still an improvement on Tokyo’s bronze medal and he set a new British record to boot. His Norwegian foe, however, ended up in fourth after he was passed by another American, Yared Nuguse.

Bronze for Georgia Bell in the Women’s 1500m

This was a fast race by 1500m standards, but Georgia made sure she stayed within touching distance of the leading trio ahead of her, and just had enough left in the tank to push forward into third position at the last moment with a national record time, and just 0.05 seconds off the silver. Her teammate Laura Muir, who won silver in Tokyo, wasn’t far behind, running a personal best to finish in 5th.

Georgia had been a talented junior athlete in the past, but didn’t pursue it further and ended up working in cyber security instead. During the pandemic, however, she got back into Park Runs to stay fit, rediscovered her love for the sport as a result, and hooked up with her old coach to get back into elite training again (alongside her cyber job). And look where it’s got her 3 years later! It’s marvellous.

Chaos in the Men’s 5,000m First Heat

It’s easy to forget about the heats once the final of an event comes around. But this one sticks in the memory after George Mills from Team GB fell on the home straight, taking 3 other runners down with him! George had a few choice words with France’s Hugo Hay after they eventually crossed the line, blaming him for the incident. And the race referee agreed that George had been unfairly obstructed, so allowed him to proceed to the final, along with the other 3 athletes including Hugo.

Silver for Matthew Hudson-Smith in the Men’s 400m

Matthew was trying to make history in this event, by becoming the first British man to win gold in exactly 100 years. Our previous champion was Eric Liddell, at the last Olympics in Paris in 1924, who was famously depicted in the film Chariots Of Fire.

However, despite Matthew running a really strong race, having a slight lead over the rest of the field as he entered the home straight, Quincy Hall from the USA stormed through in the closing moments to win by a mere four-hundredths of a second! You could see the understandable frustration as Matthew exclaimed the F-word afterwards.

He can still be very proud though, as between them Quincy and Matthew ran the 4th and 5th fastest times ever, which meant Matthew had beaten his European record, and he became the first British man in 26 years to make it on to the podium for this race. That’s pretty good I say!

Silver for Katarina Johnson-Thompson in the Heptathlon

Katarina, a double World Champion, has never won an Olympic medal for the heptathlon, and this was her 4th attempt at doing so, chasing the defending Champion Nafissatou Thiam from Belgium.

And KJT started well, leading after the first 2 events, when she ran a season’s best to win the 100m hurdles, and cleared 1.92m in the High Jump for the first time in five years. She then threw a big personal best in the shot put and finished first in her 200m race, to stay at the top of the leaderboard at the end of her first day.

On the second day she then got decent distances in the long jump and javelin, after which she was in second place overall. However, she would need to beat the defending two-time Olympic champion from Belgium, Nafissatou Thiam, in the 800m by more than 8.5 seconds to claim the gold, and while not impossible it was still rather a big ask. Katarina came within about 2 seconds by running a personal best though, which was enough to secure a silver medal, and after everything she’s been through over the years it’s a massive achievement of which she is quite rightly extremely proud!

Silver & Bronze for Team GB in the 4x100m Relays

Our strong female team (Dina Asher-Smith, Imani Lansiquot, Amy Hunt and Daryll Neita) were very close to the gold in their relay, but were just marginally too slow after a couple of baton handovers weren’t as smooth as they should have been. It was still a very respectable result though, our best since 1956.

Meanwhile the men (Zharnel Hughes with a strapped-up hamstring, Jeremiah Azu, Louie Hinchliffe and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake) seemed unlikely to beat the United States – only for the Americans to foul up their first changeover, slowing them right down (and ultimately seeing them disqualified), clearing the way for the British team to snatch a well-earned third place.

Bronzes for Team GB in the 4x400m Relays

Our men (Alex Haydock-Wilson, Matthew Hudson-Smith, Lewis Davey and Charlie Dobson) set a European record, while our women (Victoria Ohuruogu, Laviai Nielsen, Nicole Yeargin and Amber Anning) set a British national record, to get third place in these excellent final relays.

Overall Athletics Success

Team GB’s athletes came away with 1 gold, 4 silver and 5 bronze medals, our best result at the Olympics for 40 years. Half of those 10 medals came in the relays, where we won something in all 5 races. And it placed us 6th in the athletics medal table overall based on golds, or joint 2nd with Kenya in terms of the total medals.

Away from the stadium and the medals, it’s also worth noting that Emile Cairess, who came third in the London Marathon to qualify for Paris, finished 4th in the Men’s Marathon at these Games, which is the best result by a British man in 20 years. Not bad for his Olympic debut!

Other Team GB Medals

For completion, here are the other Team GB medallists who I haven’t talked about above, because I didn’t watch their sports closely apart from very brief highlights, yet they still deserve an honourable mention. It’s pure coincidence that there happens to be 3 of each colour left to mention!

Gold Medals

Silver Medals

  • Amber Rutter in Skeet Shooting, which was controversial during the shoot-off after she was ruled to have missed a shot, despite slow motion replays indicating otherwise.
  • Tommy Fleetwood in Golf, who had a few unfortunate setbacks on the last couple of holes to miss his chance for gold.
  • Caden Cunningham in Taekwondo, who nearly became the first British man to win gold in the sport, in what was a tight contest.

Bronze Medals

  • Emma Wilson in IQFoil Windsurfing, who was comfortably top of the standings after the preliminary races, but came third in the one-off final. She was disappointed and declared in an interview that she was “done with the sport”, but hopefully she’ll look back on it more positively with hindsight.
  • Lewis Richardson in Men’s 71kg Boxing, only just losing his semi-final thanks to a 3-2 split decision against him.
  • Emily Campbell in Women’s +81kg Weightlifting, giving us our last medal of these Games, and adding to the silver she won in Tokyo. It’s only the 9th weightlifting medal that Britain have ever won at the Olympics, and she’s the only female medallist amongst them. She also had an incredible hairdo, incorporating our flag’s red, white and blue colours plus the Olympic rings!

Final Team GB Total

Altogether Team GB won 65 medals, more than half of them won by women, across 22 out of the 48 sporting disciplines. And that’s the 4th Games in a row in which we’ve won more than 60 medals, with 65 for London 2012, 67 for Rio 2016 and 64 for Tokyo 2020 (which took place in 2021).

The number of golds has dropped in that time though (29 in London, 27 in Rio, 22 in Tokyo and now 14 in Paris), but the competition has strengthened over the years, and there are other factors that have had an impact in some sports. The fact that we got a lot of silvers and bronzes to make up the difference, often only missing out on the next highest positions by very tight margins, shows that we are still a powerful team. Plus we remain the only nation to have won a gold medal at every single summer Olympics going back to 1896, and we’ve now won over 1,000 medals across all the summer and winter Games.

So clearly there’s room for improvement, which Team GB will work hard on as they analyse all of the results in depth. But with everything taken into consideration, and speaking as an addicted viewer over the 16 days of competition, we’ve had a great Games all in all.

Closing Ceremony

The Closing Ceremony was directed by Thomas Jolly, who had also been in charge of the Opening Ceremony – although this time it took place in much better weather and in the more traditional setting of the stadium. And while it was obviously celebratory, I wouldn’t say it was amazing either. A lot of it wasn’t very memorable, some parts took a while when they didn’t need to, the formalities naturally took up quite a bit of time as well, and there were some glitches with the sound mixing during the live musical performances (which some have suggested was an echo picked up through the commentator’s mics). Thankfully we had Andrew Cotter and his dry wit alongside Hazel Irvine during the BBC commentary, just as in the Opening Ceremony, and their combination of informative and amusing remarks certainly helped to pass the time.

The party atmosphere began early on as 9,000 athletes poured into the Stade de France (including Team GB with flag bearers Alex Yee and Bryony Page) to huge acclaim from the 71,500-strong crowd. And they were all then invited to take part in some karaoke, to pad out time while the medal podium was set up for the Women’s Marathon presentation. Why they couldn’t have some big star performing live during this time I don’t know, it was a huge missed opportunity – especially as we’d already seen a live orchestra in the stadium who had played a nice adaptation of the French national anthem. They could have accompanied someone easily. Still, while a couple of the songs they had people singing along with were French tracks that I didn’t recognise, it was nice to hear Queen’s We Are The Champions at least. And the athletes were happily singing and dancing along, finally able to let their hair down after all their hard work.

The central artistic section began with a golden voyager descending from the sky to explore a deserted Earth in the distant future, and discovering where the Olympics began in Ancient Greece, with a large group of people unearthing and re-assembling the Olympic rings. While a nice idea, this was quite a long segment, and without much light or colour for a while, which felt strange for a bright and cheerful ceremony, although I get why it was like that. I also think we did the whole formation of the rings better in the London 2012 Opening Ceremony, though I am obviously biased in saying that. But you could feel the atmosphere and scale of what they were doing, there was some impressive acrobatics here and there, and we even saw a guy called Alain Roche playing a piano floating on its end in mid-air!

A French indie rock band called Phoenix then took centre stage, singing in English, and they were okay. Nothing special for me personally, but they’re clearly popular in France, as you could hear the audience singing loudly along with them at one point. They were also joined by a few guests as well, not that I’d heard of any of them either.

The biggest surprise though, and the best bit of the ceremony for me, was Tom Cruise abseiling down from the roof of the stadium for the handover to Los Angeles for their Games in 2028, taking the Olympic flag away with him on a motorbike.

From there the action switched to a pre-recorded film, soundtracked by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers song By The Way, which showed Tom flying to America and parachuting down to the Hollywood sign, where he turned the double O’s into the Olympic symbol.

He then passed the Olympic flag on to mountain biker Kate Courtney, who in turn gave it to athlete Michael Johnson in the Los Angeles Coliseum (he’s been a wonderful pundit during the BBC’s coverage of these Games) and finally skateboarder Jagger Eaton who, with a huge group of people following him, took it to a stage on the beach. There the crowd were treated to performances by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Billie Eilish, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, out of whom it’s only the Chili Peppers I really liked.

It’s nice to get a glimpse of Los Angeles in that way, but it’s a shame they didn’t do more in the Paris stadium itself really. They had H.E.R. (someone else I’ve never heard of) doing the American national anthem and a guitar solo of Mission Impossible for Tom’s big entrance, but anyone who had booked tickets with the expectation of seeing people like Billie Eilish in person might have felt a bit short-changed.

Once we did get back to the stadium though, it was finally time to bring the ceremony to an end. France’s poster boy for the Games, Léon Marchand, had the honour of carrying in the last remnants of the Olympic flame, which was no surprise, it had to be him. He’s going to be a big star in the country for a while, and so he should.

There was then a nice moment where disabled athletes were highlighted, with encouragement for people to go and see the Paralympics, which I was pleased to see. I do hope they have good crowds for that too.

A performance of My Way by Yseult then wrapped things up, with brief fireworks around the stadium, which was nowhere near as big a display as I’d expected them to have.

So all in all, it isn’t a ceremony that I’d watch again, as it was slow-going in parts and most of the performances didn’t grab me. But I enjoyed seeing Tom Cruise and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, I’m glad they reminded people about the Paralympics, and above all it was important to celebrate all of the amazing athletes and volunteers and the clear success of the Games as a whole.

Conclusion

While Tokyo did the best they could during the pandemic, it’s in Paris where it feels like the Olympics have really come alive again, with an amazing atmosphere in the sporting venues from huge crowds, who have been able to watch incredible and dramatic feats of sporting brilliance. Having the Games in close proximity to the UK has also made it possible to tune in to a lot of the best action live, which has added to the excitement. It has been very addictive.

All of the athletes can be very proud of qualifying for the Games in the first place, and even prouder of all their achievements in their events, especially Team GB from my perspective – with a respectful nod to Ireland and hosts France too, who have also done well. For many participants it won’t have gone the way they wanted of course, but hopefully they can look back in a more positive light and learn where necessary.

And many congratulations to Paris. They seem to have had a somewhat similar experience to London 2012, in the sense that there was a lot of negativity from some quarters beforehand, with concerns about security, doubts about whether certain venues would be ready, and questions about whether people would be interested given recent political unrest in the country. But apart from issues with the water quality in the Seine that delayed some events there, the Games have been a huge success from what I can tell, bringing people together for 16 days full of action. I’ve loved watching it. Merci beaucoup Paris!

Now roll on August 28th for the Paralympics!

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Author: Glen

Love London, love a laugh, love life. Visually impaired blogger, culture vulture & accessibility advocate, with aniridia & nystagmus, posting about my experiences & adventures.

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