Opinion

Foreign Hand: Oh Paris! Here We Come

Travelling without their loved ones, coming just before and shipping out within 48 hours of competing, being unable to watch other games…Tokyo was an empty bubble for athletes.

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Foreign Hand: Oh Paris! Here We Come
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They’ll always have Paris. That thought has been a lifebuoy for athletes to cling to as they coped with thickets of restrictions at the pandemic-hit Tokyo Games. Barred from bringing family and friends, playing in empty arenas and not allowed to sightsee in Tokyo, some athletes found themselves day-dreaming about the French capital’s Olympic rendezvous in 2024, reports the Associated Press. If the pandemic is tamed by then, the Paris Games could become the party games. Already, there is palpable pent-up eagerness among athletes to make up for Tokyo.  “When Paris happens, I’ll be like, ‘Ok, wow, like this is a whole new energy. This is it,” said US skateboarder Mariah Duran.

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For now, Paris officials say they’re betting that the pandemic will be over by then. “Normally, we’ll be able to party,” the city’s mayor, Anne Hidalgo, said on August 8. But if the coronavirus is still ruining the best-laid plans, then Tokyo has served up a model. It pared the games down to their most essential ingredient: competition. Paris officials say that they’ll also plan for the worst. Toughest for many Olympians was not being accompanied to Japan by loved ones. Travelling without her parents for the first time at age 17, US skateboarder Brighton Zeuner stayed closely connected even during competition, video-calling her father from the Olympic skate bowl “between every single run I did”.

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To limit risks, organisers asked athletes to arrive in Tokyo no earlier than five days before competing and leave within 48 hours of being done—further truncating the Olympic experience. Belgian skateboarder Axel Cruysberghs, who competed in week one, and his skateboarding wife Lizzie Armanto, who competed in week two, passed each other like ships in the night. As she took off for Tokyo, his flight back home was 20 minutes from landing.  “It worked out for our puppy,” she joked.

Not being able to pass the time at venues was also a complaint. “That’s something I would have liked to have experienced, to go watch my teammates compete,” said Elias Kuosmanen of Finland, who wrestled in the Greco-Roman heavyweight class. At the 2016 Olympics in Rio, Canadian volleyball player Nicholas Hoag took in gymnastics and track and field on off days, went out for drinks and absorbed the Olympic experience. But on days with no matches in Tokyo, “I was watching TV all day, watching the sports.” Athletes were asked not to mingle and avoid ‘unnecessary’ hugs, high-fives and handshakes—guidance they ignored in the heat and joy of competition. But everyone’s dreaming now…and Paris is now only a three-year wait instead of the usual four. 

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