Steve Kaffen (Russia) writes from The Olympics

Steve Kaffen (Russia 1994-96)

It’s my tenth day in Paris and eighth day since the Olympics began. Residents have left town on vacation, many after renting out their homes and apartments. They have been replaced by a world of visitors.

Some 45,000 volunteers, for the Olympics and the Paralympics, are everywhere, in metro stations, on street corners, and near sports venues carrying big cardboard hands with fingers pointing in the venue’s direction.  If they don’t know the answer, they look it up on their cell phones or they ask a colleague, and rarely do they improvise a response. They have set a standard of excellence for the volunteers of the USA’s upcoming World Cup to meet and best.

Police are omnipresent, on most corners and clustered in the streets and in and outside the sports venues, carrying machine guns. It’s daunting at first, but after a while they become invisible.

I have 15 tickets to 10 different events. I bought some as they dribbled on sale beginning a half year ago, and a few elusive ones, notably swimming, skateboarding and athletics, I obtained on the official resale website during the Olympics.

Prices at restaurants and cafes have gone way up. An example is the doubling of a McDonald’s hamburger from 1.5  to 3 euros. You can tell that menus have been recently updated by their shiny and unstained look and their title, “Olympics Menu.”

Families from all over the world are here. Long distance walking is needed to get to some of the venues, and leading the way, with exuberant energy, are the kids, followed more deliberately by their parents. People are from everywhere. At table tennis, I sat next to a man from Punta Arenas, in Chile’s far south, who began acquiring tickets when they first went on sale.

After I said to him that it’s a long expensive trip for him, all the way from Southern Chile, he responded, “It’s my dream.”

Interactions often start by trying to decipher the language. I begin with basic French and turn to English or Spanish depending on the response to hello. Fan Zones set up throughout the city are places to go to watch events on big screens, hear live entertainment, and for kids, to make friends with other kids while playing soccer, having their faces painted with their countries’ flag colors, and taking group skateboarding instruction.

Over just a few years, riders on the Paris metro have gone from looking around to looking down at their cell phones. Interestingly, of the cities that I’ve been in during this extended trip, riders in Barcelona and Rome were still looking around… but how long will that last?

For the opening day ceremony, there was confusion about standing along the Seine. The information provided was that it was “free,” and I and many residents figured we could just wander over to the river and find a spot. However, access required an advance security check. Turned away, I went to beautiful Saint Sulpice cathedral, which I had learned had set up a big screen for the Saint Germain neighborhood to gather and eat and drink and watch.

Fans supporting France make themselves known at the events with miniature and large flags, and fight songs. “Allez les Bleus,” is the principal cheer, even if their team is not performing. There are vocal contingents of fans from other countries, notably the USA, sporting large American flags, sometimes body-draped, and Spain, wearing red and gold attire. At the entrance to the arena where ping pong, aka table tennis, was to be played, young Chinese supporters were handing out hand fans with pictures of their country’s star performers, who were astounding to watch. It may be the sport that requires the fastest reflexes of any because of the split-second back and forth barrage of attacks and defensive maneuvers.

Yesterday, I saw the soccer quarter-final between the USA and Morocco, and it’s clear the USA team has work to do to prepare for the upcoming World Cup, specifically in cohesiveness, aggressive attacking, and playing as a team. This is similar to what I said about the Brazil soccer team in my book “The 2022 World Cup in Qatar,” which lost in the quarter-finals because, in the second half, they stopped playing as a cohesive team unit.

Watching athletics is a stretch on television because of the numerous simultaneous events, but it’s an exuberant experience in person–there’s so much going on. The highlight, last night, was the men’s 10,000 meter event, won by a runner from Uganda. After its conclusion, the runners did a lap around the track, draped under their countries’ flags and stopping to wave at their fans. It was the last event of a long evening, way past dinner time, yet no one, it seemed, in the sold-out Stade de France wanted to leave.