Postcards from Paris: In Cry-lympics, love lost & found and an unanswerable question: will India win gold?

July 24: A sporting tour

Seen through the eyes of a sports tragic, Paris hits different compared to what the romantics come searching for.

It’s here, inside the Grand Amphitheatre of the Sorbonne University that Pierre de Coubertin, gave a rousing speech to delegates from 12 countries 130 years ago. By the end of it, the French educator had convinced them to revive the Olympic Games.

Less than a mile from this historic institution, the first Olympic medals were designed at the Monnaie de Paris, the French Mint which has also played a role in the delivery of the medals for these Games.

Half hour on the metro and you are at Montmartre. In 1902, at a brasserie that no longer exists, the seeds were sown for the world’s most gruelling cycling race, the Tour de France. A short 10-minute ride to the south-west is Rue Sainte-Honoré, where Jules Rimet, a grocer’s son, founded FIFA and went on to create the football World Cup.

Another 10-minute walk later, you arrive at Place de la Concorde where – a month after Rimet founded FIFA – automobile aficionados formed the International Automobile Association, which governs, among other things, the Formula One.

The historian Dominic Sandbrook was right when he said that if the British invented many sports, it’s the French who codified it and invited the world to play.

***

July 26: A glamourous gig?

There’s a weather warning saying it will rain in the evening. When they issue such an alert back in Mumbai, it rarely does. I apply the same logic here and leave without an umbrella.

And, you now know, it rains during the opening ceremony. Constant, unrelenting rain.

We have other problems to grapple with. Me and two other colleagues are given ‘seats’ — basically, a spot on the grass banks — at the starting point near the Austerlitz Bridge. ‘Great,’ we think. This was a chance to capture the first emotions of athletes when the best boat ride of their life begins’.

Turns out that after the first ‘water curtain’, some 20-30 minutes into the show, there is nothing to be seen or report here. So, we begin our march to the Trocadero, where the main action was taking place.

Canada’s Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson, on left, face Switzerland’s Zoe Verge-Depre and Esmee Boebner in a beach volleyball match at Eiffel Tower Stadium at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

Walking around charming, cobbled Paris feels like being in a war zone. Wherever you look, there are armed policemen suspiciously looking at everyone. There’s military from different countries, countless check points, barricades and barbed wires along the 7km route. With metro lines shut, we cover more than half of it on foot.

The security at Trocadero stops us. Our Austerlitz Bridge passes, he says, won’t get us inside the arena where ceremony formalities would take place. So, we stand on the sidewalks and watch the parade.

The ordeal has just begun. We sit on the sidewalk and open our laptops to begin writing when the heavens open. If at all there was a ceremony where you wanted to be protected by elements, it was this one.

A colleague is better prepared than I am — he has an umbrella. Three grown men stand under that one medium-sized umbrella. Drenched. But protecting their laptops.

For all those who think this is a glamorous gig…

***

July 27: Missing the bus

Reach ‘home’ from the opening ceremony at 2 am. The train to Chateauroux, roughly 300 km away, at 5.20. Decide to take a power nap. Bad idea. Wake up late, taxi is late.

The Olympics are like a marathon. But this one starts with a sprint. At Chateauroux, I hop into a cafe for an early morning cuppa, and guess what. The bus to the range is about to leave. Another sprint, leaving a trail of spilled coffee along the way, to the bus station. Too late, though. I walk back to the cafe, grab a croissant, and wait again.

At the range, the Indian shooters miss the bus too. A feeling of dread returns: Will this be Tokyo all over again?

***

July 30: The humble legends

Manu Bhaker does something even Manu Bhaker hasn’t imagined in her wildest dreams — win two Olympic medals. Yet, the 22-year-old who was scapegoated and singled out for the Tokyo debacle doesn’t go to town with her celebrations.

‘Can we call you an icon of Indian shooting’, she is asked. “I don’t know,” Manu says. She just wants to shoot. The icon and legend status, she says, aren’t for her.

Outside the venue, her coach Jaspal Rana — also vilified, ostracised and saw his reputation tarnished post Tokyo — stands in the bright harsh sun of Chateauroux. Rana has been on a spree of quotable quotes this afternoon.

Manu Bhaker reacts after winning her second medal at the Paris Olympics (AP)

Someone tells him to stand in the shade. Pat comes his reply, with a smirk: “Chaav mein toh apne he maarte hai. (Only our own stab in the dark).”

A week later, PR Sreejesh is asked the same question as Manu.

Coach Craig Fulton reveals a secret. “In training, he talks to himself and goes, ‘Great save, Sree! Great save, Sree! Even if it isn’t a great save, ‘Great save, Sree!”

The hockey goalkeeper, who retires with a second Olympic bronze around his neck, is too polite to praise himself. Next to him is Harmanpreet Singh, who gets a little emotions. “We love you, bro,” the India captain tells him. “You’ll always stay here,” Harman adds, pointing to the heart.

Later in the night, it is Neeraj Chopra’s turn to get asked about his growing status. Chopra translates the question, asked in Hindi, for a global audience. He goes something like, “You are a legend in India…” Pauses, and tells the moderator, “I am not calling myself legend, by the way.”

He smiles, embarrassed.

***

August 4: The golden question

On the way to the hockey quarterfinal. It’s a chilly morning and of all days, they decide to provide an air-conditioned bus (most other buses, and even trains, aren’t air-conditioned, which makes travelling on them a nightmare on hot days).

Only three of us are on the bus for 45 people. Bump into a Canadian journalist, AA. Polite conversation ensues and then he asks the awkward question. “So,” he says, “do you think there’s a gold anywhere for India?”

Yes, I think. In making excuses for not winning a gold medal. “Sure,” I say. “Wait for a couple of days.”

The Indian hockey team, led by 28-year-old captain Harmanpreet Singh, secured a 2-1 victory over Spain to win the bronze medal at the Paris Olympics. (AP/PTI)

The chilly morning has turned into an excruciatingly hot day. So hot that the cover of my laptop gets deformed. I put on my sunglasses and bucket hat. The English journalist next to me looks amused. “Some cream and a drink with umbrellas, too, maybe?” he banters.

Seventy minutes later, I turn to him. “Some tissues, maybe?”

The question of a gold, though, doesn’t stop following.

At the athletics a few days later, we wait for the Ukrainian high jumpers in the mixed zone. A well-travelled American writer who spent weeks in Patiala and Panipat before the Olympics breaks the ice: “Do you think it’ll happen?” ‘It’ meaning a gold medal.

The confidence has plummeted by now. A German tries to change the topic. “This thing about 2036, do you think India can do it?”

It’s not easy being an Indian at the Olympics.

***

August 7: The Cry-lympics

Nothing stirs up emotions like an Olympics. Everyone cries. Sifan Hasan tears up after winning the marathon. Hardik Singh sobs after losing the hockey semifinal. Nikhat Zareen’s eyes go red as she rues her bad luck.

But nothing prepares the Indian contingent for this morning. The day begins by planning coverage for the evening when Vinesh Phogat would heroically stand on the podium. Within seconds, that plan is thrown out of the window.

Vinesh is 100 grams over. DQ-ed from competition. A punch in the guts. The Indian contingent goes into mourning.

India’s Mirabai Chanu after her unsuccessful third attempt during the clean and jerk stage of the women’s 49kg weightlifting event at the 2024 Summer Olympics, in Paris, France, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024. (PTI Photo)

At night, Mirabai Chanu exits the Olympics shocked and in tears, too. A medal favourite, she leaves in fourth place.

The most brutal for India at these, or any, Olympics.

August 11: City of love, lost and found?

Stumble into an Indian fan on the way to a stadium. The story goes something like this: Three hours before Neeraj’s final, the person makes an impromptu decision to watch it from the stands. But it wasn’t to be — the ticket window at Stade de France was shut minutes ago.

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A volunteer tells the fan to stand near the gate where athletes exit from. There, in the scrum the person spots a familiar face — turns out that 22 years ago, the two dated each other. And of all places, they bump into each other here; in the mad scrum to spot Neeraj.

In the city of love, a case of love lost and found?

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