Lincicome: Olympics in Paris should be like going from a crypt to a carnival
In spite of being robbed twice in Paris, I have a stubborn affection for the place. I wish it well as the maître d of the Olympics.
Hosting so many outsiders is a curious duty for a place that suffers anyone who is not them, rather like putting peanut butter on the brioche. Hmmm.
If any city on earth does not need the Olympics it is Paris, a place of infinite esteem, of self-sustaining admiration, for being the place where the world already wants to be, not needing tumblers and weightlifters and, yes, even break dancers, to authentic it.
What happens next will be a great contrast to what happened last, the bleak and sorrowful games in Tokyo, without fans or fanfare, without anthems and noise. The Olympics in Paris should be like going from a crypt to a carnival.
We can expect the usual collection of obscure competitions that require music, weapons, oars or instructions, each of them to be given brief significance, while the games that need no introduction — golf, tennis, basketball, soccer — humor their Olympic inclusion while dreaming of bigger prizes of their own.
The special difference will be the venues. Venue is a name familiar to the French but used otherwise only when the Olympics are around. Horses will be prancing at Versailles, archers shooting arrows near Napoleon’s tomb, 3 on 3 basketball in the place where the guillotine was used. Beach volleyball will be near the Eiffel Tower. Surfers must go all the way to Tahiti where beaches do not have to be imported.
Sportswashing is a big thing these days and the Olympics are happy to join in, clinging to the notion that they can be used by places lacking in confidence, outposts seeking world approval, lately in far time zones and with unfamiliar alphabets, whereas Paris needs no washing but its own, and not that often I can attest.
It feels like Paris is merely allowing the Olympics to use its familiar landmarks and iconic monuments, decorating the Eiffel Tower with the Olympic rings, floating the Olympic athletes down the Seine like spring breakers and sightseers.
Having made that trip down the river myself as a paying dinner guest, I felt less like a tourist than a target, with firecrackers being thrown from the many bridges as we passed under. Another reason to dislike the place, which I still don’t.
And yet here we are again, asked to not only consider the Olympic notion of “citius, altius, fortius,” or faster, higher, stronger, but also “liberte, egalite, fraternite,” a double dose of Latin and French. Really, all that is necessary is to blow a whistle or yell, “play ball!”
The French official opened the games acknowledging that the Olympics cannot solve every problem, that discrimination and conflict will not disappear, but he told the assembled athletes that they were “the best version of humanity.” I suppose he was sincere, though every Olympics begins with the wish that the world could play together.
The modern Olympics depend on such lofty motives. Still, the games were restored chiefly to rebuild the lost confidence of the French, who were continually having their borders redrawn by the Prussians. The idea of Baron de Coubertin was to destroy the notion that Frenchmen were natural sissies, a noble error in judgment.
Paris will provide its own memories as every Olympics does, hopefully happier than the farce in Rio, the fraud in Sarajevo, the scandal in Sochi, the redundant joylessness of Beijing, the unfortunate isolation of Tokyo.
I am rooting for the best version of humanity, but I suspect the Olympics really are not just about competition on the field but competition in the marketplace. Medals are cheap; sponsors and corporate partners are vital.
Each Olympics turns into a collision of galloping commerce and nationalistic hooha, flags and anthems, decorated by the wallpaper of greed.
But, say this about that, Paris does make it easier to forget.