Not a chance, not today. The young man with flowing hair, headband and acoustic retro guitar with a peace sticker probably wanted to take his usual place on the steps of the Sacre-Cœur Basilica and play early Dylan for a few coins in his hat. That's what they like to do here. The steps in front of the world-famous church with a view of Old Paris must have been visited by every backpacker with a guitar for 50 years. But today there's nothing going on, nothing at all. Everything is already closed at ten o'clock in the morning. Thousands of people crowd onto the staircase gallery because the 90 starters of the Olympic road race will pass here three times - but not for another five hours. But if you want to be there, you have to be able to stand. Even if you can still sit for a while. This should come as no surprise; all the competitions, especially at historic locations in the heart of Paris, attracted huge crowds from the very beginning despite the high ticket prices.
Paris breathes 2024 Olympics
For beach volleyball directly in front of the Eiffel Tower, of course. People made a pilgrimage there, and in the stands you could be afraid that the steep tubular steel ramps would simply collapse under the trampling after every point. But even for preliminary round games in water polo, for example, in a hall far out in the industrial district of Saint-Denis, there were virtually no tickets available. The Paris region breathed Olympia deeply. The fans poured in, the atmosphere was euphoric, extremely fair and, above all, peaceful. Everything was tres sympathique. And full to bursting.
For sports fans without tickets, there were only walkers, marathoners or triathletes to approach for free - if you were early. And the road cyclists who, at the end of the race around the Paris region, had to struggle up a 1.6 kilometre climb from the Seine to Montmartre three times at the Louvre and back down again past Sacre-Cœur. Cycling races against a backdrop of squares, castles, parks, churches and cemeteries that almost everyone in the world recognises and where the atmosphere was as great as at the Tour finale on the Champs-Elysees or the legendary climb to Alpe d'Huez.
Radio silence on the 2024 Olympics
When the men's race got underway, Team Germany was only allowed to send Nils Politt and Maximilian Schachmann on the longest route of an Olympic road race at a whopping 273 kilometres due to their recent rather mediocre results (only one stage win at Tirreno-Adriatico by Phil Bauhaus in 2024). This corresponded exactly to the team strength of Austria, Ireland or Kazakhstan, for example, and was therefore not very suitable for setting accents as a team. Especially as team leader André Greipel had to share the car behind the field with Poland (one participant). And there is no radio at the Olympics anyway.
So you had to expect racing initiative from top nations such as Belgium, Denmark, France, Slovenia and England, who were allowed to field four riders each. In total, there were only 90 riders each in the men's and women's field anyway, but they were all celebrated like winners. In the morning, tens of thousands lined the first neutralised kilometres from Trocadero past the Eiffel Tower. An acoustic hurricane, garnished with colourful flags from many countries and a thousand cheers of "Allez les Bleus!", especially for Julian Alaphilippe, France's favourite and double world champion 2020/2021. Throughout Paris, the crowds pressed against the course boundaries, five athletes from Uganda, Rwanda, Morocco, Mauritius and Thailand attacked at the front and were celebrated like the greats of cycling - who held back for the time being and probably just enjoyed the parade past their fans. It was amazing how relaxed the security forces were in allowing the mass euphoria to continue despite the fear of attacks in the run-up to the 2024 Olympics. Laissez-faire, even later at Montmartre.
Up until the final laps in Paris, the race went as expected. The big men's and women's teams initially let the Olympic exotic riders have their way, but they never had a chance with a lead of up to 15 minutes. The men's peloton rolled past Versailles over the hilly western hinterland of Paris and then gained almost 3000 metres in altitude at the end. Even outside the centre of Paris, people were celebrating in the villages as they usually only do on 14 July, the French bank holidays.
Remco Evenepoel wins gold in the Olympic road race
In sporting terms, things only really got going after 240 kilometres of racing. Remco Evenepoel, third in the Tour de France two weeks earlier and Olympic time trial champion on the rain-soaked Parisian course a few days earlier, jumped into a leading group and immediately broke it up. In the end, only the Frenchman Valentin Madouas was able to follow, but 15 kilometres before the finish even that was no longer possible. The 24-year-old Belgian superstar, who is being touted as a new signing for Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe for 2025, easily pulled away and had all the time in the world to change his bike in peace after a puncture on the cobbles shortly before the finish. Meanwhile, his girlfriend quickly collected the first gold on the course so that Remco could later smile into the cameras with two medals as the first double Olympic champion in road cycling.
Nils Politt was still on the road for a long time. When Evenepoel came to the front, the 30-year-old was still in the lead. Just two weeks earlier, Politt had led Tadej Pogacar perfectly over the mountains at the Tour de France - "and still had very good legs", as he said. But then, out of nowhere, massive stomach problems. "Too little water, too much gel," he surmised. That was it, Politt needed a quiet place to go and found it in the famous "Café des 2 Moulins" from the film "The Fabulous World of Amélie". You can only do that in Paris. He then swung back into the saddle and crossed the finish line 20 minutes behind. Relieved, but disappointed. Maximilian Schachmann finished 29th, and of course as a team of two they didn't have many tactical options, but that's obviously not so important at the Olympics. The individual starters Attila Valter (Hungary) and the Latvian Toms Skujins finished fourth and fifth, only narrowly beaten by the Frenchman Christophe Laporte in the sprint for bronze.
In disbelief at the finish
In the women's competition, Germany was allowed to field a team of three, which means it is rated higher internationally than the men. But that didn't help much in the end. Liane Lippert stayed in a leading group for a long time, but was left behind on the last lap at Montmartre, "after my chain jumped off three times on the cobblestones", and was the best German in 16th place. But once again, the race was a demonstration of the Olympic spirit. On "Women's Day", the metro stations around Montmartre were also spitting out crowds of people from all over the world shortly before the start. They also had to wait for hours for the women to start, but before that they saw Olympic spirit on the screens when, similar to the men's race, an Afghan woman who had jumped off her chain was helped by outsiders in a leading group. The fact that there were two Afghan women competing in Paris at all is due to the fact that they both fled the country of the Taliban regime and live in exile.
In the final, the Olympic idea came to the fore once again - but in a rather curious way. It is said that taking part is everything. But when world stars such as Marianne Vos from the Netherlands and Lotte Kopecky from Belgium look at each other for so long that the US-American Kristen Faulkner, who was only nominated as a substitute, can simply ride away, gain a lead of almost a minute over the last three kilometres and then win gold, that is a very unique interpretation of the Olympic spirit. Faulkner herself was probably a little uneasy about the whole thing, she crossed the finish line without any cheers. Probably pure disbelief at having won so easily. That probably only happens at the Olympic Games.
