TWatching beach volleyball beneath the Eiffel Tower can be unsettling. It’s not the imported sand engineered to not stick to the players’ bodies. It’s not the pretentious hosts pumping up the crowd. It’s not the perfectly timed competition to take in the beautiful sunset. It’s not the picture-perfect light show centered on Paris’ greatest monument.
The most impressive part of watching the beach volleyball medal matches at the start of the final weekend of the Olympics is when the stands start to shake. They are 40 metres high and surround the court on three sides. One of the most sought-after tickets this summer in Paris, the temporary seats complete the spectacular vision of the Olympics and make it easy to see at a glance that the Olympics are taking place in Paris.
French President Emmanuel Macron called the specially constructed structure “magnificent” ahead of the Olympics, which has been generously dubbed the Eiffel Tower Stadium. Aside from the “new standards” of the Olympics, the official website bluntly states under the heading “Heritage” that “the venue will be demolished after the Olympics.”
I felt the sway again, but perhaps that was for the best. The wise presenter felt the need to encourage the docile audience to make rhythmic gestures with their arms: a Mexican wave; an increasing tempo of clapping; a movement that mimicked the blocking of a volleyball; punching the air with one hand, then the other.
All in the name of entertainment — or rather, sport — unfolding before our eyes. In the first medal match on Friday, the team of Australia’s Tariqua Clancy (a Uliuli and Gorengoreng woman from the other side of the world) and Peruvian-born Mariafe Artacho del Solar were sadly eliminated, losing in straight sets for the bronze medal to landlocked Switzerland’s Tanja Hübbelli and Nina Brunner, but the time flew by.
It only took 39 minutes – half of which was spent taking the perfect sunset photo on her iPhone, watching the rows of fans and then the press. Afterwards, Clancy says the result “hurt” and “probably hurt for quite a while”. But she says she’ll “never take for granted the fact that we got to play under the Eiffel Tower”. Artacho del Solar says it’s been a dream come true to play in this “iconic and beautiful” venue, “and in front of such an amazing audience, full of energy and atmosphere.”
The atmosphere is kept slightly muffled by the DJ playing bass-heavy beats between each point, and then the MC takes over between performances and starts swaying again. As the set reaches its climax, the platform shakes randomly as fans stand and jump, or the applause escalates and becomes more rhythmic. But the creepiest movement is when everyone starts swinging their arms in time with their shoulder joints.
For cynics, the Olympics are fertile ground: the huge public expenditures, the simple narrow-mindedness; the celebration of pushing and pulling, running and jumping. And the further the Olympics stray from their original mission, the narrower their eligibility seems. Many rightly question whether sports like BMX, breaking and skateboarding should be included, or whether beach volleyball should even be included. And who’s going to get rich if the athletes live a life that’s so low-budget that they can’t afford to live?
The farce of beach volleyball on an artificial sand playground beneath the trusses of a giant lighted tower, 170km from the nearest sea, seems comical in its context, but when I hear the roar of the crowd as Brazil’s Ana Patricia and Duda come back to take the first set in the gold medal match, a nagging thought comes to mind: Look up again at the now-glittering Eiffel Tower.
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The idea came slowly at first. Then, more smoothly. The calm night, the goodwill of the crowd. Five glowing rings, “I♡PARIS” etched in the sand. And now, banging on my skull like a courier with no authority to leave. The Paris Olympics had been a success.
Sports is the best escape, a place where you never have to grow up. It’s a way to relax, a way to make connections. We debate medal tally and make sweeping generalizations about the nature of countries based on relay rotations. And after Tokyo, the algorithm and the cost-of-living crisis, maybe these simple games are what we need.
Gold Medal Match Highlights Brazil’s Ana Patricia scored a header to win the match. A successful challenge on an opponent’s touch at the net earned them a point, and along with Duda, the pair went on to defeat Canada’s Melissa Humana Paredes and Brandi Wilkerson in three sets.
But they had to weather some heated moments, including a lengthy argument between two players under the net. When the furious players finally got back into position, the DJ started playing John Lennon’s “Imagine,” and the rocking began again. And it felt pretty good.
