The Olympic Games is simply magical.
Ever since I was a young boy, I’ve been fascinated by the sheer size of the multi-sport event and how it can unify countries from every corner of the globe for two weeks every four years.
My fondness in the Games came as no surprise given that I come from a family that is big on athletics. My grandad, Melvyn Batty, was one of the best British long-distance runners of his time in the 1960s, with the pinnacle of his career coming in 1964 when he set the 10-mile World Record in 47 minutes and 26.8 seconds.
Unfortunately, I never quite got his endurance genes, but I was a keen sprinter when I was a child and won a few medals in our county’s district sports championships. I simply loved competition and would try and mimic the stars I had seen on TV at the Olympic Games or Athletics World Championships.
The first of those I remember vividly was Kelly Holmes winning double gold at the 2004 Games in Athens when I was just 10 years old. Holmes blew away the field in both the 800m and 1500m to become the first Brit since Albert Hill in 1920 to win two athletics gold medals in the same Olympic Games. Seeing her claim the titles made me feel euphoric and proud to be a Brit. Our little island was a world-beater.
In the years that followed, other stars of track and field, swimming and a multitude of other weird and wonderful sports made me fall deeper in love with the Olympic Games. Swimming legend Michael Phelps showed that the word impossible is just for us mere mortals, Usain Bolt made people fall in love with athletics that had never showed any interest before and seeing Brits win on home soil in 2012 made me feel things that I had never felt before. Sport is a wonderous thing.
The Olympic Games, aside from football, is also the only time you’ll catch me shouting at my TV screen urging people over the finish line, over the high jump bar or a safe passage through a danger at every turn mountain bike track.
While I loved being glued to the TV for every Olympic Games since 2004, it wasn’t quite enough. I had to witness these incredible athletes first-hand. London 2012 was the natural choice given that I lived just an hour away from the capital, but there was no luck for my family and I in the ballot. Rio 2016 wasn’t feasible for me, while fans weren’t allowed into Tokyo 2020 due to the covid-19 pandemic.
Twenty years after being inspired watching Holmes secure glory in Athens, I finally got my opportunity to attend the greatest sporting spectacle in the world when securing tickets to the final weekend of Paris 2024.
I felt like a kid at Christmas when waking up at 5am to get the train from London to Paris on Saturday just gone. A two hour and 16-minute journey followed before we arrived in the City of Love. A quick taxi to our hotel ensured we had time to freshen up ahead of our evening in the Stade de France for the final day of track and field.
As you may have already seen from the photo at the top of this article, I had to go big with my choice of outfit for the next two days. This was my first time at the Olympics after all.
Much to the delight of my partner (!), I opted for a full Union Jack suit to leave absolutely no one guessing who I would be cheering on at these Games. It’s fair to say it went down well with the fans outside the stadium.
As soon as we arrived, I had people from France, Mauritius and Great Britain all asking for photos with me. They either loved the suit or wondered why there was a stupid man wearing something like that when there was an excessive heat warning in place!
But it was all part of the fun of the Games. People dress up, celebrate their team’s colours and cheer their athletes on wildly. This is exactly why I wanted to be a part of it.
An evening of world-class sport followed, with Great Britain managing to secure medals in the men’s and women’s 4x400m relay and Georgia Bell winning a superb bronze in the 1500m. It was magical to be a part of and nearly bought a tear to my eye when the Great British athletes did their laps of honours merely ten metres away from our seats.
It was also amazing to see how much love the French athletes got at a home Games. The amount of noise inside the Stade de France was nothing short of tremendous – it’s giving me goosebumps just thinking about it once again. At a time when France, like many places in Europe, is suffering from much division, these Games have allowed a short period of reflection and shown how powerful a unified country can be. Long may that continue.
Our flying visit to Paris continued the next day with a trip to the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Veledrome for the final day of cycling.
The Union Jack suit, despite being a tad smelly, made a second appearance and was once again a star attraction with fans, volunteers and BBC Sport, who were keen to take a photo of the wally dressed inappropriately for the heat wave that Paris was enduring.
The BBC Sport reporter told me I would melt inside the Velodrome, which had seen temperatures soar and records tumble during the Games. She wasn’t wrong, it was an uncomfortable experience, but it certainly didn’t take away the fun from showing my support of Team GB.
It was another electric session of sporting action, but entirely different to what I had seen the night before in the Stade de France. There I witnessed the true glories that sport can offer, while the Velodrome showed the sheer brutality and heartbreak of competition.
Three Team GB athletes were all involved in heavy crashes on the track to knock them out of medal contention, bringing a disappointing end to four years of intense training. But like any great athlete, they rose back to their feet, took the applause of the crowd and will no doubt be looking to put those wrongs right in LA in 2028.
As Rocky Balboa famously said: “It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”
And that’s what makes live sport so enthralling. You are seconds, inches or moments away from despair of glory.
Paris 2024, you’ve been a blast. My first Olympic Games was everything I could have asked for and more. Thanks for the memories.
