Olympics & Paralympics

Well, after a lot of back and forth about whether to flee Paris during the Olympics, we decided to stay! We realized this would in all likelihood be a once in a lifetime opportunity, and that it would be crazy to leave when so much is happening right outside of our door.

Paris was wonderfully alive throughout the span of the Olympics and Paralympics, even by own summer standards during. Everywhere around the city was full of live music, viewing parties, food, art, and cultural exhibitions, and of course the spectacle of the stadiums and athletics events themselves! We were thrilled to find that the city was up less crowded than last summer, and the metro system worked excellently throughout the month. We had so much fun experiencing the city during such a unique time, and will never forget how energetic it and prideful everyone was to see French athletes take home medals.

Thanks to our efforts watching out for Olympics ticket resales, paired with the surprisingly reasonable price of the Paralympics, we were able to attend a broad range of events throughout both. We got the chance to go to multiple events at the beautiful Eiffel Tower Stadium, see football (you know what I mean, just go with it) at the Parc des Princes, athletics at the Stade de France, and even watch road cycling take place only a few minutes walk from our apartment.

Scroll along for some of our event photos and videos, and I'll drop some extra info as we go!

Parc des Princes - Football

This was our first time seeing a live football match, and what better place than at Parc des Princes, the home of the Paris Saint Germain club! It was a HOT evening so we if we look a bit flushed and sweaty then that's why. Our match was Mali vs Paraguay, two teams that I can't say I have any familiarity with (though that could probably be said of the majority of countries we could have watched). Despite eventually winning the game, Paraguay was decidedly not the fan favorites. Their strategy seemed to be to constantly flop and fake injuries (how exciting), so we had more fun cheering on Mali with the rest of our section. After the half we decided to take a look around, and snuck our way down to the bottom level where we got to watch a bit of the match before being booted out by the people whose seats we stole. Though our original section had a more lively crowd, the view of the action from the closer seats was pretty cool while it lasted.

Stade Tour Eiffel - Beach Volleyball and Blind Football

I was graciously offered tickets from a friend to go see beach volleyball, and the Eiffel Tower stadium was easily my favorite venue. The view of the Eiffel tower was so lovely, it was hard not to keep looking over at it during the matches. Even more lucky for me was that both of the winning teams that day represented my heritage, that being the eventual gold medal winners Sweden, and the silver medal winning Germany! My only complaint about the stadium was that as a (shocker based on my heritage) quite pale person, I was sweating my butt off that day due to the lack of shade, but otherwise it was a ton of fun.

We also made it back to the stadium a second time during the Paralympics, where we caught blind football between Brazil vs Turkey and France vs China. This was our first time seeing blind football, and it was super interesting to learn the different rules and their strategies. Each team has three vision impaired players on the pitch wearing masks to fully block out any remaining sight, and they play alongside a sighted goalie (who has to stay within a small goalie box) and a sideline coach who can yell to direct them around. Additionally, the inside of the ball has a noise maker that players listen for, and they often need to come up with strategies to pass the ball between one another so they can hear it before it goes past them or out of bounds. The hardest part for us was not cheering too much, since it's easy to get caught up in the excitement! The announcer frequently needed to ask the crowd for silence in between plays, because otherwise the players were unable to hear the ball as it rolled around. Brazil and France won their respective matches, and France eventually even won the goal medal later in the tournament.

Stade de France - Para Athletics

We managed to see the long jump, javelin, discus, and sprinting (including both blind and various levels of physical disabilities) events during our time at Stade de France. My favorite event was the blind 400m dash, where each runner competed with guides who were also wold class sprinters themselves. The coordination to run such fast laps (I believe somewhere around 55 seconds!) with a partner was really cool to see in person. It was great to have so many different events taking place at once as well, we felt like there always some action going on, or some world and Paralympic records being broken.

Discovery Pass - Para table tennis, Boccia, Goalball

Last, but not least, we bought what was called the "Paris Discovery Pass." This pass enabled us to see three different sports going on at the South Paris Arena, where events lasted throughout most of the day. We started with boccia (essentially bocce ball but with modified rules to support wheel chair users), made our way to para table tennis, and ended with goal ball. Due to our familiarity with the sport and the energy of the crowd, our favorite was easily the para table tennis matches, though we enjoyed seeing the other two as well and learning how the games functioned. Similar to blind football, goalball teams are comprised of mask wearing athletes with various vision impairments and has a ball with a noisemaker. The rest of the sport was entirely different though, as it took place indoors on a basketball court-esque court, and the teams scored by taking turns trying to quickly roll and/or bounce the ball past the other team who had to stretch and dive in the direction they heard the ball going (which seemed painful).

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed seeing our photos and videos from the Olympics and Paralympics! After having so much fun, we're already trying to gauge the possibility of seeing the winter Olympics when they come to France, or couch surfing to see the next Olympics when it comes to Los Angeles. Even though it was a bit chaotic at times, it was some of the most fun we've had since moving to Paris, and we're both sad that it had to end so quickly.

Extras