HAS At this pace, it would probably be quicker to list who doesn’t want to be there. “I will do everything to participate in the Paris Games” this summer, Antoine Griezmann said this week, in our columns. Like his teammate Kylian Mbappé, the striker of the French football team wants to be part of the Olympic celebration. This also applies to Antoine Dupont, the French rugby union star, who, to ensure he is present, chose to join the “Septembers” with whom he made his competitive debut on Friday in Vancouver (Canada) , while the Six Nations Tournament is in full swing.
This “Olympic appeal” also has its effects on Carlos Alcaraz: the new Spanish tennis nugget declared “prefer to win Olympic gold than Roland-Garros this year », if he had to choose between the two tournaments. And we must not forget the star basketball players of the NBA, who, such as LeBron James or Stephen Curry, intend not to miss the meeting by appearing in the ranks of “Team USA” – enough to compose an unprecedented armada since the 1992 Dream Team in Barcelona.
Football, tennis, basketball… We could say that athletes in these disciplines do not really need the Olympic Games (OG) to exist, unlike others for whom they constitute the only “real” moment of visibility on the plan. global. So why are they so keen to be in Paris this summer?
The Olympics, “ It’s always a moment that I love”and taking part in it is a ” dream “, insists Antoine Griezmann. Beyond the sole aspect of competition, results or prize lists to be completed, the “magic of the Games” – so much praised – is the possibility, for many athletes, of opening up, of coming face to face with realities other than those of their sport, to rub shoulders with other athletes from other disciplines, particularly within the Olympic village – for those who live there.
“Rafa once told me that the best experience of his life was Beijing 2008, because of the atmosphere with the other athletes”recently declared Toni Nadal, uncle and coach of Rafael Nadal.
“We don’t realize what Paris represents”
Furthermore, the fact that the Games take place in Paris is also not to be neglected in all these fads. “It’s something exceptional,” notes Antoine Griezmann. The French athletes, who will “play at home”, are not the only ones to think so.
Paris still has an irresistible power of attraction which it is sometimes difficult to measure from France: by focusing on the trains – or on the metros, in this case – which do not manage to time, we would sometimes lose the overview, argue the defenders of the Olympics.
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