The Olympics have been a triumph and delivered compelling, dramatic sport in brilliant venues. But they've also raised questions we are all still struggling to answer.
Had the fortune of attending the middle weekend of the games. The biggest stand out for me was how the city embraced them. It likely helped that France performed very well, as it kept the locals interested. Some of the venues were iconic as well, and everything was so well organised! Bravo Paris
I'm biased but I think New Zealand kayaker Lisa Carrington needs to be in the conversation of Olympic GOATS, picking up 3 golds in Paris to take her tally to 8 golds 1 bronze since the 2012 London Olympics.
Hi Michael, I can't disagree. There will be loads of athletes from Paris who don't feature in my review because there's a limit to what I was able to consume. The first week of the Games I watched from home, in the UK, so obviously the BBC is going to provide coverage that skews towards British athletes with a range of "global" figures in there: Marchand, Biles, Mondo etc. But not every nationality in every sport. And then when I was in Paris, what I consumed was even more limited, events I saw, and when in fan zones or watching local coverage, skewing French. So absolutely Lisa Carrington should be in there ... she just didn't cross my radar in the places I was watching! And thanks for the message.
I’ve seen a few comments from people highly suspicious of the cleanliness of the games - and in particular the athletics & swimming - I’d really love to hear your thoughts on that at some point.
Hi Fiona, no Games have ever been clean, not remotely. As the article says of London 2012, it was promoted as the cleanest Games ever but retests up to 10 years later showed 73 dopers not caught at the time and other research showed hundreds more with question marks over them. As for Paris, there will be dozens of dopers who will be unmasked by future testing, and loads more who won't. As for swimming and athletics specifically ... personally I'm wary of *some* world records that beat records set in the "suits" era by swimmers wearing bodysuits or suits made of polyurethane or other non-textile materials allowed from February 2008 until December 2009. As for athletics, there were some eyebrow-raising performances on the track. I've written on this site about my caution over distance / marathon runners from Kenya and Ethiopia; and there were a few American performances on the track that were staggering. Jamaican women pulling out at the last moment was odd. The prevalence of dopers in elite sport (according to the studies done by WADA at the 2011 Daegu world athletics champs, and Asian Games) is many times higher than most people expect realise. I'm not convinced sport has become cleaner since then. Drug testing is largely ineffective, perhaps catching one in 10 cheats or fewer. Anti-doping agencies are generally bad at catching cheats, because of budgetary and legal constraints, and conflicts of interest.
Had the fortune of attending the middle weekend of the games. The biggest stand out for me was how the city embraced them. It likely helped that France performed very well, as it kept the locals interested. Some of the venues were iconic as well, and everything was so well organised! Bravo Paris
I'm biased but I think New Zealand kayaker Lisa Carrington needs to be in the conversation of Olympic GOATS, picking up 3 golds in Paris to take her tally to 8 golds 1 bronze since the 2012 London Olympics.
Really enjoyed these games.
Hi Michael, I can't disagree. There will be loads of athletes from Paris who don't feature in my review because there's a limit to what I was able to consume. The first week of the Games I watched from home, in the UK, so obviously the BBC is going to provide coverage that skews towards British athletes with a range of "global" figures in there: Marchand, Biles, Mondo etc. But not every nationality in every sport. And then when I was in Paris, what I consumed was even more limited, events I saw, and when in fan zones or watching local coverage, skewing French. So absolutely Lisa Carrington should be in there ... she just didn't cross my radar in the places I was watching! And thanks for the message.
Thanks for the reply Nick. Yes, it's impossible to catch all the action. I enjoy your articles, keep up the great work.
I’ve seen a few comments from people highly suspicious of the cleanliness of the games - and in particular the athletics & swimming - I’d really love to hear your thoughts on that at some point.
Hi Fiona, no Games have ever been clean, not remotely. As the article says of London 2012, it was promoted as the cleanest Games ever but retests up to 10 years later showed 73 dopers not caught at the time and other research showed hundreds more with question marks over them. As for Paris, there will be dozens of dopers who will be unmasked by future testing, and loads more who won't. As for swimming and athletics specifically ... personally I'm wary of *some* world records that beat records set in the "suits" era by swimmers wearing bodysuits or suits made of polyurethane or other non-textile materials allowed from February 2008 until December 2009. As for athletics, there were some eyebrow-raising performances on the track. I've written on this site about my caution over distance / marathon runners from Kenya and Ethiopia; and there were a few American performances on the track that were staggering. Jamaican women pulling out at the last moment was odd. The prevalence of dopers in elite sport (according to the studies done by WADA at the 2011 Daegu world athletics champs, and Asian Games) is many times higher than most people expect realise. I'm not convinced sport has become cleaner since then. Drug testing is largely ineffective, perhaps catching one in 10 cheats or fewer. Anti-doping agencies are generally bad at catching cheats, because of budgetary and legal constraints, and conflicts of interest.