2023-06-10 00:12:03
What does an American athletics star do when she arrives in Paris, one year before the Olympics? She asks where to get Phryges, the mascots in the shape of a Phrygian cap, and to see the Stade de France, whose future purple track is starting to intrigue.
Coming to France with his father, who intended to scout hotels for the summer of 2024, the double world champion in the 110m hurdles Grant Holloway is already planning. While waiting to set foot on the Olympic track, the American flew over the race by winning in 12′’98, ahead of the Frenchman Just Kwaou-Mathey (13′’09), who signed the 3rd French performance of all time on 110m hurdles.
“We feel that people love athletics, especially when the Olympics arrive,” says Kevin Mayer – winner of the triathlon (15.31 m in shot put; 13’70 over 110 m hurdles and 7.26 m in length ) – addressed to the public. One year from the biggest sporting event in the world, the Charléty athletics meeting was sold out, with 17,803 spectators.
“I’m a real athletics fan, I came in particular for the Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigtsen, but I wanted to see what the French were giving before the Olympics,” explains Cynthia, from Pontoise. “It was easier to get tickets for the meeting than for the Games,” laughs Bertrand, a “true fan” of athletics.
Even if the tricolor athletes remain on a sad record at the World Championships (only one gold medal, last year, in the decathlon thanks to Kevin Mayer), athletics, the flagship sport of the Olympics, is really popular.
The French federation had concocted a dream platter for the occasion. With a first bang around 8:50 p.m., when the youngest of the Ingebrigtsen brothers, Jakob, electrifies the track to seize, alone, the world record for the 2 miles (7′54′’10). “It was a world record time,” says the Norwegian, a new prodigy in the world middle distance.
The performance was certainly expected, but the public does not yet know that it will experience a completely crazy evening, one of those evenings of sport that we do not forget. “Record time” announced by Ingebrigtsen will give ideas to others. Less than an hour after the Norwegian moment, it was the Kenyan Faith Kipyegon, who only a week later had broken the world record for the 1,500m, seized that of the 5,000m (14′04′ ’20).
Tears run down her cheeks, the thermometer shows a temperature of 28 degrees and the atmosphere goes up a notch. The b-boys and b-girls who dream of taking part in the Paris Olympics give their breaking demonstration in one of the bends, the spectators exult. At nightfall, the Dominican Marileidy Paulino, vice world champion, steals the show in the 400m from the American star Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Olympic and world champion in the 400m hurdles, to whom the organizers had rolled out the carpet red.
In the 100m, Noah Lyles (9′’97) made Italian Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs bite the dust. It doesn’t matter, because a few minutes later, the green light, which all around the track punctuates the strides of the half-crossers launched on the basis of a world record, will flash again. This time, it is the Ethiopian Lamecha Girma, Olympic vice-champion in the specialty, who at 22 years old explodes the best mark of all time in the 3,000 m steeplechase (7′52′’12).
“But where is this evening going to end?” shouts the announcer, while the nearly 18,000 spectators, standing, salute the feat of the Ethiopian lying on the tartan. Smartphones are once again lighting up the Parisian night. “Extraordinary images that we offer to the whole planet, one year before the Olympic Games”, continues one of the organizers of the meeting.
No world record on the final test of the evening, but a personal best for the Frenchman Benjamin Robert (1′43′’48), 5th in an 800m won by the Kenyan Emmanuel Wanyonyi (1′43′’ 27), and who offers his ticket for the World Championships, this summer in Budapest. We can’t wait to be there, also can’t wait to be at the Paris Olympic Games, at the beginning of August 2024. All that remains is to find tickets for the Stade de France.
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