In retrospective, I wish I had kept a log of all the promising Olympians who got injured weeks or days before the Paris 2024 games. While there are other championships to compete, Olympic games are so special and rare with their 4-year frequency and global reach.
I was lucky to attend 7 Olympic events in Paris this year: canoe kayak, handball, soccer, beach volley (beneath the Eiffel Tower, super magical), swimming marathon (i.e., 10K in the Seine river) and, with my special bound to that mythical running discipline, both the Men and Women marathons.
It has been a few weeks already so I don't need to cover the results although both races were memorable with an Olympic Record set by Tamirat Tola from Ethiopia in 2:06:26 on a challenging course, and such a close finish in the women, with a win by Dutch Sifan Hassan, both winners with outstanding resumes!
But, back to the title, I want to highlight two major struggles which happened on both days. Note that, with starting fields of respectively 80 and 90 (Men ran on Saturday, Women on Sunday, the last day of that Olympiad), there were many more than 2 marathoners struggling on these days. As a matter of fact, the marathon distance is so long and grueling, the finish always come with a personal fight against pain, and the outcome always uncertain.
For the men race, I didn't have a ticket. I watched the pack fly by around kilometer 8, then waited for an hour at kilometer 42, a few yards from the finish line. As you can see in that video, a few runners were already falling behind after only 5 miles.
Crossing the river Seine between km 8 and 42, spectacular games downtown Paris!
Now the huge scoop came much later, around kilometer 30, when favorite and marathon guru, Eliud Kipchoge, started walking! In a career spanning several decades at the very top of the spot, his worst finish was 10th place. And that includes 4 Olympic marathons and all the majors. It was his first DNF (Did Not Finish) and you can read his comments in this great article. Including that quote related to the title of this post:
“It was not the race I came here for,” Kipchoge admitted. "But that’s sport. Sport is up and down. Sport is like a [garden] when you go and plant seed, then there is actually weeds and flowers, today I harvested weeds."
With all the spot light on Kipchoge, that DNF was well noticed, but there were more, in both races (actually 10 in the Men and 11 in the Women). On Sunday, I had a seat in the finish stadium in front of the Invalides, another magical sight and setup. With two of my sisters:
We followed the whole race on the huge display, then watched all the women sprinting down the last 200 meters of the course.
45 athletes finished in the 10 minutes after the winning time of 2:22:55. Then 30 in the following 10 minutes, then finally 4 in the next 10. And then...
Fun fact for that event, the medals would not be given at the venue but during the closing ceremony as many of you must have seen. What an honor for these top 3 ladies! Still, we were told that there would be a podium ceremony and it was imminent. We were in the blazing sun and, after an hour, half the stadium had dispersed and left. We were wondering what was happening when we realized there was still a runner on the course! We could see the helicopter filming the event roaming over the course, quite a few miles away. Then we saw that athlete on the large screen, walking! That was Kinzang Lahmo from the happiest country in the world, Bhutan! Kinzang crossed the line 1h30 after the winner. It was her marathon debut, welcome to the club, Kinzang, congratulations for covering the distance! Here is her well deserved finish, still with a sizable crowd to cheer her up!
Again, many more struggles, both public during these games, behind the scene of others' podiums and fame or barely noticed while training hard in the years and months leading to these games. Struggles for missing dreams. For missing the event. For missing practicing your dearest sport, even... May we all recover and rebound so we keep harvesting more flowers than weeds...!
