The Olympic Games, French Style

So the Summer Olympics have started, and France is just as excited as the rest of the world, I imagine. David and I missed the opening ceremony, but we were still on holiday for the first day of the games and were excited to see the first events.

After flipping through our catalog of French channels, we finally found the one public channel showing the games. And the sport they were showing was....equestrian dressing? Never have I seen this sport in my life. A stiff man in a tuxedo and top hat rode a horse through a series of fancy steps and maneuvers: cantering, walking diagonally, galloping, eh. I complained that the real athlete was the horse, and did he get a medal?

We got bored with that soon enough, and came back later to see fencing. I can't remember watching fencing during the Olympics in the US, but since the games started here I've learned all about it.

"It's a truly French sport" my colleague and friend Alain told me. "Don't you hear the words at the beginning of the match? Allez! En guarde! You've heard of the Musketeers, right?"

For whatever ignorant reason it never occurred to me that the Musketeers were French. Probably because all of the movies I've seen about them were in English.

"D'Artagnan" he offered.

"Oh, Chris O'Donnell" I replied.

He was not amused.

What I don't miss is the cheesy American coverage. The heartwarming sidenotes about the athlete's mom crying in the stands. Maybe they have the same in French and I don't understand, but so far I've seen no footage of emotional parents. Lots of footage of how great France is, though.

Which means we've seen loads of fencing and judo. But we have been treated some other interesting sports like kayaking, archery, and now, some track and field. Although today they stopped coverage of the track events to cover the entire medal ceremony for the French saber (another form of fencing) team. We saw each of the medal presenters and their names, we saw the athletes file out and fidget in front of the podium, we saw the whole darned thing. Because, of course, France won the gold.

France has been doing ok so far, but has been coming up short of some gold medals. When they won their first, in some kind of wrestling category, my colleagues couldn't stop talking about it. And I couldn't stop teasing them in return.

"It's a very old sport" Caroline said proudly. "It dates back to the original Olympic games."

"Huh. Is it true that we have one athlete who has more gold medals than your entire country?"

Like a true American, Michael Phelps is both despised and admired here. And I love it. The Olympics have brought out a bit of friendly competition between myself and my group at work. When the French won a gold medal in the 100 meter men's freestyle, they were so proud.

I said, "A French guy won? So Michael Phelps must not have been in that race."

Caroline replied quickly, "But the French swimmer beat another American. I'm sure of it."

She quickly looked up the race online. "Well....the guy he beat was....Australian. But his name sounded...American."

It's a good thing that the US is so good at the summer games, it's making my job a lot more fun.