PARIS — Two and a half hours before 17,000 fans rocked the bleachers of La Défense Arena, waving French flags, making so much noise another swimmer said he could hear it through his headphones and screaming the name of their hero, Léon Marchand screamed the name of his.
Ensconced in the team hotel near the venue where French swimmers rest between morning heats and afternoon finals, Marchand lost his mind cheering for the third career Olympic gold medal of judoka Teddy Riner, who until a week ago was their shared country’s most famous individual athlete.
“It fired him up,” said coach Bob Bowman shortly after Marchand won his fourth gold of these Games, this one in the 200-meter individual medley. “It inspired him.”
How could anyone not be inspired by what Les Bleus have done here—and the way their fans have reacted? A poll released on July 17 found that just 12% of French people described themselves as enthusiastic about hosting the Games. Perhaps the other 88% are in the Côte d’Azur, because the people here are doing less Gallic shrugging than they are Gallic shouting.
Forget the in-stadium experience, where stands shake and decibel volumes reach jet takeoff levels, where athletes on the receiving end of the love burst into tears. Across the city and beyond, the French are having a ball.
At the Stade de France, as the first track events were about to start and fans learned the outcome, a “Teddy! Teddy!” chant broke out; in Lille, amid the Canada–Spain men’s basketball game, half the arena sang the Marseillaise, the French national anthem. Two and a half hours later, organizers had to delay the start of the men’s decathlon 400 meters because the athletes could not hear over the sound of the crowd’s reaction to Marchand’s victory.
“I’m very proud to be French,” Marchand said in French.
The only person who might have had a better day than Riner and Marchand on Friday was President Emmanuel Macron, who made it to both events and bear-hugged both winners. (He also got to watch Romane Dicko win bronze in the women’s judo final and Florent Manaudou do the same in the men’s 50-meter freestyle.) Macron will have to settle for highlights of the men’s BMX race, in which France swept the podium (Joris Daudet won gold, Sylvain André silver and Romain Mathieu bronze) and the women’s skiff race and the jumping team final, in which France took bronze. The nine medals mark the best day for France in the Olympics since July 27, 1996, in Atlanta.
Riner was seven then, living five miles from the Champ de Mars Stadium when David Douillet won his first Olympic gold medal in heavyweight judo. The French interest in the sport under Douillet, who would win gold in Sydney, exploded as Riner won bronze in Beijing, then gold in London and Rio. He went nearly 10 years without losing a match, then finished a disappointing third in Tokyo. Some 6,000 people got to watch his redemption on Friday, at the same Champ de Mars Stadium, when he became the most decorated judoka in history. They dressed in judogi and bore “TEDDY WINNER” signs; they sang, “Let’s go, Teddy; we are all behind you” and jumped in rhythm. Riner called it “my perfect day.”
At 35, Riner is almost certainly competing in his final Olympics. For Marchand, 22, his athletic career is just beginning. His parents, Céline Bonnet and Xavier, were world-class swimmers for France, but in 2021, he cold-emailed Bowman, hoping that the man who had trained Michael Phelps might take him on at Arizona State University. That feels like a long time ago now. Marchand knows he will leave here to a different life than the one he had a week ago. He has become the face of these Games, beaming from skyscrapers and newsstands. Fans wait hours in line to enter the arena, then time their cheers so he will hear them when he soars above the water on the butterfly. He admitted on Friday that he felt a lot of pressure, the weight of a nation’s hopes. After the week he has had, those hopes have only grown.
During last Friday’s opening ceremony, Riner was one of the two French athletes selected to light the Olympic cauldron from the Olympic torch. This week, he passed it to Marchand.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Judo Legend Teddy Riner, Young Star Léon Marchand Deliver France’s Olympic Moment.
