Et voilà. At the end of a Mexican wave at the Grand Palais, France had its 16th gold medal and Althéa Laurin had hers in taekwondo - France's first in the sport. Cue La Marseillaise.
Grand Palais, hey hey
The partisans were giving it a right go for the local heroine Althéa Laurin who was competing in the women's +67kg category. Up and down they stomped and rompedbellowing: "Qui ne saute pas n'est pas français, hey! hey!" And if even if you initially don't understand the words, things become clear viscerally. And the Grand Palais was the apt venue for the grand moment: Laurin winning at the expense of Svetlana Osipova from Uzbekistan. It was France's first gold medal in the sport. Also the country's 16th gold medal at the 2024 Olympic Games. That eclipsed the haul of 15 at the 1996 Games in Atlanta. Everyone stuck at around to see 22-year-old Laurin go up onto the podium and get a chance to sing the national anthem.
Kingpins
Well, at 22, Laurin could be around for a while. So too Britain's Caden Cunningham and Ariane Salimi from Iran. At 21 and 20 respectively, they fought out the Olympic final for the men's +80kg category. Salimi won the battle 2-1. Could we be seeing a rivalry à la Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic in tennis? "Perhaps more Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo," Salimi smiled.
Double wonders
Before Althéa Laurin took France to gold medal number 16, the men's volleyball team had pushed the tally to 15 following a straight sets win over Poland at the South Paris Arena to retain their title. Men's and women's volleyball was introduced at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Not surprsing really since the Japanese women's volleyball team was quite extraordinary. Les Sorcières de l'Orient was made a few years back highlighting their 1964 Olympic title-winning feats and the techniques of their coach Hirofumi Daimatsu. The Soviet Union won the inaugural men's competition and also four years later. The United States repeated the double in 1984 and 1988. France can join that pantheon.
Long way to go
Still some way to go for the men's vollyball team when compared to say the Chinese men's table tennis team (five on the trot) or the United States men's basketball side who beat France 98-87 at the Bercy Arena to extend their hold to five consecutive titles. The American team, to be fair to the rest, is packed with operators from the NBA like Steph Curry and Lebron James. Men's basketball entered the Olympic realm in 1936 in Berlin. The United States won that one and overall have taken 17 of the 21 competitions contested. France are taking on the US in the women's basketball final on Day 16. Now if the French were to win and stop an eighth consecutive American victory and clock up a 17th gold ... they'll be singing La Marseillaise into next week.
Play it anyway
Worrying times for supremos at the French athletics federation. Cyrena Samba-Mayela won silver in the women's 100m hurdles to register the only French success in track and field events at the 2024 Games. At the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, French athletes also won one medal - that too was silver and came in the men's 4x400m. At least it's not deteriorating. With French medals flying around in other sports, questions are bound to be asked of the athletics bosses. Really, what are those noises at the Chateauroux shooting range?
