Postcard from Paris 2024 – Tall tales and Irish Olympic history

Beach Volleyball under the Eiffel Tower at sunset at Paris 2024

Beach Volleyball under the Eiffel Tower at sunset at Paris 2024 Credit: Macdara Ferris

Macdara Ferris reports from Paris 2024

It is a long Olympic cycle and it takes years of planning and preparation to make it to the games. From missing out on Tokyo due to Covid restrictions, the pressure was on to get to Paris this time around but I’m not actually talking about the freakishly fit Olympians here but your extratime.com writer.

Having had tickets for Tokyo 2020, spectators were not allowed when the event happened in 2021 but I just had to put my disappointment behind me, refocus and go again. In February 2023 I booked my first set of tickets for Paris 2024 when the initial ticketing window opened.

The super complicated system gave each applicant a 48 hour window over a specified fortnight period to apply with tickets to be purchased in batches of three events.

It all meant I got three sets of three events, padded out with a couple of tickets for football games in Paris and even down in Lyon that I was likely never going to go to and thankfully I was able to resell those football tickets on the official re-sale site.

I plotted out a six day extended bank holiday trip using the detailed Olympic schedule, map of Paris and its arrondissements, and the preferences for events from my travelling companions (e.g. “I’d be happy with gymnastics but not the prancing about dancing gymnastics”).

The first few days it did seem that we were mostly watching freakishly tall women compete at the top level of their chosen tall persons sport. First up on Saturday was seeing the Dominican Republic knock the Netherlands out of the volleyball in the Arena Paris Sud which was packed to its 10,500 capacity even at 9am on a Saturday morning.

We went to the Concorde Urban Project in the Place de la Concorde where we watched more tall women - this time some 3x3 basketball action but we missed the really small women in the adjacent skate park where there were two 11-year-old girls competing in the women’s event. 

Saturday night was spent under the Eiffel Tower with our expensively purchased tickets for the beach volleyball at sunset worth every cent. We got to watch a round of 16 men’s match and one on the women’s side, with the latter being an event where there was no getting away from the fact that yes they were playing in very skimpy team wear.

The cold and wet weather from the opening ceremony was a distant memory with the Parisian sky on this night lit up by deep hues of pink and orange with the Eiffel Tower framed by the floodlights of the 12,000 capacity temporary stadium. It was a perfect Instagram moment!



Moving away from the jokes to a very serious matter, I was wondering why the crowd were booing one of the male Dutch beach volleyball players before learning that it was Steven van de Velde – a convicted rapist – playing for the Netherlands. Brazil beat the Dutch on a night where the win went to the good guys thankfully.

The use of existing facilities and pop up venues across Paris for these games has been a great success - from the fencing in the Grand Palais, the Archery in Les Invalides and the pop up pool in La Defense Arena. They also re-used the stadium from when the Olympics were hosted in the city 100 years ago.

We travelled out to the 15,000 capacity Yves du Manoir Stadium in Colombes for a couple of hockey quarter-finals. Back in 1924, this was the Stade Olympic which hosted the opening ceremony and athletics competition during the 1924 Olympics.

It also was the venue for the football events which, like this Olympiad, actually began before the opening ceremony. Competing for the new Irish Free State a century ago, the players in that Ireland team became the very first Irish Olympians.

The amateur side beat Bulgaria in their opening game in the Colombes venue before losing their quarter-final to the Netherlands.



In the hockey in Paris 2024, we watched a defeat for Australia against China in the first match and then a win for Argentina over Germany in the second game which ended in a shoot-out.

Both matches were played out in 30 degree heat that saw the volunteers spraying fans with water in the stands to keep us cool. Thankfully all the venues at the games have multiple drinking water fountains to help in the heat of this week.

The Olympics also have lots of free events that you can go and watch including the triathlon, walking, and marathon (running and swimming). As a cycling fan though, I timed my trip to Paris to take in the men’s and women’s road races held on the middle weekend of the Olympics.

With three laps up to the Cote de la Butte Montmarte included at the end of the 273km men’s race (and the 158km women’s race), the crowds packed the climb to Sacré Coeur. The Dutch and Belgian fans were out in force and the French crowds had plenty to cheer for and it was a carnival atmosphere as spectators awaited the riders.

We were positioned outside an Intermarché which was handy to go in and get some ice pops to help us survive the heat, swapping flavours with the Dutch and Italian fans around us.

Belgian star Remco Evenepoel won the gold despite a late puncture necessitating a bike change, with the home nation filling out the other two podium places as Valentin Madouas took silver and Christophe Laporte bronze much to the delight of the local spectators.

Irish riders Ryan Mullen and Ben Healy animated much of the race, and we proudly waved our tricolours and came back the next day to do so again – this time to cheer on Megan Armitage in the women’s race. We staked out a place on a really narrow section of the climb where you were literally rubbing shoulders with the best women on a bike in the world.

I had to pull myself back when Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig went on the attack on lap three as she nipped into a very small gap on the cobbled climb right in front of me. Armitage’s trade teammate at EF, Kristen Faulkner, was the surprise winner for the USA, with the Irish cyclist coming in a creditable 35th.

The atmosphere around Paris was brilliant for the week or so we were there. At every event you got chatting with visitors to the city for the Olympics, swapping stories of what events they had been at and were planning on attending. With many Parisians leaving the city and many streets closed to traffic for events, it made for a very different experience – it was a much more pedestrian friendly Paris. 

At sunset each evening the Olympic Cauldron rises up into the sky from the Jardin des Tuileries, with the crowds gathering around it and along the River Seine outside the Musée d’Orsay. This novel idea has made the Olympic flame part of everyone’s trip to the games, rather than for only those attending the main stadium as in previous Olympics.

I got tickets for three different track and field athletic sessions. In Athens in 2004 I’d stood trackside supporting Sonia O’Sullivan and 20 years later in Paris I was now cheering on her daughter Sophie in the 1,500m.

With my session choice I ended up being unlucky not to see Rhasidat Adeleke run but it was great to see Sarah Lavin and Mark English finish second in their heats and for O’Sullivan to run a PB even if both her and Sarah Healy were unlucky not to progress in the repechage.

Away from the Irish athletes, there was the men’s 1,500m final where both Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Josh Kerr missed out on gold with American Cole Hocker winning and a slightly underwhelming light show ahead of the women’s 200m won by Gabby Thomas. 

The track and field events are great sporting occasions to go to. With two or three events happening at the same time, the action shown on the giant screens and in-stadium commentary it is a sporting occasion you can follow as well as on TV.

The atmosphere is always electric and very different to the toing and froing you get in the more adversarial football crowd. For all the travelling fans from across the world, the best atmosphere was when a French athlete was competing in any of the events and especially at the front of the field. Allez les Bleus!

This Olympics has been the most successful for Ireland and there were Irish tricolours on display at all the events I was at. I don’t really want to miss the next big party. Might be time to start planning for Los Angeles 2028 already.

About Macdara Ferris

Macdara Ferris is a contributor since 2007 to Hoops Scene (Shamrock Rovers' match day programme) and is the co-author of two books on Shamrock Rovers - 'Tallaght Time: Shamrock Rovers 2009 to 2012' (with Karl … View Full Profile