PARIS (AP) — Beach volleyball’s biggest star Paris Olympic Games cannot attach, poke or dive around sand.
But she is really pretty.
The Eiffel Tower has stolen the show from the competition at the Summer Games so far, with fans and players alike raving about the incomparable setting that has transformed the Champ de Mars stadium into an iconic Olympic venue.
“I don’t know who chose this place to host beach volleyball. He deserves a medal too,” said Cherif Younousse of Qatar, himself an Olympic medalist. “While warming up on the side court, we thought, ‘Wow, we’re under the Eiffel Tower.’ We couldn’t even imagine playing beach volleyball here.”
And the landmark that Parisians call La Dame de Fer is just one reason the venue is such a hit. Fans wave baguettes, dance the cancan and sing along to a DJ who transforms the 12,860-seat stadium into the hottest club in Paris. A stream of celebrities, heads of state and royalty have stopped by to check it out.
“I’m more than happy to say to all the other sports, ‘Yes, we definitely have the best venue,’” said Australia’s Taliqua Clancy, a silver medallist in Tokyo. “It’s absolutely incredible. Honestly, it doesn’t get any better than that.”
Although Beach volleyball It only joined the Olympic programme in 1996, but it quickly became one of the most popular sports at the Summer Games, thanks in part, no doubt, to the women in swimsuitsbut also to an atmosphere that surrounds fast-paced competition with a party atmosphere on the beach.
THE London location at Horse Guards Parade sparkled with views of the Big Ben clock tower and Benny Hill-style hijinks; four years later, the Copacabana Beach stadium pulsing to the rhythm of a sambasurrounded by Cariocas sunbathing — and playing beach volleyball and soccer — on the surrounding sand. Tokyo set up its site in a waterfront park overlooking the Rainbow Bridge.
But Paris, as Paris tends to do, eclipsed them all.
Every evening, as the sun sets behind the chain-link monument, the stadium goes dark and fans hold up their cellphone lights in a sort of digital reboot of Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.” At 10 p.m., the Eiffel Tower lights up with twinkling strobes and would-be influencers jostle for a spot in position for a perfect picturewith the field, Olympic rings and tower all lined up in the background.
“This is what dreams are made of,” said American Kristen Nuss, whose Olympic debut began just after the light show. “Guys, this is a memory that will stay with me forever.”
It’s not just athletes.
The crowned heads of Spain, Jordan and Luxembourg have graced the arena, as have the presidents of Finland, Estonia and Lithuania ( and France, but yes! French football legend Zinedine Zidane came in the morning after carrying the torch at the opening ceremony, and Basketball Hall of Famer Pau Gasol came to cheer on his fellow Spaniards.
Gymnast Livvy Dunne cheered on her classmates Nuss and Taryn Kloth, LSU Tigers Before posing for photos to satisfy his 6 million TikTok followers. On Wednesday, Snoop Dogg and the cast of the “Today” show came to see Americans Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes beat France in three sets.
Filmmakers Baz Luhrmann and Judd Apatow and movie stars Elizabeth Banks and Leslie Mann have visited the venue. On other occasions, it has resembled a movie set: At a women’s soccer match between France and Germany on Sunday, the crowd sang “La Marseillaise,” the French national anthem, which would have been a source of pride for the “Casablanca” resistance.
It’s a scene that is above all very French: a woman dressed like a cancan dancer In blue, white and red, the fans posed for photos with anyone who wanted one. A painter dabbed his oils at the back of the press box, the only place that offers at least a few hours of shade. The DJ added Edith Piaf songs to his hip-hop and techno playlist, and the crowd sang along. Men in berets, with mustaches painted in the image of Dali, waved drumsticks to cheer on the French team.
Hang this in the Louvre.
And above it all looms the century-old latticework monument that gives the place its name. Looking for a practice field before the match began, a volunteer kindly pointed the way: “Go there,” she said, “and turn left out of the Eiffel Tower.”
“I think it’s the best stadium in history,” France’s Clémence Vieira said after a 21-16, 23-21 defeat to the Americans in front of cheering home fans. “It’s very symbolic because the Eiffel Tower is a symbol of France. So I think there’s nothing to say, but it’s simply the best stadium in history.”
Vieira, a 23-year-old from Toulouse who is competing in his first Olympics, may be a little biased. But even some regular competitors agree: the 2024 beach volleyball venue is not only the best in Paris, but perhaps the best in the history of the Games.
If nothing else, it sets a standard that future organizers will struggle to surpass.
“I think it’s going to be hard to top that,” said Nuss, who hopes her first Olympics won’t be her last. “I don’t know how other people are going to do it. But I mean, I’m open to seeing how they try.”
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