Parigi 2024, le Olimpiadi della rivoluzione francese

The analysis

Olympics, 27-member EU team beats USA and China with 97 gold medals

A hypothetical Team EU would have looked great, taking 97 golds, compared to 80 for USA+China. In reality, things are more complicated, as there were many more European athletes in each race in Paris - 19 to 6 Americans and Chinese in the men's marathon, 10 to 4 in the women's 100m freestyle, to name but two particularly popular events - with a consequent multiplication of opportunities for victory

13 August 2024

3' min read

The Olympics are first and foremost a great celebration of sport and it is only right and natural that each edition has its heroes among those who go citius, altius, fortius.

But they are also a building block in the complex system of international relations, and it is therefore natural that Paris 2024 should also have people who are emblematic for what they represent politically and not just sportingly. Then no one can surpass Cindy Ngamba.

The boxer - originally from Cameroon but forced into exile in Britain since childhood - was in fact the first competitor of the refugee team, in her third participation, to win a medal.

A bronze for a contingent of 37 athletes, 15 of whom were born in Iran, as well as Afghanistan, Syria, Ethiopia, Venezuela and other conflict-ridden nations.

The IOC, which awarded the Olympic laurel to Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, showed a political foresight, as well as sincere solidarity, that does not seem to characterise chancelleries - at the various G-vattelapesca, refugees are conspicuous by their absence, when not demonised. Ngamba herself has yet to win an even more challenging contest than the one fought in the ring, that of British citizenship.

However, if sport is also the most important tussle in which to settle the question of global leadership without bloodshed, then the symbolic character is Gabby Williams.

At the end of Sunday's final, the French (but Nevada-born) basketball player's foot was in fact slightly inside the 6.75-metre zone and therefore her 2-point basket was not enough to tie the USA, for whom a triple was needed.

Albeit by a narrow point, the victory in women's basketball allowed Team USA to overtake the Chinese in the tally of gold medals, the most popular method of deciding who is the strongest. But not the only one, as the Americans use the total medals method, in which they have dominated since 1996, except for Beijing 2008. Seemingly arcane to aficionados, they are instead methodological issues on which the New York Times and Pravda fought by dint of learned editorials during the Cold War.

Leading the medal race has always served to accumulate soft power, also thanks to the frequent turnover of role models and influencers, and prestige for the country system.

How then to read the performance of European nationals? The Union does not participate as such, although the Lisbon Treaty gives it the competence to support or complement the action of Member States in the field of sport, in particular through specific four-year work plans.

A hypothetical Team EU would have looked great, taking 97 golds, compared to 80 for USA+China. In reality, things are more complicated, as in Paris there were many more European athletes in each race - 19 to 6 Americans and Chinese in the men's marathon, 10 to 4 in the women's 100 metres freestyle, to name but two particularly popular events - with a consequent multiplication of opportunities for victory. Which does not detract from the European dominance in team sports and ball sports in particular. If one then concentrates on the disciplines that use inflated balls, the French disengagement is exemplary - 6 finals out of a possible 12 - but not all that surprising!!!

Irony aside, France comes out of the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad with an extremely positive geopolitical balance sheet. Perhaps the parterre of heads of state and government at the opening and closing ceremonies was not of the highest level, but on the other hand, the clin d'oeil made to American culture with Lady Gaga, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Tom Cruise showed a France far removed from the cliché of Chauvinism.

On the whole, the organisation was almost perfect, no one died of starvation (and hopefully of poly- and per-fluoroalkyl substances) and in the Ville Lumière as in the Eternal City, a nap in the open air remains one of the best options for dealing with 'na cecagna'.

We will know the final costs in a few months, for figures on the benefits in terms of the country's attractiveness for foreign investment and the mending of the banlieue we will have to wait longer. Already winner of three gold medals in canoeing, Tony Estanguet, president of the Comité d'organisation des Jeux Olympiques de Paris 2024, could succeed Thomas Bach at the reins of the IOC. The dispute with Sebastian Coe, the British middle-distance runner with a very similar CV and who is also head of a major federation, promises to be heated.