First up and first out at the Paris Games
With 10,000 athletes across 32 sports and just 329 gold medals, it’s really a matter of math
AT 10.04 am on Saturday (Jul 27), Tufaha Uwihoreye found herself where she had always wanted to be.
Fencing for Rwanda at the Olympic Games had been her dream since she was 13. She chased it for 14 years. She trained alongside boys, the only girl in her group. She travelled to tournaments without a coach. Seeking the specialist facilities she needed, she even uprooted her life to Algeria at one point.
Now, under the soaring glass roof of the Grand Palais, she found herself on an Olympic piste at last. She was the first Rwandan to fence on this stage. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves. “I said: ‘Oh, I can do it,’” she said.
By 10.17 am, her bout had finished. She had lost. Her Olympics were over. They had lasted 13 minutes.
It’s really a matter of math. There are 10,000 athletes at the Paris Games, spread across 32 sports. In the space of 19 days, that field has to be whittled down to just 329 gold medals. So, ultimately, someone has to go out first. And in some cases – in fencing, diving, judo, table tennis and rugby sevens, among others – that means the opening day of the Olympics is also the last.
For some, the cruelty was even more pointed. Anabelle Smith and her partner, Maddison Keeney, had been in contention for a medal in the 3-m springboard synchronised diving when Smith misjudged her footing on the last of their five dives. It meant Australia slipped from third to fifth. “I screamed underwater,” Smith said. She now has a lifetime to nurse her regrets. “It will take time to sink in,” she said.
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Gabriela Narvaez’s Olympics were over by 4 pm, but they might have been even more brief. A 29-year-old judoka, she dislocated her left elbow during her defeat in a quarterfinal but refused to countenance skipping her final match-up. “There was a possibility of not competing, but I wasn’t going to go out,” she said. In her first Olympics, she recorded Paraguay’s best-ever result in the sport. “I’m trying to be happy,” she said.
There are certain advantages in going early, though. “People are itching to get their Olympic fix,” said Nick Malouf, a member of Australia’s rugby sevens team. Along with soccer and archery, Malouf’s sport was one of three to start before the opening ceremony. “Getting those eyeballs on us is great for rugby as a whole,” he said.
For the lucky few, going first can come to resemble the best of all possible worlds. Kassidy Cook and her synchronised diving partner, Sarah Bacon, won the United States’ first medal of these Games in the Aquatics Centre, a silver. “It’s kind of a relief,” Cook said. “Now you can really have fun and let loose.” She will stay in Paris for the rest of the Olympics, reveling in the party spirit of the athletes’ village.
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That is not a privilege available to everyone. Japan’s rugby team played five games at these Olympics and lost them all. It had been told it had to leave the athletes’ village by noon on Sunday. “Other teams need our rooms,” Josua Kerevi said.
He does not, however, regard his stay as unhappy. “Not everyone has a chance to do this. To play the game you love at an Olympics is incredible. Nobody can take that away from us.” NYTIMES
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