Paris diary, day six: Broken bats and culinary taunts
With more than 10,000 athletes from more than 200 countries competing in 32 different sports, there’s no disputing the Olympics is the biggest show on earth.
Yet it is only when you get close to it, you realise just how big and the sheer mental and physical impossibility of knowing and seeing everything.
Every day hundreds of new stories are written and the vast majority, you will never hear about, such is the need to filter for the target audience. For British newspapers, the focus will for the most part be on our athletes, with a little put aside for the superstars of the major sports like Leon Marchand and Simone Biles.
There are a few quirky tales, heard from colleagues covering some of the lower-profile events, which are worth re-telling.
The first concerns an over eager photographer and a broken table tennis bat.
When China’s world No.1 Wang Chuqin and playing partner Sun Yingsha beat North Korea in the mixed doubles final, a hasty snapper rushing in to document the moment of triumph trampled over his paddle, snapping the handle.
A distraught Wang had to be consoled by his coach. Just 24 hours later, using a new bat, he crashed out of the singles tournament with a shock defeat to Sweden’s Truls Moregard.
Cue the conspiracy theorists, with many in China now believing the incident was a deliberate act of sabotage by a rival nation. Quite which nation isn’t clear because the identity of the photographer, despite the best efforts of not-too-pleased IOC officials, proved impossible to determine. Lucky for them.
Over at the fencing, meanwhile, it is Italy crying foul after Filippo Macchi’s controversial defeat to Hong Kong’s Cheung Ka-long in the men’s foil gold medal match.
After Macchi’s fan took to social media to declare gold had been “stolen” from their man, Cheung’s backers responded in the only way they knew how - by mocking Italian food, taking pictures of themselves eating pineapple pizza and putting soy sauce on pasta.
Deliciously childish. Rather funny too.