Music blaring, horns tooting, hands clapping and fans hollering – these are some of the sounds of the 2024 Olympics.
While not every athlete is comfortable with the chaos, back at the Summer Games for the first time in eight years, others have been thriving on the passion of the crowds in France.
Nearly 10 million spectator tickets were made available for these Games, and they’re almost sold out. Announcers at most events know many spectators may be rookies to the sport and explain the etiquette beforehand. (Golf, weightlifting, diving, and tennis? It’s all about the timing. Rugby, soccer, volleyball and basketball? Feel free to make it impossible to hear the person next to you.)
Before the events at La Defense Arena, home of swimming, a loud music and light show has been setting the mood for the sellout crowds.
As swimmers strut onto the pool deck, the cheers overtake the music. This was never more obvious than when France’s Leon Marchand arrived for the 200-metre breaststroke final Wednesday night. He was met with raucous chants of “Leon, Leon.”
Seizing on the mechanics of the stroke, in perfect rhythm, the fans went silent when Marchand’s head plunged under water then erupted into a rapturous “Allez” when he surfaced. The deeper into the race, the louder it became and the starker the contrast: Quiet, “Allez,” quiet “Allez.”
And at the end: One thunderous roar.
He loved it.
“It feels almost like a football stadium,” Marchand said afterwards.
Canadians Summer McIntosh and Maggie Mac Neil are also enjoying the atmosphere, especially compared to the near-silence of Tokyo.
“Learning to manage that was definitely something that took a lot of practice,” McIntosh told reporters. “Now, having everyone in the stands and feeding off the energy of the crowd, makes the race go by much faster and makes it easier.”
American sprinter Noah Lyles is one who craves the hype. He said the atmosphere in Tokyo, impacted by COVID-19 restrictions, “sucked.”
“When I got to the final and walked into that empty stadium, I remember the final announcement of everybody’s name and we were all standing behind our blocks,” Lyles recalled. “Usually, it’s the moment when I’m like: ‘It’s showtime!’ But I was thinking this is not it, this is not fun, this is not cool, this is not what I wanted or what I thought it was going to be like.”
The roar of a crowd has proven to benefit athletes such as Leon, Lyles and MacIntosh, explained Jean Côté, researcher and professor of sports psychology at Queen’s University.
“They have to prepare for (that noise), though,” Côté said “I think that’s a big thing. It cannot just happen out of nowhere.”
Gymnastics is all about extreme focus. One false move and you’re landing hard on a mat that likely never feels thick enough. Imagine you’re about to propel yourself off a high bar as Simone Biles launches into an incredible floor routine featuring the thunderous (and catchy) first few notes of Taylor Swift’s …Ready for it?
The crowd, which featured numerous celebrities, was electric. The Canadian team required some preparation for it.
“It’s hard when the crowd is so loud, but it’s also something really special and really magical,” gymnast Ellie Black told reporters. “It’s definitely tough when you’re on beam and the crowd’s going wild, but we tried to do a bit of practice for that because we knew it was going to be loud.”
That practice meant enlisting the help of their family and friends to make as much noise as they could during training. As their biggest supporters banged drums, the Canadian gymnasts performed those highly technical balance beam routines.
Black’s teammate Cassandra Lee said she’s one of those athletes who thrives on the energy of a crowd.
“Competing, especially on floor, I get a lot of my energy from the crowd,” she said. “They really helped get me through that floor routine. Especially after someone — an American — landed a vault. They would explode, so that really helped me.”
When it came to Black’s floor routine during the all around final, she clearly embraced the crowd as it clapped along with her accompanying music. Coincidentally, a portion of the music and routine included Black “shushing,” though she did so with a slight smile.
By the end, Black was nothing but smiles as she sat with her team. She could be heard telling them: “That was fun!”
Côté said the Canadian team’s approach is textbook sports psychology. Preparing isn’t a case of tuning out the noise, it is a case of acknowledging it will be there in advance.
“If you know the competition will be loud and there will be distractions, and all different kinds of sounds, then you want to reproduce that as much as you can,” Côté said.
“The mental preparation is to try to reproduce the event as close as possible, and when there are unexpected things, that athletes have a plan to know how to deal with it.”
This eliminates any surprises, but at the Olympic level, Côté doesn’t think there is too much in terms of sounds that could shake an athlete.
He suggested they would have learned to adapt to large crowds and unexpected noises, even for those athletes who generally compete in silence.
Doug Ferguson, lead golf reporter with The Associated Press, estimated that roughly 25,000 fans travelled to Le Golf National, situated about 40 km southwest of Paris, to watch the best of the best battle for Olympic greatness.
Playing alongside Canada’s Corey Conners, Ireland’s Rory McIlroy said he was impressed by the turnout. He expected the crowd to be a bit quieter over the first few days, but they were not.
“Unbelievable, it was surprising,” McIlroy said of the fans. “With so many events going on spread all across the city, for people to venture out here and to watch us play, it was a really cool atmosphere to play in.”
The tenacity and focus of Canadian gymnast Felix Dolci during the men’s all-around final impressed Côté on Wednesday. The 22-year-old of Saint-Eustache, Que., was performing his horizontal bar routine when his hard grip broke, and he crashed hard into the mat below. The fall was met with an unmistakable groan from the crowd.
After taking time to recover and replacing his grip, Dolci was allowed to return to the horizontal bar about 15 minutes later to complete his routine. Likely shaken, Dolci fell once more, but, once again, hopped back up and finished. He was met with enthusiastic, encouraging cheers from the crowd. Dolci responded by forming a heart with his hands to thank the fans.
“That’s a pretty hard thing to deal with,” Côté sympathized.
Côté explained Dolci and his team likely had a plan for if something disastrous had occurred. He said many athletes use trigger words, images or an action to rein their focus back in. These are triggers assigned in advance of the competition
“If it is a gymnast who just fell, they think ‘I’ve got to put my shoulders back and head up,’ it could change their emotions and change their thoughts,” Côté said. “It’s basic psychology, like when we feel down about ourselves, we use actions, we may use images, we may use words to help us. It would be the same kind of thing there, but it happens very quickly.”
– With files from Rob Longley and Andrea Hill
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