Finn Butcher claimed New Zealand's third gold while the Women's Sprint Team won silver. Video / Chereè Kinnear / Sky Sports / Getty / Photosport
By Kris Shannon in Paris
On the hottest day of the Olympic Games in Paris, there is no cooler place to be than the Grand Palais.
Located between the Champs-Élysées and the Seine, the historic museum and exhibition hall has great air-conditioning, yes, and that’s important when it’s 35C.But for nine days this summer, it’s also blessed by the world’s best exponents of what locals call escrime.
Fencing is one of the few Olympic sports that’s foreign to most New Zealanders: every four years we may catch the action on TV then change the channel for another, more interesting event to watch.
An oddity for one nation, though, is an obsession for others, so with a couple of hours to fill before attending the sevens – one of our own idiosyncratic games – I head for the fencing and discover something shocking.
There are significantly fewer swords than expected, and much less combat. These fencers are armed with bows and arrows, taking aim at targets rather than each other. It eventually becomes clear that blindly following the crowd from a metro station is perhaps a poor way to find the right venue.
Archery is one of the few Olympic sports foreign to most New Zealanders. Hosted during these Games at Invalides – opposite the Grand Palais, as it turns out, on the opposite side of the Seine – it’s extremely not cool.
The grounds do have a bit of history. Opening in 1674, shortly after our country opened to Europeans, it was initially a hospital for disabled soldiers. It’s also the last resting place of Napoleon Bonaparte, responsible for disabling many soldiers.
However, as a sporting venue, it leaves something to be desired. That something is shade; every available inch is packed with fans. On a day like this, the athletes are fortunate to compete in fixed positions, while this athlete is fortunate to know where he escapes the sun and sits down.
Walking over Pont des Invalides, heading to the fencing for the second time this afternoon, the risk of E. coli seems worth it for a quick dip in the murky river below. But if a €1.5 billion ($2.72b) project has failed to clean the Seine, on its banks the Grand Palais is another triumph of a venue in an Olympics featuring many.
The Olympic fencing competition has been held in the Grand Palais. Photo / Getty Images
With two temporary stands seating 6000 supporters up to the ceiling of the monumental hall – and more importantly with the AC cranking – today it’s tough to imagine a better place to watch sport.
This isn’t the first time the building has witnessed a little swordplay, while it annually hosts an international show jumping competition. Like, with horses. Horses indoors. It also has a somewhat darker past: during the occupation of France, the Nazis repurposed the Palais first as a truck depot and then to exhibit propaganda.
When assessing the endless uses for a big empty building, fencing falls somewhere on the spectrum between horses and Nazis.
There’s certainly nationalistic fervour today. The women’s epee team classification bouts have barely ended when the first chants of Allez les Bleus ring around the arena, volume steadily rising as the hosts are introduced for their semifinal against Poland.
And what an introduction, the fencers greeted by a stirring rendition of La Marseillaise to rival that heard in Rick’s Café Américain.
Still, it’s not as grand an entrance as the athletes will enjoy ahead of medal bouts later that evening, walking on to a second-floor balcony and descending a baroque staircase to do battle.
Poland and France do battle in the women's epee team semifinal. Photo / Getty Images
Before then, the semifinal must be settled. How? Still not too sure about that. Often the only way to reliably gauge which fencer has scored is the reaction, defining roars from the French fans or quiet fist pumps from the Polish journalists.
The fencers’ body language can provide clues to a pivotal moment, while their faces are obscured by the colours of their country’s flag, an enemy’s insignia undoubtedly adding to the satisfaction of jabbing them with a dangerous weapon.
As the two teams’ three members rotate in and out, seemingly at random, it appears to be going poorly for the Poles. One of their epees is broken, which has to be bad, and out rushes a woman in the Paris 2024 volunteer uniform holding a bag of replacement options. (Sword Lady is a nicer job than standing in the heat directing lost dummies to the right venue.)
Soon enough, France secure a spot in the gold medal bout and the crowd erupts.
Almost simultaneously on an adjacent piste – a word that doesn’t just describe a ski run, we learn – Italy defeat China in the other semifinal. No one wearing a tricolour is paying attention, but maybe they should have been.
Later that night, while I’m watching rugby, Italy trump their neighbours in overtime, relegating France to silver medallists, or as the French charmingly call it, vice-champions.
Kris Shannon has been a sport journalist since 2011 and covers a variety of codes for the Herald.
