Yesterday, we went to the far east of Paris, today we are going to the west: to Versailles, home of the famous Château de Versailles and site of the equestrian events at Paris 2024. This will be the first time we've ever gone to an equestrian event! Sean is still under the weather and will stay home today. The team jumping final is at 2 PM, but before that, we’ve got 9:30 am tickets to tour the Château de Versailles. Getting there is easy – just go across the street to the Gare de Montparnasse and get on the RER N line. We stop at our favorite boulangerie (all of the workers now recognize us!) and grab breakfast on the run.
The Gare de Versailles Chantiers is quite far from the venue. It is actually in the town of Chatiers and the Olympic signs at the station indicate that it will take 90 minutes to walk there, but it looks like there is a bus that leaves from somewhere close to the train station. We head off in what looks like the direction to get to the Palais. After about 25 minutes, we see this in the distance:
This looks like the right place! Out front is a statue of the owner, Louis XIV, King of France from 1643-1715:
After quite a wait, the 8:30 AM ticket line is gone, and we line up for the 9:30 AM line. They do finally let us in a little bit early. Versailles is visited by more than 15 million people every year, so it is no surprise that it is pretty crowded. Here are some of the pictures I took:
Wow, a lot of bling here! My reaction was a lot like seeing the King’s palace outside of Lisbon, “It’s good to be a King”! Of course, between wars and his palais, Louis XIV was spending a significant amount of the French GDP. It didn't affect him, but it did come back to bite his great-great-great grandson Louis XVI who lost his head during the French Revolution 80 years later.
After we finish our tour, we want to get something to eat. There is a restaurant onsite, but it looks pretty snooty, so we go to the snack bar instead. After lunch, we walk back to the train station and find the queue for the Olympic shuttle bus. On our way, we do see a bunch of hardy souls who are walking to the venue. As always, there is a long walk from where the bus drops us off. We had heard that mud was a huge problem at the venue during the storms earlier in the week (people complained about walking back to the bus in ankle deep mud). The organizers clearly heard the complaints because there are wood chips everywhere. We did see a little bit of mud, but it was not a problem.
Today is team jumping. This means that each national team has 3 athletes on horseback jumping (one at a time naturally) over a course of 14 single, double and triple jumps. Each jump is decorated as some sort of French icon like the Arc de Triomphe, Paris fashions, perfume, etc. Scoring is based on the total number of penalties: 4 penalty points for each rail knocked down and 1 penalty point for every second over 79 seconds it takes to complete the course. We have great seats in the 3rd row and it is somewhat fitting that a pair of Californians get to sit in front of a jump decorated with grapes and wine barrels:
We are there way early so we get to see some of the preparations which include teams and judges walking the course and smoothing the surface of the course. We even get a fairly rare Phryge sighting. Phryge is the Paris 2024 mascot and is designed to be an homage to the sort of hats that were first worn by freed slaves in Phrygia, which was a kingdom in modern-day Turkey, and later worn by the revolutionaries during the French Revolution as a symbol of liberty. I originally thought that Phryge was right down at the bottom of Olympic mascots with Izzy from the 1996 Atlanta games, but he/she has grown on me over time.
Ireland, France and Great Britain are the three top-rated teams coming into the competition. It was announced that Mexico had withdrawn from the competition due to a “veterinary issue”. The teams go in reverse order from the previous day’s rankings (worst goes first) and after the first two team members for each team rode, Great Britain was in 1st with 1 penalty, France was in 2nd with 3 points and the US was in 3rd. Ireland was in 4th and Israel, who was last with 33 points, withdrew leaving 8 teams for the final ride, which will be done in the reverse order of the current standings. Germany had a clean ride and kept their score at 8 points. The Netherlands took a 1 second time penalty to move into first place with 7 points. Ireland rider Cian O’Connor needed 2 penalty points or less to move into first place, but knocks down 2 rails and incurs a 1 pt time penalty to end with 14 points. US rider McLain Ward has a clean ride and his time was fast enough to avoid a time penalty. This gave the US 4 points and put the pressure on France. French rider Julien Epaillard was clean through 8 jumps but hits the 9th jump, giving France 7 penalty points. But the crowd goes crazy when it is announced that the French team’s total time was 0.77 seconds faster than the Netherlands and they move into 2nd place. It all comes down to Great Britain’s Scott Brash. He needed 2 points or less. If he gets 2 points, he needs to go fast because the US team is about 4.5 seconds faster as the tiebreaker. But that was not an issue because Brash goes clear and is just under the 79 second limit, winning the gold medal. The US finishes with the silver medal and France takes the bronze medal. Like at kayak, we opt not to see the medal ceremony to get a head start on the crowds. On our walk out when we pass the security station, the volunteers are all doing the wave every time someone goes by. Volunteers are really the heart of each Games! Here are some of the pictures that I took:
As we planned, we got to the train station well before most people and were able to get seats on the 40-minute ride back to the Gare de Montparnasse. Most train stations in Paris have places where you can grab food ready to eat. We go into one of these to get something to take home with us – I pick a curry chicken on baguette sandwich and Beth gets a salad. We look for some more Powerade to bring home to Sean but can’t find any. We stop at the Monoprix, and the Coke display is out as well. But we find a couple of bottles in the fast-food section and bring them home with us. Steps for the day: 11,001.
No comments:
Post a Comment