To get to the BMX freestyle venue at Place de la Concorde from our reporters’ team hotel at Gare de Lyon there is a full choice of transport options, and only one that might possibly stir up some breeze on a blistering hot Tuesday afternoon.
Vélib’ Métropole is one of the original city bike schemes, with 19,000 bikes available (40 per cent electric) at stations every 300m in the Greater Paris area. It’s also cheap and cheerful to use and a chance to practice some wheelies and bunny-hops along the Seine to help get in the mood.
Only €5 for a 24-hour pass, the 6.1km trip down along the Left Bank passes Notre Dame as far as Invalides, then crosses over into Concorde. It took 32 minutes – and left me dripping in sweat. Now this is the crippling heat of Paris in high July.
Place de la Concorde – all 19 acres of it – is the largest of the many great landmark squares in Paris, linking the Champs-Elysées with the Jardins des Tuileries and the Louvre, and has been transformed into four temporary venues for the most contemporary and modern-of-modern Olympic sports; BMX freestyle, 3x3 basketball, skateboarding, and breaking – that mash-up of street dance, hip-hop culture and DJ tunes that athletes must match their moves to.
You hear these venues before you see them, all four neatly wrapped around one of the Luxor Obelisks, one of which was moved here from Egypt in the 1830s, and adjacent to Jardins des Tuileries where the Olympic torch is currently burning.
Tuesday afternoon is qualification in BMX freestyle, which made its Olympic debut in Tokyo, joining BMX racing, which has been an Olympic event since Beijing in 2008. The venues are suitably hip and spectators mostly youthful, graffiti artists presumably hired to further colour some of the Olympic hoardings.
It’s also arguably my first Olympic sport. A few years before my dad first took me running my older brother had us out on our BMX tricks learning new tricks every day; the 180 (we were beginners), the fakie, the bar ride.
Only 12 of the very best men and women riders in the world have made it to Paris. None of them are household names, but they are already masters of their sport. Hannah Roberts from the USA was a world champion at age 16; Britain’s 23-year-old Kieran Reilly is the reigning world champion and favourite for the men’s gold.
They each have 60 seconds to perform their favourite jumps over a series of about 20 ramps and quarter-pipes and near vertical take-offs. They each get two runs for an average score that decides that ranking, with the top nine progressing to Wednesday’s final.
With the heat also ramped up to insufferable levels, Perris Benegas from the USA is first up in women’s qualification. The 29-year-old from Reno in Nevada is already a role model for that new generation of Olympians and is fearlessly ambitious. “Literally, since I was a kid I told myself that I just wanted to travel the world and ride my bike,” she said, “and that’s what I’m doing now. It’s really just a dream come true.”
Benegas is clearly enjoying it too. “Known for her smooth style, and we are seeing the smooth vibes of Perris now,” screams the stadium commentator. “A huge bar-spin on that jump, a big transfer, and she is working the clock!”
Ands those serious tricks keep coming. The 540 bar spin, the backflip, the bike flip, and – when in Paris – the cancan.
In Tokyo, Britain’s Charlotte Worthington and Declan Brooks qualified for the final seeded fourth and seventh, then came away with the gold and a bronze – illustrating the event’s sheer unpredictability.
Worthington couldn’t repeat her Tokyo magic here, and missed out on the final, finishing 11th. Roberts, who won silver last time, was the best qualifier, just ahead of two Chinese riders with Bengas qualifying in fourth.
Laury Perez from France also squeezed into the final in ninth, this being the only cycling discipline where they have yet to win an Olympic gold medal.
Britain’s best shot for gold is again Reilly, first of the nine men’s qualifiers. David Walsh from The Sunday Times is here mostly for that reason, but also knows a good cycling show when he sees it.
