The first day of attending the Olympics in person after watching a lot on TV over the last week. First up was a look at the start of the women’s cycling road race.

While the riders took off for the countryside, we had lunch at Paris’ oldest restaurant, Procope, which was started in 1686. Very fancy and good food (the Aussie Olympics kit a bit out of place).

Following that we were spotted in our Aussie tops by Thomas from the Brisbane 2032 promotion team that had taken over a cafe. He gave us free coffees, some Brisbane 2032 merch and two packets of Tim Tams.

We then went to Rodin’s Sculpture Garden and Museum. Rodin was a very prolific sculptor as there was a huge number of sculptures, including the famous Thinker. I found an old friend there as well.

It was then time to see the end stages of the road race so we travelled up to Monmartre to see the final loops that did around the hill.

The setting for the race was fantastic with Sacre Coeur Basilica in the background.

We also saw the wall with “I love you” in most of the world’s main languages.

Then it was off to Paris South Arena for our first ticketed event which was a women’s volleyball pool game between Brazil (ranked 1st in the world) and Poland (ranked 4th). The atmosphere was fantastic with a huge contingent of Brazilian supporters. The volleyball was great too. It was 3-0 to Brazil but the second set went to 38-36! Hugely enjoyable day and getting home after midnight.

This day in sporting history (4 August)

1992 In its debut at the Barcelona Olympics the badminton singles gold medals are both won by Indonesian athletes, whilst both men’s & women’s doubles go to South Korea