Part Deux of my most recent update!
The day after we visited Montmartre we spoke with Olympian and LA OCOG member, Janet Evans. She shared her experience with career transition post-retirement and that was something that we continued to hear reverberate as an area where the Olympic movement can better help to support its athletes. We later returned to Montmartre to meet with Rebecca Perez at the beautiful cafe – Le Vrai. As a venue operations director, she shared a unique insight to the challenges faced when programs run long and cause delays in turnover for staff or spectators. I was also interested to learn that some venues like hers are expected to be turned over for the Paralympic games but have suboptimal conditions for some events (like a lack of sound-proofing for Goal Ball).
While we were there we stopped by a mural with hundreds of different messages of love in languages around the world. I thought it was very fitting for an Olympic host city.
Afterwards a group of us made our way to the NBC broadcast location to have an interview with their Washington, DC affiliate! We got to share our thoughts about the class and our experience at the Olympics so far – which makes the second time I’ve been on TV. If you caught it live at 6am and 11pm on July 30, send me the footage!
Other highlights from that day include “monkeying around” at Spot24, an exhibition of sport and urban culture showing how the Olympics have evolved to include modern events, and speaking with Drew Johnson – strategic communications executive at Octagon.
On July 30, we visited the Pierre de Coubertin museum and spoke with his relative and president of the de Coubertin Family Association, Alexandra de Navacelle. This is the first games that has had this exhibition and it was incredible to be able to learn more about the father of the modern Olympic games directly from his family.
August 1st was my day off (and my birthday!) – during which I made a pilgrimage to the Pride house on the Seine where stories of queer athletics from around the world are shared and celebrated. Later on, I cheered on USA Swimming at La Defense arena and met a huge icon from my childhood, Summer Sanders! She herself is a gold medal-winning swimmer for Team USA so it felt very much like kismet.
That’s all for now but I will be sure to put more up when I can – thank you for following along!