I don’t want it to end! Has two weeks really passed that quickly?  

Honestly, my entire life and the daily rhythms of our household have come to revolve around the Olympic Games. There isn’t a dinner that is cooked, a lunchbox that is prepared, a table that is wiped down, or a basket of washing that is folded without the steady hum of speed climbing, or synchronised diving, or the men’s 800m repechage in the background.  

These are my takeaways from Paris 2024: 

First of all, I love the way in which history turns on the finest human margins.  

The men’s 100m final was a great example, the way they broke the line in such a crowd, that both first and second recorded the same time on the TV and stadium clocks. With a microscope and a high-quality photo, apparently the silver medallist somehow broke the line first, but he did so with his foot, and ultimately it’s whoever’s chest breaks the line first that wins the race. History decided by five one-thousandths of a second.  

I said before the games that I was looking forward to the men’s 1500m final and it didn’t disappoint. The two favourites had been talked up so much, and had smack-talked each other so much, that basically everyone —including me— had worked themselves into a state where it looked like only those two runners could possibly win it. The defending champion was so cavalier that in the heats, he deliberately didn’t crouch for the start of the race. He waited for the starting gun, let everyone else run off, and then casually trundled after them. 

But in the final, Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s approach came back to bite him. He led for the first 85% of the race, setting a cracking pace as he tried to break his great rival, Britain’s Josh Kerr. On the final stretch, Kerr looked to go round Ingebrigtsen, and Ingebrigtsen drifted into lane two to try and block the overtake. What do we know about geometry? The inside lane has the shortest path to the finish line. As the two favourites scrapped in lanes 2 and 3, an American runner, Cole Hocker, slipped up the inside and pipped them for Olympic glory. Kerr finished second, Ingebrigtsen fourth. It was extraordinary.  

With a day to go before the closing ceremony, here’s my take on the Olympic sports.  

I love many of the newer ones. Sportclimbing is so good. It fits into my could-a-caveman-do-it category, which I think is an excellent measure for whether individual sports should be at the Olympics. 

I’m not just saying it because Finn Butcher won gold, but I reckon the Kayak Cross is fantastic. It’s such a spectacle! Same applies to the skateboarding. It’s so good.  

I mean no disrespect to any of the athletes in these sports but I’m ambivalent on surfing at the Olympics and as spectacular as the breakdancing is, it’s gonna take me a bit longer to come around. 

Honestly, I don’t think football should be at the Olympics. Same with tennis and golf. Those sports are big enough outside of the games. Maybe the best test should be whether or not the Olympics is the pinnacle competition in that respective sport. If it’s not, then leave it out. 

One of the things that has been great about the games is how well-attended all of the events have been. The crowds for everything have been massive. I also love refreshing it is to hear from athletes who aren’t rugby players who’ve had every scintilla of life and personality beaten out of them by overly-protective media managers. 

And as for my favourite Kiwi performance? We still have that incredible contest in the women’s K1 to come and there are a couple of other Kiwis who could be a chance, but for me it’s still gonna be hard to beat our very first medal of Paris ’24, our very first gold: the women’s sevens.  

Tell you what though... I don’t love Mondays at the best of times... but this week is gonna’ be tough.