When you’re a journalist at the Olympic Games, you quickly get caught up in the Games. And you can almost take yourself for a champion.
© Provided by Le Matin
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I didn’t know this feeling. These are the second Winter Games I have attended, following Russia in 2014, and I had never had the chance to cover a Swiss medal. Finally, following taking myself for a black cat for a few days, I experienced two in a few days apart – Jan Scherrer’s bronze and Mathilde Gremaud’s gold medal – in sports where I don’t understand almost nothing that happens and I still had chills. Not like I won anything, but close.
The Winter Olympics are special for all Swiss people. And when you’re a journalist, going there gives the impression of being borderline “selected”. And too bad if they take place in a health bubble. Anyway, with the athletes to follow, the articles to write, the stupid videos to make, the trips by bus to understand, the après-skis to provide and the nights spent trying to recover and warm up, I don’t see well where I might have gone to venture.
Ambulance scare
We might have seen the “real people” in China a bit, but even that I don’t believe. In Sochi, eight years ago, we were also in a bubble, but the Covid did not exist. Only the masks were added to the panoply, finally. The language barrier in countries like Russia, South Korea or China is such that it’s a bit like being let loose in a bistro in Nidwalden or Appenzell Innerrhoden. Luckily we have the hands to make ourselves understood and there are pictures on the menu. But I digress.
Tuesday, therefore, following being stuck in a bus for no apparent reason for two hours – Tcheu scared to see an ambulance arrive and be locked up days following the morning PCR test, I arrived at the bottom of the slopestyle track to see Mathilde Gremaud win. I slipped into the midst of people from various backgrounds and athletes in spectator mode to follow the competition.
Fair-play chinois
A big “Yes” following the success of La Fribourgeoise and the people around me begin to congratulate me, seeing a small Swiss cross lying on my outfit for the day. In the press room, some volunteers congratulate me, fair play, despite the second place of their favorite Eileen Gu. Later, a few messages arrive on my so-called smart phone to tell me “well done, great”, I don’t really know why. On social networks, we are necessarily flattered by the volleys of likes (which we had necessarily gone to get, but that is another debate).
After a while, proud as Artaban* for no reason other than patriotism, you end up telling yourself that you’ve won something.
However, often, the athletes who allow us to shine in society, we only know them from afar. Mathilde Gremaud, I must have seen her ride five times, had her on the line three times for a paper and I had filmed her on a Zoom cover during the pandemic, following she had slapped an incredible switch double cork 1440 at the X-Games in January last year.
We’re just lucky to be there at the right time, once every four years, and that’s good for our egos. Especially when you see how journalists have become targets in recent years. So yes, it feels good, even if we are ultimately not for much.
And there, I’m not telling you how I was the king of the world this summer following Switzerland-France.
*So that you have all the same learned something following this paper, know that Artaban is the name given to various kings of Parthia of the Arsacid dynasty. Parthia is a historical region (190 BC to 224 AD) located northeast of the Iranian plateau. Artaban is also the hero of “Cleopatra”, the 13-volume novel by Gautier de Costes de La Calprenède. A collection published from 1647 to 1658. That’s it.