Reflections on #Paris2024 Part 2️⃣
Today, one year since the magic of the Paris Games, I’m thinking about legacy—specifically how hosting the Olympics and Paralympics has translated for the sports world in France.
There’s a strain of sports diplomacy theory that discusses its uses in nation-branding. My sporty friend Dr. Yoav Dubinsky has excellent work on this field, particularly his 2023 book Nation Branding and Sports Diplomacy: Country Image Games in Times of Change (Palgrave). Much of the theoretical work out there focuses on Olympic and football (soccer) diplomacy, as two of the biggest drivers of image-setting sports work.
With regards to France, last summer’s sporting bonanza may have helped feed into a new French “brand” as a very capable organizer and host. By most measures, whether anecdotal or data-driven, Paris 2024 was a success and set a new bar for these types of sporting mega-events. And I would certainly agree, for it was the magic we didn’t know we needed.
“I’d take it one step further to argue that the sporting journeys of elite French athletes at Paris 2024 built a different “brand” – a new(er) one of a France that wins. ”
This theory interplays with what I highlighted in Lindsey Tramuta’s “The New Paris Dispatch” last year, that hosting Paris 2024 could help break the French sports paradox. The answer to that issue is decidedly mixed, with greater recognition of sport and its values clashing with a significantly reduced budget for sport next year—even after cuts for the 2025 budget amidst fiscal crisis. That’s worthy of a separate post.
“Instead, what I mean is this: the podium victories garnered by French Olympians and Paralympians, aided by competing on home soil in front of wildly enthusiastic fans, is a rupture that has longer-term impacts and considerations. ”
France placed fourth in the Olympic results table with 64 medals and in ninth place on the Paralympic results chart with 75 medals. Images of its elite athletes winning, losing, and everything in between are still part of media culture today, particularly swim sensation Léon Marchand, who dazzled in the pool while shattering world records.
Fabrice Gauthier, the “Flying Osteopath” & Olympic team France member
The country previously built a “brand” as a country that wins in men’s football (FIFA champions 1998, 2018; vice champions 2006, 2022), rugby, and the BHV sports (basketball, handball, volleyball). But to see so many individual winners on the global stage was a breakthrough—and made me think of a vital bit of data contained in Basketball Empire: France and the Making of a Global NBA and WNBA.
In Chapter 15 “La Vie en Bleu,” I included testimony from Fabrice Gauthier, the “flying osteopath” who for years served on the Team France Olympic medical team. He described a particular component of sports diplomacy’s knowledge exchange: that of a winner’s mentality. In the context of Basketball Empire, it was how French players who hooped in the NBA and WNBA learned this trait and imported it back home to the national teams (with their own special twist). This is part of the recipe for why it was Team France that vied with Team USA in both men’s and women’s gold medal 2024 Olympic matches.
“Building on this theory, I’d argue that last summer French Olympian and Paralympians helped strengthen the brand of a France that wins—not just in the medals garnered but also in how they inspired others. ”
They proved that you can be French and win, not just participate (see more on this in Basketball Empire Ch. 15). That newfound confidence and savoir faire, particularly for a culture where it is not inherently part of society’s DNA, is a huge breakthrough.
We are already seeing some of the early returns. Marchand just set new world records at the 2025 World Swim Championships in Singapore. A record ten Frenchwomen are hooping in the WNBA this season, including more than half of the silver medal Olympic team. And that’s before Victor Webanyama can fulfil his August 2024 promise “I am learning, and I am worried for our opponents in the years to come.”
In celebration of the one-year anniversary of Paris 2024, Bloomsbury is offering a special 20% off code for all orders of Basketball Empire: France and the Making of a Global NBA and WNBA.
