I won. Kristóf Milák won for me to be exact. The Olympic title of the 100 butterfly is accompanied by a bottle of champagne.
The bet was whether our Olympic champion would sing the National Anthem on top of the podium. It is true that the swimming genius did not compete in decibels with the self-absorbed din of the soccer fans at the Puskás Arena, but he also did not "rewrite" Ferenc Erkel's score - in a pushy way anyway.
Although in the Olympic atmosphere I could not escape from the inevitable advertisements, I did not give in to the violence. As a host, I didn't even leave the family circle, where, encouraging those still in the competition, I sipped the pearly drink together with the loser, who, unlike me, still likes champagne...
We didn't drink French, although XXXIII would have been really appropriate. for the Games, even if the location in Paris caused problems even for the French baron who conceived the modern Olympics. Then the first Coubertin five-ring games were organized in Athens in the year of the Hungarian millennium. And the 1900 Parisian, number two, was suppressed by the World Exhibition. And the current one, of course, should be in Budapest.
So we had plenty of reason to live the experience of the monk who "discovered" champagne and drink Hungarian "stars" for the health of the Hungarian stars.
Because we also think of the winner of the 100-meter sprint, Julien Alfred, from his country, the former French colony, Santa Lucia, our own Luca, who defended himself with Jurisics' hard fists and withstood the blows of what many consider to be a male rather than a female opponent. The girl from Kőszeg did not deal with her opponent, who also came from Algeria, a former French colony, with a gloved hand. I could also say that it was manly, but that - in this case - might not be a lucky wording.
Who would have thought that they would try to create gender balance in the Olympics with such genderless methods?
It would have been easier to go back to the beginning. In 1900, for example, only men could swim at the Paris Olympics. They were still competing in the backwaters. And the athletes destined for the Seine in the current Olympics have learned well that only on training days do the samples show values harmful to health, on competition days the water in the famous-notorious river of the French capital is clean.
The atmosphere is like no other. A full house welcomes the athletes everywhere. The oblivious enthusiasm of the audience is almost unsportsmanlikely pro-French.
In the Grand Palais, where the fencing took place, the contestants could not understand the judge or each other's words if a Frenchman competed in one of the areas of the acoustically unfriendly hall. Meanwhile, the audience of the athletics stadium honored the Ukrainian hammer thrower's practice with grave silence. And the hosts' football teams changed the national tricolor on their jerseys to unmistakable pink.
According to the intention of the founders, the Olympics are about the athletes of each nation competing in clean conditions and without politics. Yet there are countries whose athletes have been banned from the Games.
According to the organizers, the opening ceremony should not include anything other than diversity that includes everyone. It's just a small inattention that the Olympic flag representing free nations was hoisted upside down - in a ceremonial setting. The three hoops were placed below the flag pole and the two hoops above it. Didn't they just want to imply that Europe and Asia were above America?
But while the Olympic flame is floating theatrically - between heaven and earth - the guns are not silent.
Or it is simply a kind of ancient accompaniment to the great idealism under which the current summer Olympics are taking place and were organized. Just don't let the onlooker notice that new fronts are opening in the middle of the arms deliveries, there is civil war tension in the individual countries, and even among the representatives of the various sports of the Olympics.
In the series of modern Olympics, this one is the XXXIII.. Biblical number. In this spirit, France is trying to change the world. Throw it carefully at Paris, you scumbags.
Attila Miklós Németh
Cover photo: Gold medalist Kristóf Milák after announcing the results of the men's 100-meter butterfly at the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics at the Paris La Défense Arena in Nanterre, near Paris, on August 3, 2024.
Source: MTI/Tamás Kovács
