Sometimes you get lucky.
As those most famous words of maybe any national anthem were lifting the roof off the packed La Defense Arena you would have been forgiven for thinking La Marseillaise was written for this moment.
Marchons! marchons!
Qu'un sang impur,
Abreuve nos sillons.
Leon Marchand was attempting the impossible.
No one had ever won medals in both the 200m butterfly and breaststroke at the same Olympics. No one. Not even one of the household names of swimming - not even one of those names that people remember after the Olympics are long over - not Phelps, not Spitz, not even those kind of names.
And we are not talking about not winning gold medals in both. We're saying any medals. None of them. The last time anyone had even reached finals in both events was in 1956.
Modern swimming championship programmes often put the finals back to back. In crowded schedules where room has to be made to allow elite athletes space to compete in multiple events it was a no brainer.
Only the mad, or a supremely talented young French man, with the eyes of a whole nation on him, would even try.
So, it being Paris 2024, they changed the schedule and the French went mad for him. No pressure.
There is a massive image of him draped down the side of a skyscraper here in Paris. No pressure.
He had never won an Olympic medal and was facing the Olympic champion and world record holder in the butterfly. No pressure.
He had never even competed in the 200m breaststroke in a major championships before. No pressure.
The finals were taking place on home soil in the dramatic, packed 17,000 seater cauldron of the La Defense Arena full of passionate partisan fans who were here to witness one thing and one thing only. The impossible.
No pressure.
I had come to see Mona McSharry. Not in her final - I'd been working, but I wanted to see our Olympic medallist competing in the Olympics and her 200m semifinal was on after 10pm here so I got the bus from the broadcast centre after work and made it there with twenty minutes to spare. That alone was a privilege.
Mona was disappointed on the night. In time, she won’t be. Paris 2024 will not go down as a disappointment for Mona McSharry.
I was not disappointed on the night.
I arrived just before the medal ceremony for the 200m butterfly. It was spine-tingling. The home crowd went wild. And when that famous French tricolour was raised and those famous notes rang out and the crowd roared those famous words it was just simply one of those moments that very rarely come along and you know you are privileged to witness when they do.
And then 90 minutes later another, even better, one.
If the butterfly was a battle which is still hard to understand how he won, the breaststroke was a procession.
Clear at the halfway point, the crowd roared him home. Think of the rhythm of the breaststroke.....
Every. Roar.
Single. Roar.
Time. Roar.
His head. Roar.
Broke. Roar.
The Water…..they roared.
Louder each time as he closed in on the impossible.
At first it was encouragement but long before he touched the wall they were roars of celebration and pride.
There was talk of Parisian anger at restrictions and security measures before the opening ceremony. The opening ceremony, when it came blew that talk out of the - slightly dirty - water.
This is France and this is Paris and they love their heroes. Antoine Dupont alone packed the Stade de France and a country with little or no success, or previous interest, in rugby sevens won Olympic Gold.
Leon Marchand packed out this converted concert venue and was celebrated like a rockstar when the impossible became the inevitable down that last 50 metres.
Marchand! Marchand!
Qu'un sang impur,
Abreuve nos sillons.
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