Paris 2024 Athletic Day 6

Paris 2024

Day 6 – Athletics for all!

Scroll down for photos.

An extract from a diary, written by one of the Scouts:

Today, we went to see the athletics!

We had to wake up at 6:30 and we all got on the coach.

I have never seen a Scout coach so quiet in my life!

Anyway, we got to athletics and there was an actually massive stadium!

We weren’t being allowed in, so we went to the souvenir shop and I bought some presents: a cute notebook and a magnet.

First, we watched the men’s discus. They were all very strong, as the best person threw the discus 67 metres!

This was broken up by various hurdle races. You know that a race was about to start by the way the stadium went completely silent to the let the canon go off.

After that, it was the women’s pole vault. I couldn’t see it very well, as it was on the other side of the stadium but what I could see looked really cool.

The bar they had to get over was SOOO high!! Only two of them managed it.

The final thing we saw was the women’s 400m sprint. I really liked it because the athletes wee unbelievably fast.

80 000 people for an early morning athletics session and we made up 54 of them!

The Stade de France is certainly impressive, although behind the scenes a little rough and ready. The stadium itself though was grand and we loved the lilac purple colour scheme.

The general athletics conclusion is that there is plenty to watch. Actually, difficult to keep up with what is going on. Do you watch the GB throwing the discuss or watch the 400m race!? And then, there’s the pole vaulting happening at the same time.

As one leader quipped to a Scout: you haven’t stopped smiling all morning!

There was shouting and cheering a plenty from 3 parts of the stadium.  We  were all spread around but didn’t really care who we cheered for. Ecuador seemed popular! So did Latvia and of course GB!

The biggest cheer and most heartfelt fist bump came from a member of the public to one of the leaders. After, waiting for an eternity to buy a coffee (no tea available, how dare they! Shocking…) the unknown chap turned round to Nick with a big cheer and fist bump for getting his coffee reward!

One group met DeGraft from CBBC Newsround. Whoever, entrusted Kaden with the Newsround mike though needs a sanity check!

Another section of the 62nd crowd got a cheer and photographed a plenty when Sweet Caroline came on the stadium speakers. We were in our element!

A lovely lady in front of us handed us her very large flag. She was off home later that day to Suffolk. He son had grown up into Scouts and is now in Devon, with children nearly to become Scouts.

We met soooo many lovely, lovely people.

Oh, and the GB discuss thrower competed the very same day that we were at London 2012. Laurence Okoye, sadly no legendary throw to set the stadium alight this year!

A simply stunning morning where words have finally failed me. As I have already said, the Scouts conducted themselves with such brilliance that it was an absolute pleasure to share this wonderful memory with them.