The contrast jumped out at us this Friday. While a rather serious projection fell which places France on the podium of the virtual medal table of the Paris Games behind the United States and China, echoed as often in recent months the concerns, demands and complaints of those who promise in Paris and to France a summer of all the worries, of all the dangers. As if the Olympic Games effect at home did not appear in quite the same tone depending on whether we were “actors” or “spectators”.
Gracenote, which has been compiling sports statistics since 2012, uses complex algorithms refined over the years and the Games to establish monthly rankings which are a reference and prove to be consistent when confronted with the reality of Olympic results. And the statisticians had aimed more accurately before Tokyo in 2021 and Rio in 2016 than before London in 2012 because they adjusted their calculations by “boosting” the athletes of the host country. According to them, we must not neglect the extra soul carried by an energy which transcends more than it slows down.
