A couple of months ago, a lifelong dream of mine was achieved: I went to the Olympic Games.
And not just as a spectator, but as someone with unparalleled access who got to represent his country in his profession on the biggest possible stage.
It’s taken me a bit to fully digest my experience in Paris and just what it all meant to me and how I was able to get there. But it’s something that now I’m fully able to look back on and write about in what may be one of my longest personal posts yet.
And given how much I like to talk, you know that means you’re in for a bit of a marathon read here. So buckle up and get ready, because you’re about to go on an Olympic sized ride.
Now for any long term reader of this blog or follower of my life, you would be very much aware of my addiction to sport and multi-sport events. Case in point the fact that my main podcast I host is an Olympics one, and back in 2018 you would remember my lengthy post about my experience at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
So the fact that for my entire life the Olympics had been an addiction of mine and I wanted to experience them in person won’t come as a surprise.
But the way I experienced them? Well that ended up being somewhat unique and an even bigger dream come true.
Spot the overly excited Aussie Olympic fan.
Before I get to my role in Paris, a brief tangent to my journey of getting there.
In late 2022 I made the decision to make Paris my goal. Sadly, not as an athlete (that ship has long since sailed), but either be as a spectator or going with accreditation for my podcast. And whenever I set myself a goal like that, you bloody well know I’m going to do what I can to achieve it by planning every little detail along the way.
Accreditation was by far the main goal out of those two options, and I did everything in my power to try and achieve that. However, the process of getting accreditation for an Olympics is slightly complicated.
You basically have to apply through your NOC, who control who they give the passes to. Of course they ultimately claim it comes down ‘to numbers given to them’, but given the amount of press and personnel who go from a variety of publications that even resemble ‘media’, there is a bit more politicking that comes into it. Safe to say a little podcast run by a couple of random Olympic fans is at the bottom of the list when it comes to the order in which they give accreditation too, no matter how successful or much reach it may have.
So with that ship seemingly sailed, it left me with the option of being a spectator. A completely fine option in my book as it would let me experience the Games the way they were meant to be.
With that in mind I made the plans to get tickets, the cheapest accommodation I could (thanks Airbnb) and set myself the target of making it to Paris in 2024.
But how does that all lead me into landing a dream role representing my country?
Through the process of attempting to get accreditation, I was made aware of the Australian Olympic Team having volunteers who travel as part of the team to an Olympics to help cover the Games. This includes a small group of people in the content department who help provide news articles, interviews and other coverage during the span of the Olympics. This of course tickled my fancy quite a bit, so I found myself applying for a position with the team during my planning process of going as a spectator.
Low and behold it was a position I would ultimately land, and my dream became even more amazing.
The process of applying and finding out I had the role was a bit of a waiting game, as the applications opened up in March of 2023, the interview was around June and I wasn’t made aware I had the position until around the end of July. I am not a patient person in the slightest, and when it comes to something this big and amazing, you can imagine it was an especially torturous wait.
But the day I got that phone call to tell me I had been chosen to go to Paris as part of the Australian Olympic Team? Well it’s safe it was maybe the best phone call I had ever received, a call that very nearly brought me to tears and a call that I will never ever forget.
A dream turns into reality.
With all that achieved and ready, what was next?
Well, firstly I had to cancel my Airbnb and hope for a refund. Luckily I had a very nice lady who realised she had undercharged me for the Olympics, so she was very happy to give me my refund and no doubt re-post the listing again at a much higher price.
From there I also had several tickets which I somehow had to offload. I had managed to get about ten tickets to fairly small events such as rugby 7s, golf and some soccer games so they were eventually put up on a re-sale platform closer to the Olympics to a varying degree of success in selling them. The fact also that even at the time of writing this I’m still waiting for some of the money to come to me from the Paris Olympics, well, that’s a story for another time. But I did keep at least one ticket to an event, something which I will get to a little later on.
Once those two hurdles were sorted, the rest all fell into place. The role itself with the AOC was technically a volunteer position, meaning it wasn’t paid. But that didn’t mean there weren’t perks.
My flights, accommodation and clothing were all paid for. And to make it even better, the return flight was able to be from a different city a few weeks after the Games. Now that was extra beneficial given my plan was to travel for a couple of weeks after as it was my very first time to Europe. So hello return flight from Amsterdam to Sydney, despite Paris being the first destination.
The accommodation part too was incredible. A very nice hotel in the city and an entire room to myself for practically a month. The amount that saved me alone I can’t even begin to calculate, which added with the airfare was simply perfect.
And the clothing? Well let’s just say that was absolutely priceless.
You see, I mentioned that my role was essentially me representing Australia in my profession. So that itself meant that I got to be dressed to the nines in Australian team uniform. And I mean dressed to the nines. The kit I received was giant. From countless shirts, shorts, jumpers, jackets, socks and shoes, right through to the actual formal kit athletes wore in the opening and closing ceremonies.
The dream of being in Paris at an Olympics was only accentuated further by receiving this kit, and the moment I saw the bag emblazoned with ‘Australia’ all over it was a moment again I will never forget. I was often made fun of during that period in Paris for never wanting to take off my uniform. But I earned that right to wear it and achieved a lifelong dream. So I couldn’t care less what others thought of me and for the elation I felt in wearing those clothes.
Just a bit of kit then.
So that’s the setup. The job. The perks. The dream. But what exactly happened during the Olympics themselves?
Once arriving on the ground in Paris and settling in, it was a case of setting up our designated Team Australia office in the MPC (Main Press Centre) to give ourselves a working base for the duration of the Olympics. We landed in Paris about two weeks from the beginning of the Olympics which made it a good starting point to get used to the time zone and working conditions and really assimilate to an Olympic environment.
From there it was prepping ourselves for an extremely busy 16 days. This came in the form of arranging plans for content, working out who in our team would cover what and just generally getting as read as best as we could.
I had also written several preview articles and athlete profiles on several Australian Olympians which of course gradually had to be put online, so there was the process of arranging that too. It was a slow and steady process to really get us in the mind frame ahead of the Olympics, which of course is where things really got interesting.
For 16 days straight I was on 16 hour days with very little breaks and working purely on limited sleep and adrenaline. If you remember my post about the Commonwealth Games back in 2018, I spoke about a similar workload, but it’s honestly something you don’t exactly notice given just how much of a ride and journey you are having in experiencing something you’ve dreamt about for so long.
Added to this I was also still doing work on my podcast at the end of each day to help get that up and online. This definitely added to the days, but was something that once again you get used to and live purely on the adrenaline and excitement of it all.
Throughout those very long days though I got to go to events and cover a variety of sports. 12 different sports to be precise, which given I set myself the goal to see at least ten, that was very well achieved.
As I wasn’t a specialty reporter, it also gave me a very unique set of sports I got to cover and also left me open to cover essentially anything on any given day. This made it a fun experience to get to the end of a day and then be told “oh Ben you’re covering table tennis tomorrow” and then have to prepare myself for a day of table tennis.
Olympic Table Tennis was amazing.
While yes, I would’ve loved to have seen things like swimming, athletics or basketball, the fact that I got to go to events that I love as well like archery and modern pentathlon made up for any disappointment I may have had of missing the ‘big’ events. And besides, I was there for the debut of breaking and got to see Raygun and interview her directly afterwards. What’s not to love about that?
I did also get the chance to be a spectator for a couple of events too. As mentioned, I kept one ticket to one event. That being handball, and the women’s bronze medal match. Handball was a sport I had always dreamt of seeing at the Olympics, and it was one of three sports (the others being indoor volleyball and fencing) that Australia didn’t have any athletes in. So luckily for me the one morning I got off during Games time was the day I requested for my ticket, which meant I got to make the journey north to Lille to see it and it lived up to every expectation I had.
The other spectator event which will live with me forever was the Closing Ceremony.
I wasn’t able to see the Opening Ceremony given the unique nature of it and I wasn’t willing to brave the massive crowds and terrible weather that night to see not much, so that night was spent in our hotel watching and working. But I was very fortunate to get a Closing Ceremony ticket last minute thanks to one of my helpers on the podcast Patrick being very nice in giving me his. This came after he wasn’t able to go due to getting COVID, and while I did offer to pay for it, he wouldn’t accept money for it and I gladly took his ticket.
What made it better was that he had unwittingly booked a suite, giving me an amazing seat to an amazing show. Being in that stadium to witness an Olympic ceremony in person is something that will live with me forever. Having Tom Cruise jump over me will live with me forever. Experiencing that moment will live with me forever. Let’s say there were a few tears shed in that stadium that night for something I will never forget, and will forever be grateful to Patrick that he gave me that experience.
An Olympic Ceremony in person. An absolutely dream.
Other moments I will never forget come in the form of some of the medals I was lucky enough to see won in person, and some of the athletes I was luckily enough to chat to directly after their events.
I wanted to see at least one Australian gold medal won in person, and luckily for me I saw two. Both our skateboarding gold medals that were won from Aria Trew and Keegan Palmer I was there for, and seeing and cover both was a spectacular experience. Oh, and holding Keegan’s gold medal too was something I can tick off the bucket list. I also wanted to see a Canadian gold in person, something which I was luckily enough to see when Phil Wizard won the men’s breaking gold.
As for the athlete interviews, well as mentioned previously getting to speak to Raygun directly after was an honour, especially given the shit show that was happening back in Australia after her event. It was very unique being there and getting to chat to her and give her a hug afterwards without fully being aware of just how much was being said in Australia, and how much her life was changing at that very moment.
Others that also stood out for me were at events where I was the only Australian journalist who bothered to show up to give any form of coverage to an athlete. Both our archers, our taekwondo athletes, boxers, pentathlete and table tennis players were several examples of this, which gave me the unique ability to spend as much time as I wanted with them and have them all to myself. While I get that not every athlete draws a story from the media, or is it possible to cover every athlete in person, it’s a shame that many of them were forgotten by the main Australian press.
Being able to tell their story at the biggest moment of their athletic career was another honour that I will always hold high in my professional career. As were the moments where I would see both the incredible highs and the lowest lows from the athletes, where both tears of joy and sadness were shed right in front of me. From the highs of gold medals from our skaters, to the heartbreaking lows from our divers and rugby 7s players who were so close to an Olympic medal, they are moments that I will never ever forget.
Of course overall I will never forget the entire experience. And even though I have gone on quite a lot in this post, I could still go on for even longer. I mean I haven’t even mentioned that I was in the same room as Thomas Bach, Noah Lyles and Snoop Dogg have I? Or that I basically become the personal umbrella holder for the Fox family as Jess got to carry the Olympic torch only days before she etched her name in history with more Olympic gold. Or that time I was mistaken for an athlete when I simply wanted to buy some cold and flu tablets from a local pharmacy. But they are perhaps stories for another time and another post.
For now, it’s all about the main memories and experiences I was lucky enough to have during July and August of 2024. The memories and emotions from those 16 days that even now writing this a few months removed from them, takes me back to the experience of being in Paris and being at an Olympics. They are memories and emotions that get me as excited, emotional and moved by it all as if it was happening to me once again for the first time.
A moment to treasure for a lifetime.
It may sound wanky and over the top to some, but again, the Olympics have been my life for as long as I can remember. They are up there with Formula 1 as one of my two biggest passions in life, and just like I remember vividly my first ever F1 race back in 2003, my first ever Olympic experience in 2024 will stay with me forever and gladly bring me a happy smile and warm feeling inside to please that little boy who dreamt nothing more than to go to the Olympics.
Whether this opens further doors for me in the world of the Olympics is yet to be seen. I will forever be grateful to the Australian Olympic Committee for the opportunity to work for them during an Olympics, and I will always be open to doing so once again in the future. But I also hope to use the experience I gained from it to further my own podcast, expand my horizons when it comes to spectator options and also use it towards possible job opportunities around the world in the Olympic space.
Brisbane 2032 has always been a goal of mine to try and be involved with, and there are already small steps taking place to try and make that happen. Milan 2026 has also been looked at for me to go to and experience the Winter Olympics for the first time in some capacity, with that still being worked out. And then there is of course LA 2028 and now Salt Lake City 2034 to look towards as two Olympics that I want to be at in some form or another. No matter what those experiences may bring, Paris 2024 only serves as a starting point for the future of my Olympic addiction.
I will always remember Paris 2024. I will always be thankful and grateful for Paris 2024. And most importantly, that little boy who dreamt of nothing more than the Olympics his entire life will cherish Paris 2024 more so than anything else.
Merci Paris for making my Olympic dream come true. Let’s make sure the dream continues to expand into the future.
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