PARIS – Greetings from our NBC workspace inside the Musee de l’Homme -- the Museum of Man. (We’re in a classroom that’s been fitted as a media center.)
Rugby Sevens has a new fan. I’ve watched rugby over the years, marveling at its wild, unbridled pace and physicality. But Sevens is a different version, compact and even faster. The two halves go by in the blink of an eye -- a game is over in just a little more than 20 minutes. But what an intense 20 minutes it is.
I’ve really enjoyed getting to meet (and then getting to watch) Aaron Cummings, of South Haven. And I completely get why the sport is so appealed to him. They faced a very rowdy French crowd yesterday rooting on the home team at Stade de France, but held up beautifully with a late score to earn a tie. (I’m still getting used to the fact that a score is called a “try,” which would seem to suggest an effort to score rather than an actual score, but I digress.)
They got walloped by Fiji and I quickly understood why Fiji is undefeated since Sevens became an Olympic sport eight years ago. But a win today over Uruguay (which also felt the hammer of Fiji yesterday) will propel the USA into the quarterfinals. All of this before the opening ceremony has even happened, still a day away.
When you come to the Olympics, you tend to see the mascot of the games everywhere, and so it is in France. (Quick note -- the first Olympics with a mascot were the games in Munich in 1972. The mascot was a dachshund named Waldi.) In Paris, the mascot is not an animal, but rather a hat called a “phryge” (pronounced FREEGE).
The phryge is a red cap long associated with freedom in France, and while it may mystify visitors to Paris, polls show that 75% of French adults like the phyrgian cap as a mascot, and perhaps more importantly, 83% of French children approve.
Viva la France.
A bientot,
Devin