Post-pandemic Paris Olympics signal return to 'normal' for athletes and fans

Any athlete with Olympic dreams knows the feeling of lungs burning, arms and legs turning to jelly, as they near the closing moments of another grueling race or excruciatingly close match. For that last shot of adrenaline, they often tap into the energy provided by the roaring crowd.

At the last two Olympics, one summer, one winter, that crowd did not exist due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In Paris this summer, once again, all those fans, family members and the burst of energy they bring to all the fun and games will be back.

The Paris Games will celebrate the return to "normal" after a stretch when host cities turned into closed-off shells of themselves, depriving those who had earned their way inside the so-called Olympic "bubble" of a true Olympic experience.

"I had a lot of athletes tell me that Tokyo was one of their worst Games," said American skateboarder Jagger Eaton, who made his Olympic debut in 2021 and will return this year. "And I was like, 'I love it here.' I didn't know any better."

Eaton and hundreds more returning Olympians will no longer have to wear masks, submit to daily swabs up the nose or spit into plastic tubes to detect signs of COVID. Separated groups of COVID "cohorts" and quarantines for those suspected of carrying the virus are also a thing of the past.

"I heard horror stories, a lot of horror stories," said Paralympic sitting volleyball player Nicki Nieves, whose trip was cancelled when she tested positive for COVID three days before the team left for Tokyo. "I'm excited we're getting the fans back."

At the Winter Games in China two years ago, hundreds of fans were bused five hours away to the action-sports venue to watch snowboarders while banging together noisy "thundersticks" and wearing