Skateboarding, BMX and basketball: Olympic Urban Project

We had a fantastic day in Paris with Tracy, Mark, Dan and Izzy. We all had tickets for an event showcasing various urban sports in several stadia within Parc Urbain, which had been set up at Place de La Concorde.

Mark and Dan were keen to watch 3×3 basketball and Olympic heats were scheduled at the stadium within the Parc. They didn’t have tickets to go in, but one side was quite open and the matches were being shown on a big screen. They found a good viewpoint while John and I headed off to a neighbouring stadium to watch some training sessions for men’s skateboarding.

At first we sat at the top of the stadium where we could feel the breeze and had a great view across the Parc Urbain and beyond, as far as the Eiffel Tower.

After eating our butties, we walked down the steps to get closer to the skateboarders. I thoroughly enjoyed using my camera to get close shots of some of them, and was glad I’d carried it in. Some of the men did some great tricks as they got used to the features in the arena.

When we’d had enough of this, we went to meet the others. John stayed to watch some ladies’ 3×3 basketball… who knew they only used 1 hoop? The atmosphere was amazing because France were playing the USA and the French fans were going wild as the lead kept changing. Sadly their team lost.

I was too hot in the crowd so I wandered around the Parc to see what else was happening. Once the basketball match had finished, John and I then headed to another stadium to watch BMX, while the others went to see the skateboarding.

The BMX event was an exhibition event with a compère, in which riders showed tricks with increasing difficultly. The riders were amazing, the way they threw the bikes around, and it was great to watch them.

First we saw the freestyle riders who used the whole of the arena, up slopes and over jumps, getting great height to rotate in all directions.

Next we saw the flat riders who were more about balance, doing spins and balances on the spot.

After that we met the others back in the skateboarding stadium where the ladies were now practising, before heading out of Parc Urbain to cool down over a beer… a very expensive beer in a posh part of town!

We all agreed it had been a fantastic day, and that the event had been well worth attending. It was great to see sports we hadn’t seen live before, all of which were very exciting. Now John and I are looking forward to the events we have tickets for. First up kayak cross on Monday. The heats have been exciting so we’re looking forward to seeing the finals live. ☺️