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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now let's go for the gold at the end of today's show, the preview of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. The 33rd iteration of the summer Olympic season begins tomorrow featuring sports like gymnastics, tennis, basketball, and swimming, just to name a few. At this moment, nearly 3,000 athletes are probably unpacking their bags in the Olympic Village as they prepare to compete in life-defining competitions for the glory of their National Olympic Committee?

That is, according to the official Olympics website, there are no countries participating in the Olympic Games, but rather athletes from National Olympic Committees. All this to say, there are about 206 nations participating in this year's games as well as the refugee team. Now, despite the Olympics being a global affair, the games are close to home for some right here in our listening area. Among the world-class athletes gathering in Paris, 34 have ties to New York City, we are told, or the surrounding Tri-state area suburbs. Another 10 are from Upstate New York, 21 Olympians are connected to New Jersey. In particular, 20 are alumni of Princeton alone and another four of Rutgers. Then there are members of local sports organizations who will be representing Team USA in the world arena.

Listeners, do you personally know an Olympian competing in Paris this year? Maybe your freshman-year roommate at Princeton turned out to be a killer fencer. Are you the parent of a hopeful gold medalist of any kind? 212-2433-WNYC. Shout out who to watch for from our area. As for the rest of you, what events are you most excited for in the coming weeks of Olympic Games? 212-433-9692. Joining me now from Paris with a preview is Matthew Futterman, senior writer for The Athletic, the sports unit of the New York Times. Matthew, welcome to WNYC.

Matthew Futterman: Great to be back. Thanks for having me, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: I understand you just got into Paris for the games, but you're a veteran sports journalist, and this isn't your first Olympics rodeo, eh?

Matthew Futterman: No, it's actually my eighth if we're including winter games as well. So yes, I've been to a few of them, but it's been a while since I've been to one that was what I would call normal-ish. I don't know how far we have to go back, but it's been a bad few years for Olympics with COVID and threats of nuclear war like we had in South Korea. It's good to be in Paris and bright sunshine and lots of athletes happy to be here competing.

Brian Lehrer: First impressions of the city as it's preparing for the official start? Give us a vibe check.

Matthew Futterman: It's a little odd because it's strangely quiet. I got off the plane, I went for a run down by the Seine, and that's in a summer afternoon, the Seine is a pretty bustling area. That has all been gated off and shut down because the opening ceremony are going to take place on the Seine with athletes floating for about, I think it's about three miles down the river instead of marching into a stadium. They really want to open up these games and bring them to the people rather than have them cloistered off in stadiums and gated parks and things like that.

It's a little weird in Paris. Paris in the summer can be a little empty anyway, with people fleeing for Brittany and the South of France and places like that. It felt really empty today, but I think all that's going to change once the games start on the weekend.

Brian Lehrer: On having swimming competitions in the Seine, I saw that there's a controversy over that because the Seine may be nice out in the public, a classic river in the middle of Paris, but it's reportedly full of feces-related bacteria?

Matthew Futterman: Yes. It's not the cleanest body of water that there's ever going to be, but that think it's going to be clean enough to hold the swim segments of the triathlon and the marathon swim, which is a 10-kilometer swim. Look, it's thrilling for swimmers and triathletes to swim in some of these iconic bodies of water. There's no question there's that appeal, but you don't really want people to get sick. The big danger is if there's a big rainstorm the night before one of these races, because that will wash a lot of sewage potentially into the river and render it unsafe.

Brian Lehrer: I heard that President Macron and the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo have pledged to swim in the Seine before the games to prove that it's safe. Did they go through with it?

Matthew Futterman: I think the mayor did go through with it. I'm not sure whether Macron did. I can't remember, but I'm almost positive the mayor the mayor went through with it.

Brian Lehrer: You are covering tennis in particular for the athletic. I see your latest piece is called "At the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, Tennis is as Odd a Fit as Ever". Speaking as a U.S. Open ticket holder, looking forward to that in a few weeks, why is tennis an odd fit for the Olympics?

Matthew Futterman: Well, because a lot of sports, the Olympic gold medal is the pinnacle of the sport. Track and field, swimming and several other sports, there's no bigger award you can win in your sports than the Olympic Games. It's not really true in tennis. I don't know. I think if you asked pretty much every tennis player, would they rather win a Grand Slam or the Olympic Gold medal? They'd all probably say they'd rather win a Grand Slam, so it's a little bit of an odd fit.

There were a lot of years where it wasn't there. It came back in 1988. Since then, it's become pretty popular. The players, most of them like to play it, but this one is an especially odd one because this is the time of year, once the grass season is over, where they start getting ready for the U.S. Open with hard courts and instead, they've gone back to clay because the tennis competitions are going to take place at Roland Garros, which is the site of the French Open.

Brian Lehrer: Brenda in Naples, New York has somebody she knows at the Olympics, right, Brenda? Hi.

Brenda: Yes, I do. Hi, Brian. I'm a big fan. Thank you for taking my call. My niece, Meghan Musnicki, who is from this small town in western New York. It will be in her fourth Olympics on the U.S. women's rowing team in the big boat, the boat of eight women. She's won two golds already with this boat and she's the oldest rower ever to compete. She's 41.

Brian Lehrer: Nice. Good story. Thank you. Timothy in East Berkshire, Vermont has somebody at the Olympics, I think. Hi Timothy.

Timothy: Well, hello Brian. Yes. In Montgomery Center, Vermont, there's a young lady who it's going to be her second Olympics. Her name is Elle St. Pierre, and I believe she's number 13 in the world in her class right now. I would just like to give Elle a shout-out on behalf of Montgomery Center, Vermont, which is right near JP.

Brian Lehrer: Does she have a central event that she most excels at?

Timothy: Oh, yes. Well, darn it Brian, I can't think of it offhand and please forgive me for that, but her forte, it's long-distance running.

Brian Lehrer: Okay. Elle St. Pierre from Vermont. Timothy, thank you for that. I think my favorite Olympic story as a preview so far is that they're introducing breakdancing as an Olympic event. Do I even have that right, Matt?

Matthew Futterman: You do have that right. I think it's just going to be around for this Olympics. I don't think they're going to be doing it again in LA unless something substantial changes, but yes. They've been trying to make the Olympics appeal to a younger audience over the years. They've brought in BMX bicycle racing and three-on-three basketball and surfing and skateboarding, and the latest attempt at an innovation is breakdancing.

Brian Lehrer: That's fun. How do they score? I guess it's a little bit like the ice-skating competitions where it's not just about speed. It's form in rating dancing, that kind of thing?

Matthew Futterman: How do we score anything? How do we score gymnastics? How do we score diving? There's all kinds of judge sports in the Olympics. I personally have throughout my career veered towards sports with finish lines and clocks and points and goals and things like that, that are scored.

Brian Lehrer: Things you can measure?

Matthew Futterman: Yes, I veer away from the judge sports. I am a child of the '70s where the Russian judge was always screwing over somebody, right?

Brian Lehrer: In fact, building on the breakdancing, a listener writes, "I heard that breakdancing was going to be a sport this year. Any news on ballroom dancing being a sport in the future?" Is the person just making that up or is there some buzz about that?

Matthew Futterman: Every sort of- -activity tries to create buzz about itself becoming an Olympic sport, so I'm sure somewhere there's buzz. It hasn't been buzzing in my ear all that much but pickleball wants to be in the Olympics. Everything wants to be in the Olympics because while we can debate whether they were as big as they used to be, they have a tremendous following and it's really one of the few worldwide competitions, especially the summer games where you do have more than 200 nations competing.

Brian Lehrer: If they have pickleball, will there be a minimum age for the participants? That'd be a question.

Matthew Futterman: Probably not because skateboarders are really, really young.

Brian Lehrer: What about-- Yes, I was thinking-- Never mind. Some people got that and other people, I probably shouldn't have even-- you know, minimum age, you know who plays pickleball. Anyway, the sports of baseball and softball, summer games in this country, are they in the Olympics?

Matthew Futterman: Not this time around. They will be back in the Olympics when the Olympics return to LA in 2028. I think they were in the Olympics in Japan because they are big sports in Japan. They're not here in Paris. It would've required building lots of stadiums. Those are things that to the game's credit, they've tried to veer away from building these white elephant stadiums, which is one of the things that got the Olympics in big trouble in the past.

Now in Paris, you have these temporary stadiums set up all over the city, beach volleyball under the Eiffel Tower, three-on-three basketball at Place de la Concorde. It's really a unique experiment in how these games are going to unfold.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, my producer just wrote me a note that says where she lives in Brooklyn, it's mostly young people playing pickleball, so there goes that stereotype. Chris-- [crosstalk]

Matthew Futterman: Yes, I thought you were going to get in big trouble for that.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Definitely.

Matthew Futterman: Everybody's playing pickleball these days and you really don't want to go to war with the pickleball crowd.

Chris: He probably even knows [unintelligible 00:12:13].

Brian Lehrer: Chris in Manhattan, we have 15 seconds for you. You know an Olympian competing in these Olympics, right?

Chris: Yes, I do. Jack Yonezuka from Cranford, New Jersey, 73 kilos from a long line of judo players of the Yonezuka family. Let's wish him luck. 73 kilos in Paris, Jack Yonezuka.

Brian Lehrer: Thanks, Chris. Boy judo. Any other sport that people should watch for that they may not think about most of the time in our last 20 or so seconds here, Matt?

Matthew Futterman: You mentioned the fencer from Princeton. Fencing really has its roots in France. I think it's going to be a very popular event. You might have to search for it in terms of trying to find it. I can tell you that on Saturday night, Eli Dershowitz, a Harvard guy who's a world champion in sabre is going to try and become the first American man to win a gold medal in fencing. It's never happened, which is strange when you think about it.

Brian Lehrer: Matthew Futterman, senior writer for The Athletic, the sports unit of the New York Times. Enjoy the games, enjoy covering them. We'll look for it. Thank you very much.

Matthew Futterman: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer in WNYC. Stay tuned for All Of It.

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