Paris 2024: Olympics’ most aggressive swordplay is happening in Paris’ grandest palace

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PARIS — It’s somehow perfectly on-brand for France that some of the Olympics’ most raucous partying and most combative swordplay are taking place in one of the nation’s most elegant palaces.

If the Eiffel Tower Beach Volleyball arena is the Olympics’ most spectacular outdoor venue, then the Grand Palais — site of both fencing and taekwondo — is its most magnificent stage, a massive hall and museum that blends turn-of-the-20th-century architecture and grandeur with 2020s light show and club atmosphere. The result is a venue unlike any other, one that has the potential to raise the profile of entire sports.

“This is what the sport needs,” American fencer Nick Itkin said, just minutes after winning the bronze medal in the men’s individual foil event Monday night. Wrapped in the American flag, still sweating from his 15-12 victory over Japan’s Kazuki Iimura, Itkin looked around the vast hall as music pounded and light shows swirled.

“The fencers need this kind of reward for putting in all that effort,” he said, “because this is really what pushes athletes to keep going.”

Built for a 1900 exposition, the Grand Palais is a historical landmark, a sterling example of the French Beaux-Arts architectural style, which combines iron and glass in ornate, vaulted style, its magnificent glass roof soaring high above its grand hall.

For many decades after its opening, the Grand Palais hosted massive exhibitions in its vast space, like this air show:

American audiences might recognize the Grand Palais from Mission Impossible: Fallout, where Tom Cruise skydives onto its enormous roof to sneak into an exotic party within. The Palais has been closed since 2021, undergoing a massive renovation project to prepare the majestic old hall for its next era. The Olympics is the Palais’ reintroduction to Paris, and so far, it’s been a massive success.

The soaring bleachers hold 9,000 locked-in fans. The competitors enter the hall via the grand western staircase, and by the time they’re beneath the Palais’ massive dome, the bleachers are rocking. The fans are knowledgeable, keyed in to every aggressive lunge, deft parry and precise touché, their voices rising with anticipation each time a fencer gets near that magic 15-point winning mark. It’s a glorious but intense environment, one that’s unfamiliar to most fencers, and it requires some adjustment.

“Coming into the venue, I was like starstruck for a moment,” Itkin said. “It took me a couple of touches to get into the rhythm, but then I used that energy to fuel me into my bout.” But he gave himself a bit of advice — “go have fun and enjoy this moment” — and the result was an Olympic medal in one of the most spectacular venues ever to host an Olympic discipline.

Itkin hopes that the attention the sport receives through its connection to the Grand Palais will help inspire the growth of fencing in America. (In France, fencing is doing just fine; French fencers won both gold and silver in the women’s individual sabre event Monday night.)

“France did an amazing job because it’s the birthplace of fencing,” Itkin said. “They have amazing fans. But fencing is growing at an incredible rate in the U.S. and I think it’s going to keep growing.”

He has an idea in mind for where fencing could take place in Los Angeles 2028, but doesn’t yet want to disclose it publicly. Wherever fencing ends up in four years, it’ll have to work hard to vault the glowing dome of the Grand Palais.