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Olympics Briefing: Playing to a Roaring Crowd
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
Author Headshot
By Andrew Keh



Reporting from Paris

Imagine you’re an elite athlete in a niche sport, practicing in something close to solitude, competing far from the spotlight.

Then, one day, you’re teleported into an arena where thousands of fans are screaming as if you were onstage at a pop concert.

This is one of the irresistible promises of the Olympics, a storybook situation that is at once a dream come true and, as it turns out, a bit of a head trip.

Few places at the Paris Games have produced this feeling as purely as the table tennis arena, where close to 7,000 fans have been arriving each day to yell, stomp their feet and wave flags. Though competitions in China, the current mecca of the sport, can generate lively atmospheres, they can’t quite match the uncut, unhinged energy of an Olympic crowd.

“Half the time we’re playing in front of no people, or like 10 people; what’s the point?” said Liam Pitchford, a veteran Olympian from England. “I’d much rather have it like this.”

Still, as Pitchford said, “It can affect you if you let it.”

One of the many athletes affected was Christina Källberg, 24, of Sweden, who admitted that the atmosphere had made her “a little bit nervous” as she stumbled out of the first round.

Other players said the clamor made it hard for them to hear the sound of the ball being hit, which can be helpful for determining its spin.

And anybody who has swung a golf club knows how distracting it can be to catch a bit of auditory crossfire midplay — a common situation in table tennis, with up to four games unfolding at once.

“I was thinking all the time: Focus, focus, focus,” said the 29-year-old Sofia Polcanova of Austria, laughing, “because sometimes I heard somebody cheering like, ‘Vamos Mexico!’ or something.”

But the players would have it no other way.

The Chinese fans have seemed the most knowledgeable and coordinated. The French fans have been the loudest, singing and stomping their feet as if they were at a rugby match at the Stade de France. The players have matched that energy, pumping their fists like gladiators, doing slow victory laps around the floor.