With just 29 days to go to the Olympic Games, Paris: En Route takes a look at the behind-the-scenes scoops, the off-piste plotlines and the stories with a certain… je ne sais quoi.
Skater girls, and skater old boys
The full spectrum of ages will be present at the Games next month. And nothing captures that quite like Great Britain’s skateboarding team.
Sky Brown – who won bronze in Tokyo aged just 13 – turns 16 in a couple of weeks.
At the other end of the scale, teammate Andy Macdonald will celebrate his 51st birthday during the Olympics.
The good friend of legend Tony Hawk is British American and was eligible for a British passport through his Luton-born father.
The park format of the Olympics is a different beast to what he’s used to, but who said old dogs can’t learn new tricks?
Milking the applause
American superstar swimmer Katie Ledecky has sounded an ominous warning to rivals in the past week.
The 27-year-old, seven-time Olympic gold medallist was so dominant in the 1500m freestyle at the U.S Olympic Swimming Team Trials that she had enough time to take off her goggles and watch the rest of the field bring it home.
Her time of 15:37.35 was more than 20 seconds faster than runner-up Katie Grimes.
But lest we forget “one of the best swims” of her career.
How hard could it be, out of the pool? Our reporter gave it a go – check out Jordan Oppert’s attempt in the video at the top of this article.
Working remotely
It looks like the Olympic track-and-field robots are back.
This little remote-controlled car was spotted returning a javelin. Different iterations have been used before, with mini pick-up trucks at the Rio Games, and another futuristic-looking robot in Tokyo.
They’ll be used to recover thrown objects like discus, javelins, and hammers.
Jordan’s French phrase of the week
C’était un garçon patineur. Elle a dit: “à plus tard, mon garçon.”
He was a skater boy. She say, “see you later, boy.”