I love the Olympics, and I’m lucky to have volunteered in 2012, when it conveniently came to London. So this was my second time in person at the Olympics, and Paris was the most incredible host city.

I had tickets for six different events, and all of them were great. I watched Rugby 7s and Athletics in the Stade de France, where locals sang “Les Champs-Élysées” at the top of their lungs, and Mondo Duplantis hardly broke a sweat qualifying for the pole vault finals. We joined the women’s Football quarterfinals where Team USA narrowly beat Japan.

Many of the sports were hosted amid Paris’ monuments. My favourite venue was La Concorde, where we saw Team GB get silver in the BMX freestyle, and caught highly competitive 3X3 basketball games. Around the venue you’d catch a glimpse of the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, and the Arc du Triomphe, while being surrounded by the famous fountains and obelisk.

And of course, we couldn’t miss the highly anticipated beach volleyball games under the Eiffel Tower. Every Olympics has its own magic, and Paris delivered the most beautiful games.

The idea of making the games part of the city (and the city part of the games) worked out perfectly for Paris. It was great walking around the city and spotting other venues and events along the way: we even caught a glimpse of the Race Walk on the way to the Beach Volleyball.

We got back to London on the same Eurostar as British rower and icon Helen Glover. We were only there for a week, but we enjoyed it so much. As the song goes “Il y a tout ce que vous voulez, aux Champs-Élysées”.