Paris, it's been a ride: Highs, lows and everything in between from a stunning Olympic Games

PARIS: The ridiculous and amazing carnival that is the Olympic Games has taken us on one heck of a ride over the past fortnight.

You've heard all about Australia's astonishing medal haul and plenty about the heroes who delivered them.

We couldn't have an Olympics without the athletes and their remarkable feats to tie it all together but it's much bigger than just what happens on the field of play.

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So how did Paris shape up as an Olympic city? Wide World of Sports was on the ground and here's how we'll remember it.

The unbeatable settings

Brisbane, I think we have a problem!

One of the most enduring memories of Paris 2024 will be the extraordinary settings where the medals were won and lost. Sydney had the beach volleyball on Bondi Beach and 24 years later Paris said 'hold my beer', plonking the court right under the Eiffel Tower.

Australian journalists in Paris were clamouring to get into the fencing. That's not a sentence that's probably ever been spoken, much less written as a feature that stood out about an Olympics, but take in a duel at the Grand Palais and you'll instantly understand why.

The pool, which was dug into the middle of an indoor football stadium, was rocking every night and it wasn't just because Leon Marchand was setting records for the French. The music, the lights, the sheer noise a crowd of close to 17,000 can generate in a stadium with a roof all added tremendously to the spectacle.

Paris had a vision for a Games that was both grand and elegant, showcasing the magical parts of the city that draw more tourists to it than any other in the world. Almost every venue decision paid off in spades. The only real exception was the swimming in the Seine, which in hindsight was overambitious. Yes, the events went ahead without filling the hospital wards with crook athletes but even having spent close to $2 billion on the clean-up effort, the water quality had question marks over it throughout and it felt like the triathlon and marathon swims were hanging precariously on the edge of disaster.

Brisbane, don't plan any swims in the Brown Snake, but perhaps start to think a little bigger when it comes to venues. From first-hand experience, they matter.

Not all that glitters is gold

Before the women's 1500m final, Nine athletics caller Gerard Whateley argued in an interview that if Jess Hull won a medal of any colour it would be Australia's medal of the Games. And it was that kind of commentary that made the excitement palpable in the press box at Stade de France as Hull took it up to Kenyan champion Faith Kipyegon and ran the race of her life.

It wasn't gold, but Hull's reaction to her silver medal was one of the better examples of an athlete who was absolutely elated with falling just short of the pinnacle because she knew deep down that she gave it absolutely everything. There wasn't a drop left in the tank when she crossed the finish line. Often in the cut-throat world of sport, to the victors go the spoils and everyone else becomes a story of disappointment if not failure. It's a ridiculous, binary standard, which discounts all the variables that makes sport so compelling.

The notion that you could be thrilled with silver is what makes the Olympic spirit. It's all about wringing out every last ounce of what's inside you. That's what inspires the athletes of the next generation - and that's why, just like Cathy Freeman awed and inspired Australians with her gold medal at Sydney 2000, Hull has done the same with silver.

But when it's gold, we like that too

Still, with all that said, let's not pretend we don't love every one of those 18 gold medals that were won across two-and-a-half glory-packed weeks in Paris. We already knew we loved Ariarne Titmus and Jess Fox but so many of our latest gold medallists have taken our breath away, not just with their incredible sporting achievements, but with their human stories.

There was the ultimate redemption tale that had us all crying our eyes out as Saya Sakakibara blazed her way to BMX gold. The kid in all of us was awoken by the gnarly tricks and breezy personality of Arisa Trew, promised pet duck and all.

There was Nina Kennedy's "no effing way" when asked if she'd be prepared to share a gold medal again having done so at last year's world championships. Thankfully this time she didn't have to after leaping to the moon. And what about the pioneering mad scientist, Cameron McEvoy, who binned decades of assumed knowledge about how to win a 50m freestyle gold medal and bested swimming's alpha males with a sizzling one-lap.

We already knew a few of the superstars of Australia's team for Paris 2024 but a lot of the fun has been said in getting to know the others as they racked up that immense haul of 18 gold medals, the most in our history.

'Freed From Desire' and other bangers

It wasn't just the French fans bringing the atmosphere, with blaring music inside venues creating a vibe closer to a nightclub than sporting event.

It certainly wasn't to everyone's taste or the deepest playlist, with the same half a dozen or so bangers seemingly in rotation.

It even became a running joke about when you'd hear Freed From Desire, the 1996 Italian club hit by Gala that's had a resurgence as a stadium anthem, such was the regularity it was pumped out.

But it's hard to argue with the result: crowds chanting "Na-na-na-na-na, na-na, na-na-na, na-na-na" (and so on) in full voice, phone torches lighting up the grandstands.

Even the official song of Paris 2024, the string-heavy electro tune Parade by French composer Victor Le Masne, goes off when cranked to 11.

Mind and senses purified, as Gala once told us.

Safety - or the illusion of it

There were very real fears about the risk of terrorism of all stripes in Paris.

With many events held in and around famous landmarks, rather than a purpose-built Olympic precinct, keeping athletes and the public safe must have been a logistical nightmare.

The French met that threat head-on, with 45,000 police officers and another 10,000 soldiers deployed across the city.

It was remarkable how quickly you became accustomed to seeing soldiers and police with intimidatingly large assault rifles on every corner and train platform.

Getting into any venue meant airport-style bag scanners and wandings, while later in the tournament security started asking people to sip from their water bottles to prove there was nothing nefarious inside - not the most sophisticated of methods.

We may never know about any or all of the plots foiled but the visible security presence was reassuring.

The metro is actually good

Let's hope Sydney's new metro is half as good as what Paris offers because anyone who complains about getting around the City of Love hasn't tried to navigate the Harbour City.

Despite constant warnings over the PA telling us to keep an eye out for pickpockets, there was never really a sense that petty criminals were cruising the trains looking for targets - even those who stood out like sore thumbs as foreigners wearing media credentials on lanyards.

The transport was clean and efficient and had clearly marked station maps inside each carriage with landmarks and Olympic venues illustrated next to the stop they were closest to.

The only minor transport gripe came from the Uber drivers who were filthy the government had given taxis and buses the privilege of an extra lane that got them in and out of the city on the main roads. Ubers were slumming it with everyone else and had nothing but choice words for the decision-makers who blocked them from their best chance of making a buck during the Games.

Don't believe what people tell you about the French, except their food

Anyone who tells you the French are rude or obnoxious when dealing with English speakers is way off the mark if Paris 2024 is the measure.

While there were many Parisians who didn't want the Olympics in their city and many fled to the south to get away from it, the ones who stuck around were nothing but a delight to deal with.

When you needed something, they bent over backwards to help. The hospitality staff are on another level, with top class service the norm rather than the exception, and the volunteers and Paris 2024 staff were friendly, polite and generally pleasant to be around.

The food in Paris broadly has a better reputation than its people and it didn't disappoint. Give me a breakfast pastry, a steak frites and a glass of red any day of the week.