While the sports scene in the United States is heating up as the NBA and NHL playoffs wind down to their final rounds, the sports world here in France is relative quiet at the moment. Since most domestic European soccer leagues do not have a playoffs system, the champion of the French Football League (Ligue 1) Lille Metropole has already been crowned, even though there are still games to be played. The next major sporting event in France will be the French Open at Roland Garros, and the main tournament starts next week.
With the short break in action for now, I'll squeeze in my top 10 impressions of all things sports in France.
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No collegiate athletics Perhaps one of the most shocking things for American college students to comprehend in Europe is the lack of collegiate sports. Unlike their counterparts in the United States, almost none of the French universities sponsor a varsity sports system or any organized athletic teams that compete against other schools.
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Basketball The fervor for basketball in other Western European countries such as Spain has not caught on in France. I have not seen an NBA game on television anywhere in Paris and everyone seems to be oblivious to one of the most intriguing NBA playoffs in recent memory. The only sign in Paris that basketball even exists is the little blurbs about the NBA playoff results in the newspapers.
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American football To my complete surprise, there are French people who care about American football. A few weeks ago, I was introduced to two French guys in their late 20s through a mutual friend. Upon hearing that I was from Philadelphia, they immediately asked me if I liked the Philadelphia Eagles and went on to explain to me in detail the Michael Vick/Kevin Kolb quarterback controversy.
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Gyms Gyms are a purely American institution. There is not even a French equivalent for the American "gym" (the word "gym" exists in French, but only to mean a "gymnasium" or a gym class). Needless to say, gyms are very few and far between in France, and those that do exist are often very small and poorly equipped.
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Sportswear Sportswear is also not very popular in France. In the U.S., wearing sweatpants or basketball shorts to class is considered perfectly normal. Not so in France. Even when people go jogging in a park, they tend to stay away from workout clothes.
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Bicycling Perhaps this stems from the traditions of the Tour de France, but bicycling is a popular national sport. The old and the young frequently go out into the countryside for bike rides. Bicycling travel packages are also very popular.
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Pick-up soccer games Spontaneous pickup soccer games take place in public squares very often in Paris, with the players simply using a couple of trees or backpacks as goal markers. In some cases, the games are open to everyone, and people of all ages can join in and enjoy the fun of futbol.
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Soccer The popularity of soccer cannot be understated in France. When the French national soccer team won the World Cup in 1998 on its home soil, not only did the whole country go into party-mode for weeks, but the team became a national symbol for France's diversity and multiculturalism, since the players on that team represented many of the different ethnicities of modern France.
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Current troubles Since the glory days of French soccer, however, the French national team has gotten into more and more trouble with its supporting public. The whole fiasco at last year's World Cup the team refused to practice for its coach and was eliminated in group play disappointed millions of French fans nationwide. Just recently, a new controversy surrounding the team has created headlines, as an organization similar to Wikileaks released documents from the French Football Federation in which the organization allegedly set quotas for the number of African players the national teams can recruit. If a similar event happened in the U.S., I imagine Letterman, Leno and our very own Commencement speaker this year would have plenty of wisecracks to make about the incident.
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Tennis It has been 28 years since the last time a Frenchman Yannick Noah won the singles title at the French Open, which is set to start off next week. To put this it into perspective, Dartmouth football has won 104 games and four League championships over that time span.
