PARIS — The atmosphere of the mixed zone for track and field, on the bottom floor of Stade de France, felt like a locker room and a pizza kitchen sharing a space. Hot and stanky enough to sweat while merely standing. Waiting became like a cruel prank. And Rai Benjamin, the clutch anchor leg who secured gold for the U.S. men’s 4×400 relay team, was taking forever.

Suddenly, my phone was vibrating like a massage gun. This has happened many times before. I knew exactly what it was without looking. So I didn’t look.

On this assignment, I was a track and field reporter, which is the definition of hectic at the Olympics. Benjamin was my focus. Not whatever had this stream of notifications coming my way. But the longer the relay team took to come out, the harder to avoid taking the bait. Eventually, I caved and stole a glance. The most recent notification was a text.

“GET THIS MAN SOME HELP”

Still no relay team. Still getting messages. Still sweating like an extra in an antebellum film.

All right, Steph Curry. You win.

I turned the game on just in time to see the shot heard ’round the world. I knew it was going in as soon as he launched. Being in the building wasn’t necessary to witness what was happening. It was an all-too-familiar vibe coming through the screen.

The actual shot — the punctuating 3-pointer in Saturday’s gold-medal victory over France, his 17th three in two games on a mere 26 attempts — was absent novelty. The best shooter in the world getting hot is about as normal as “Freed From Desire” being played at a sporting event in Paris. (Warning: Clicking that link will expose you to a song with the addictive properties of a kid’s commercial.) And Team USA winning a gold medal isn’t exactly breaking news.

Yet, this moment was whisking across the globe like a fabled spirit. The global superstar rendered a global performance. The world, through the lens of Paris — fittingly known as the City of Art, the City of Light, and the City of Love — beheld the Joy of Curry.

All I could do was smile at the fortune of the Paris crowd two trains and 11 metro stops away from me at Bercy Arena, and the unaffiliated around the world drawn to basketball by the prestige of the Olympics. They can now claim the privilege of a uniquely American adventure.

Because Curry — when he finally arrived in Paris three days earlier, per Anthony Edwards — provided the latest presentation of Curry’s lasting legacy. It’s larger than him being the game’s greatest shooter. It’s even bigger than four world championships and two NBA MVPs.

His greatest legacy, a long-known principle to Warriors and Davidson fans and devoted Curry followers, is the experience of him itself. Curry’s greatness isn’t truly understood until it’s felt. It can’t be fully grasped until it’s beheld.

SPLASH AFTER SPLASH AFTER SPLASH AFTER SPLASH! 💦

Steph Curry couldn’t miss in the final minutes! #ParisOlympics pic.twitter.com/jM8xnR80Tx

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— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) August 11, 2024

In this virality era where everything is recorded and aggregated, nothing gets missed, and impressive things are consumed to the point of mundane, Curry manages to be a had-to-be-there thing. The confluence of his talent and skills, his dichotomic personality of arrogance and humility, his work ethic, his limitations and his story produce its own kind of magic. It’s unique enough to maintain its entertainment value despite the frequency.

Now put that on the Olympic stage, against the French national team, featuring the future of basketball in Victor Wembanyama, in a close game, in Paris, with the gold medal on the line.

The magnitude of this one was different.

Seismic enough to wow LeBron and KD. Watching those three hug in the same uniform, scream at each other with unbridled unity, had all the warmth and feels at the end of a Tom Hanks film.

Makes you realize the waste in all those years of pitting them against each other, in which the athletes themselves participated. Makes you shake your head at the people who then and still looked for ways to diminish Curry in the name of another star. (And vice versa).

No. 1: Comparison is the thief of joy, so the tribalistic obsession with rankings only robbed them of one of basketball’s purest pleasures. It’s borderline ungrateful to watch Curry and LeBron James and Kevin Durant play and not be impacted by the privilege of the opportunity. No. 2: They were ALWAYS going to end up here, rivals turned to homies, competitors who become brothers. They’re all in such an exclusive group, they’d be lonely if they didn’t eventually come to embrace the few who can relate to their level. The way these guys are built, the way they think about the game, the love fest we witnessed during these Olympics was inevitable. And the dividing lines between their kingdoms were destined to look silly once the kings embraced.

Stephen Curry, LeBron James, Anthony Edwards and Kevin Durant of Team USA celebrate on the podium during the Men’s basketball medal ceremony at Bercy Arena on August 10, 2024 in Paris, France. (Jean Catuffe/Getty Images)

That’s another layer to this ultimate moment — just how much this means to Curry. Everything about him is Team USA. All of the feels and intangibles of the honor coupled with how his game translates. Dell Curry, and then Davidson coach Bob McKillop, groomed him with so many of the aspects that maximize the experience of USA Basketball. The selflessness. The camaraderie. The brotherhood of hoopers. The sportsmanship. The appreciation for putting on the jersey and playing against those with their own national pride. Curry has been indoctrinated this way his whole life.

I remember finally getting an answer from him about the Rio Olympics. He’d slipped on the sweat of Donatas Motiejūnas in the first round of the 2016 Western Conference playoffs and sprained his knee. He missed the next four games, but even when he returned he was compromised. Toward the end of the playoff run, he finally had to acknowledge his reality as the Warriors pushed forward in the playoffs: The offseason would be devoted to healing that knee. He was so dejected just saying it out loud.

He was injured in 2012, though a long shot to make the team. He was injured in 2016. He opted out of the quarantined Tokyo Games in the aftermath of the pandemic (which pushed the games back a year) and a grueling season with the Warriors. He was 0-for-3 on one of the most important perks of his rise to stardom.

So you can imagine how much he valued being there, and still being great enough at 36 to produce so spectacularly.

And the other part clearly important to him, sentimental even, is doing it with James and Durant. Doing it with the young stars to whom he gets the honor of passing the torch.

Curry has had a completely full career. He’s had incredible games and bad ones. Stellar moments and embarrassing ones. The highest glory and the heartbreak that never leaves. Huge wins and massive losses. You’ll never meet another NBA player who appreciates all of it more than Curry. They’re all rites of passage into the fraternity of NBA superstars. And as the kid who grew up around them, following his sharp-shooting father, Curry values that honor incredibly.

This is all that was missing, an Olympic gold, the Team USA experience.

So delivering as teammates of all-time greats, players he’s battled against for so many years, is greater than any shot he made. Greater than gold he now adorns.

He was with LeBron for this one. With KD. With Devin Booker and Jrue Holiday. With Carmelo Anthony. With Ty Lue and Erik Spoelstra, who for years sought to prey on his weaknesses. His entire biological family was with him for this international soiree. The chantilly on top: Curry was alongside Steve Kerr, his championship coach, with his basketball brother Draymond Green in the crowd, to which Curry yelled “Don’t worry ’bout me!” This was a significant moment for a significant figure.

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But, to answer many of the texts I received: Yes, I am in Paris. No, I was not there there. That was fine by me, too.

I’d just watched Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone run a 47.71 split on the second leg of the women’s 4×400 relay — the world record in the women’s 400 meters is 47.60 — and it was so fast and smooth everyone else on the track felt like stop animation. I’d earlier witnessed the greatest men’s 100-meter race of my lifetime, maybe ever, as Noah Lyles won by .005 seconds. That’s how long it takes a butterfly to flap its wings 10 times. I watched Cole Hocker shock the world in the men’s 1500-meter race. I watched Sha’Carri Richardson pierce the rain and stare down the runner-up as she paced her for gold.

That’s the beauty of the Olympics. It’s two weeks of had-to-be-there moments across multiple sports. Curry provided one of the most seismic ones, but not the only one. The Olympiads are chock full of legends.

Speaking of which, here comes Rai Benjamin. Finally.

GO DEEPER

Merci, Paris: We needed these Olympics

 (Top photo of Stephen Curry: Michael Reaves/Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES — After a wild few seasons, quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo finally looks relaxed.

The 10-year veteran has returned to a backup role, with both Garoppolo and the Los Angeles Rams recognizing it was the perfect time to unite. Garoppolo was looking for some solid footing, while the Rams wanted a reliable insurance policy for starter Matthew Stafford.

It’s been a great pairing so far, especially after Garoppolo dealt with so much uncertainty in recent years.

“It was chaotic at times, but they’re all learning experiences,” Garoppolo told The Athletic. “That’s one thing I’ve taken from this. The NFL is crazy, man. Everyone has got a story. Everyone is going whichever way trying to make it. But at the end of the day, it’s your story, and you’ve got to make the best of it. Good, bad, or indifferent, whatever happened in the past, it happened. … Now I’m here, and I’m just trying to make every day the best day.”

Garoppolo’s career as a whole has been remarkably eventful. The New England Patriots drafted him in the second round in 2014, with Bill Belichick pointing toward Tom Brady’s age as a primary reason for exploring a potential succession plan. But when Brady’s play didn’t diminish as he got older, the Patriots traded Garoppolo to the San Francisco 49ers in 2017.

Garoppolo tore his ACL in 2018, guided the 49ers to the Super Bowl in 2019 and lost most of his 2020 season due to a high ankle sprain. Garoppolo maintained the starting job in 2021 after the Niners made a massive draft investment in Trey Lance, but the team had prepared to turn to Lance in 2022, causing an unpredictable chain reaction that seemed to lay the groundwork for Garoppolo’s trade or release. Instead, he reworked his contract and subbed in for Lance after his gruesome ankle injury in Week 2 but eventually went down again with his own Lisfranc injury, paving the way for Brock Purdy’s emergence.

Nary a dull moment, Garoppolo endured a grueling recovery from offseason foot surgery before joining the Las Vegas Raiders in 2023, but he was benched midseason on the same day of head coach Josh McDaniels’ firing.

So you can see why a backup job with the Rams and an opportunity to reset was appealing for Garoppolo.

“It’s really nice having a healthy offseason,” Garoppolo said. “I haven’t had one of those in a while. The foot surgery was tough last year. For anyone who’s ever been through that, that wasn’t a fun recovery, but I feel like I’m back to myself. Being in this role, I get to experiment with some things, being with the 2s. I get to be myself. I haven’t had that in a little while, so it feels nice to get back to that.

Garoppolo largely credited Stafford and Rams coach Sean McVay for being the reasons he wanted to play in Los Angeles. McVay, in particular, impressed Garoppolo when the two chatted on the phone. Garoppolo, who drew interest from other teams, also was eager to learn about Stafford’s process.

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Garoppolo, who will serve a two-game suspension to start the season after violating the league’s performance-enhancing drug policy, also understood during the offseason that a guaranteed starting job wasn’t going to be on the table. Sure, he could have gone somewhere to compete with a young quarterback, but that would have led to a similar dynamic that he experienced in San Francisco where the organization would inevitably lean on the long-term investment. Similarly, teams starting over at QB generally have head coaches whose job security isn’t as stable, which he just witnessed in Vegas.

McVay is as close to a sure thing as there is in the league, and his offensive scheme speaks for itself. The vibe in the Rams’ building is also as strong as it gets.

There was a litany of reasons for Garoppolo to take a step back in southern California.

“This place allows you to be yourself, too, which is different than other places I’ve been. You’re getting pressed with a sense of urgency but in a good way. Obviously, everyone wants to win. Everyone wants to perform well. They do it in the right way here. They push you positively. There’s just a lot of good things going on, man. I’m enjoying every bit of it. Even the meetings are a good time. Everything is going good right now.”

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(Photo: Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images)

There were two requirements for the Stade de France track for the 2024 Paris Olympics: make it purple and make it fast.

The colour was, in fittingly Parisian fashion, about creating a unique stage for athletes to perform. A lighter hue than the typical red tracks, following in the footsteps of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, where the track was navy blue and not red for the first time.

Making it faster is not as straightforward as a design choice. In fact, a ‘fast track’ has become the most hackneyed of athletics sayings — no host city is going to ask for a slow one, are they?

But Paris was fast: seven Olympic records and three track and field world records were set at the Games. This excludes world-best decathlon performances and field events (hammer throw, shot put), which do not use a runway or the track.

Combined, the number of Olympic/world records has trended upwards at recent Games: five in London (2012); six in Rio; 10 in Tokyo (2020) and the same again in Paris. It is an oversimplification that athletes are getting bigger, faster and stronger. Humans are also getting smarter and technology is getting better.

It was not just that records went in Paris, but how. Thirteen men ran quicker than Kenenisa Bekele’s 10,000m Olympic record from 2008 (27:01), with Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei winning in 26:43.

Four men broke Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s 1500m Olympic record from Tokyo, including Ingebrigtsen, only for him to not medal. Four women broke Faith Kipyegon’s 1500m Olympic record, also from Tokyo, with Kipyegon winning in 3:51.

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The women’s 400m final was the fastest ever, with all nine athletes going under 50 seconds. The men’s 100m final was the hardest to qualify for in Olympic history. Never before had a sub-10 second semi-final not guaranteed a spot.

The final itself was the deepest of all time, the only instance of all nine men going sub-10 in a wind-legal race, and the smallest first-to-eighth gap in a global final — 0.12 seconds separated Noah Lyles’ gold and Oblique Seville.

Similarly, the men’s 800m final was the first instance of four men running under 1:42 in the same race and that was a race where the Olympic record wasn’t broken.

The 100m final is the only instance of all nine men going sub-10 in a wind-legal race (Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)

Maurizio Stroppiana is the vice president of Mondo, an Italian company that produces synthetic athletics tracks. Mondo first made an Olympics track for Moscow in 1980, 12 years and three Games after they were first introduced at Mexico City in 1968. Mondo have manufactured every track since Barcelona in 1992.

“Mondo tracks are known to be the fastest in the world, with 300-plus records to date and over 70 per cent of all current records,” says Stroppiana.

If you think numbers like that mean Mondo have cracked the science of making quick tracks, they kind of have, but the science is less perfect than you might expect. Mondo’s tracks are made from “vulcanised rubber”, says Stroppiana.

When Paris hosted the Olympics in 1924, it was on a cinder track. “It was like dirt,” explains Stroppiana. “So, apart from getting dirty, it was more like running in a field as opposed to running on a 400m (synthetic) track”.

‘Fast tracks’ is something of a misnomer. The athlete is fast (or not), it is about making a track efficient. “We are trying to minimise the energy that is lost. The track compresses (as the foot hits the track) and it will then return that energy in the most efficient way, although a part of it will certainly be lost,” says Stroppiana.

The 1968 Olympics in Mexico City was the first to use a synthetic track (AFP via Getty Images)

Athletes produce around three times their body weight in vertical force when running. How much of that is translated into horizontal force — them moving forwards — depends on the “braking and propulsive forces”, Stroppiana says.

Mondo implemented “elliptical air cells within the base layer of the track”, which they found to have a double benefit: a 2.6 per cent increase in net horizontal energy return, and a 1.9 per cent improvement in shock absorption.

It is about protecting athletes while trying to maximise performance, though those things are interrelated. “The track has to provide a certain level of comfort and cushion,” says Stroppiana.

He outlines that the determinants of maximal energy return are the “type of material, the elasticity of the material. We have these aerosols on the bottom of the track. That helps the cushioning effect and how that energy is returning as equally as possible”.

“What we noticed in the previous track (Tokyo) is that, depending on where the athlete stepped (with the foot), you get different results. We modified the shape to provide a more uniform response and to increase the area of depression of the track,” says Stroppiana.

“This makes the track better because they will not feel any difference, the elastic response is exactly the same throughout the track to guarantee that the rhythm of the athlete (will) be maintained.”

If that sounds straightforward and simple, it isn’t. Stroppiana says “it took us about two years to fine-tune this new solution. We developed this mathematical model at the University of Milan”. It lets them run simulations and test new combinations faster. The four-year Olympic cycle gives ideal preparation time.

Washing the Olympic track in Tokyo in 2021 (Antonin Thullier/AFP via Getty Images)

One myth Stroppiana is keen to bust is track hardness. “These narratives started in the 1996 (Atlanta) Olympic Games because they had some great record times,” he says. “They started saying, ‘Yes it’s fast, it’s fast because it’s hard’. And since then we haven’t been able to change that point of view.”

How hard is the Paris track? “It’s softer than before,” says Stroppiana. “We really came to realise that is not a good solution making the track hard. And also, (it) doesn’t necessarily translate into faster times. In fact, it can actually lead to injury. So we have changed that in the last, six, seven years.”

They use a lower-carbon production method and more sustainable materials now than before, including calcium carbonate from mussel shells.

Unsurprisingly, it isn’t cheap. Stroppiana prices the Paris track at “anywhere from two to three million”, explaining that the top synthetic part “is only 14 millimetres thick. It’s quite thin”. He says that tracks tend to last around 15 years before needing replacement or relaying.

Mondo manufactured Rio’s blue track for the 2016 Games (Patrick Smith/Getty Images)

Decades of academic research detail the impact of altitude (positively for sprints, with the reduced air resistance; negatively for distance running, with the reduced oxygen) and wind.

The 1968 Olympics had the added impact of being the highest-altitude summer Games ever, at over 2,000m (7,000 feet). Sprinting and jumping records were smashed to pieces. Of the 12 sprint events, only the women’s 400m did not see an Olympic or world record, but distance races were slow.

Sprint performances over 1,000 metres are not considered legal and ‘altitude-assisted’, with a following wind of up to two metres the threshold for wind-legal sprint performances.

It means a good track needs the right location to be optimal for (legal) records. Saint-Denis, where Stade de France is situated in northern Paris, is within 50 metres of sea level. Stroppiana talks about the stadium creating a “microclimate” to “provide more favourable (performance) conditions”.

He explains that “the stadium’s architecture, including its oval shape and partially covered roof, helps to reduce wind interference. The stadium’s seating arrangement and the height of the stands contribute to shielding the track”.

Looking ahead, the 2028 Games in Los Angeles, USA, and the 2032 Games in Brisbane, Australia, are both in coastal cities.

The Stade de France’s ‘microclimate’ provides favourable conditions for fast times (Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)

For Stroppiana, the future of track-making lies in Mondo working with shoe/spike brands, who are notoriously “secretive about their own knowledge. Now there is this movement toward open innovation, which means collaborating within an industry, but not through competing brands”.

“I think the next evolution of the track surfaces is to make adjustments for these different (field) disciplines — an area of improvement for all the runways,” says Stroppiana.

He went on to say that Mondo works with Adidas, Nike, Asics, ON and Puma, among others, and collaborated with the latter for Paris.

“Before Tokyo, we worked with Asics because they gave us some insight. We installed our track at their research laboratory and they were testing different types, different solutions, to see which one (track) would be best.

“They do their own evaluation and they try to make sure that the (track/spike) interaction is as good as possible, concerned about how the spike will grab onto the surface, which is critical.”

Different events require different length spikes. Stroppiana speaks of 400m spikes having “different properties on the right-hand side” to aid bend running (as the outside of the foot hits the track first on landing and athletes run around to the left).

There is a trade-off to be achieved: Mondo “want to guarantee the proper traction but minimise the friction. So if the spikes were to penetrate too much on the surface, then it slows the athletes down”, says Stroppiana. “This is one of the characteristics of the top wear layer: it has to be spike resistant.”

Exceptions from that are pole vault and javelin because athletes are moving with so much force that the spike needs to penetrate the surface to avoid injury.

“In Paris, if you look closely at the javelin runway, the last portion is slightly different in colour (to the track)” says Stroppiana. “Why? Because that section has been specifically engineered for javelin throwers. We worked with the German team and the Finnish team to test different solutions”. He says they wanted a runway with “more spike resistance and to have a better grip.

“Normally the track has to be the same. You cannot have different properties for different areas. But for javelin, they (World Athletics) accepted these changes.” It worked: Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem smashed the Olympic record by over 2.5m, throwing 92.97m, to earn Pakistan’s first athletics gold.

Stroppiana is optimistic about a future with more adjustments. “For the long distance, you could create a section where it’s specifically made,” he says, suggesting an inside lane. “In fact, we have done some tracks like this — only for training, not for competition — where you have a differentiated elastic response”.

There’s no doubt the 2028 LA track will be even more efficient. Mondo have four years to test and re-test new combinations and spike brands to work with. The main question that remains is: what colour will it be?

(Top photo: Nathan Laine/Bloomberg via Getty Images)