Five takeaways from Paris Olympics we should definitely adopt if we host Island Games in 2029

Another Olympics came to a glorious conclusion on Sunday night at the Stade de France. 

As I bid a personal adieu to the Paris games from the sofa I have most watched of the last 16 days’ worth of action from, the cogs in my head began turning. 

We look nailed on to host the Island Games in 2029 – what ideas could we ‘borrow’ to add a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ to our staging of the biennial mini-olympiad. 

Let’s start with the opening ceremony. Paris 2024 will forever be remembered for the seemingly in-Seine (see what I did there) plan to send the Games’ competitors on a flotilla of boats up France’s best-known waterway. 

I liked it. The sight of a the two-strong Eswatini team slowly creeping up a rain-lashed Seine in a boat not much bigger than the one you can drive at Onchan Park will live with me for a long time, especially when one of the coaches took a worrying lurch toward the side of said boat when it hit the wake of a larger vessel. 

Unlike Paris we have natural geography on our side.

Presuming, the opening ceremony takes place at the Bowl, there’s a river right next to it which would be rude not to use. 

Imagine the team from Shetland arriving on one of Jimmy Lee’s Viking longboats and you get an idea of my vision. 

My ‘petit Paris’ plan for the opening ceremony doesn’t end there. One of the other big talking points of the official start of this Olympics was Celine Dion’s smashing out ‘Hymne A L’Amour’ halfway up the Eiffel Tower. 

I know what you’re thinking: ‘the Albert Tower is nowhere near the Bowl’. However, I’ve got a workaround. Imagine Sam Barks belting out Ellan Vannin from the top of the firefighters’ training tower on Peel Road. 

It’s that close we probably wouldn’t need a PA which would mean we’d have more money to spend on the next item on my list. 

Kit. Some of the competitors’ tracksuits at this year’s games have been fitting of a Games held in the fashion capital of the world. Some not so much. 

We need to get this right for performance reasons as much as potential merchandising revenue. If you look good you feel good.

If you feel good you perform well. You perform well, you medal and put those try hards from Jersey back in their box. 

For France, there seems to have been a lot of work gone into the threads the teams have worn for the ceremonies.

It’s no longer acceptable to turn up in the shell-suit you’ve been wearing to and from the track/pool/pitch/velodrome for the past week, a closing ceremony Hawaiian shirt or ‘jazzy’ polo is now a must.

Manx tartan Hawaian shirt under a clingy and tremendously plastic poncho anyone? Mwah. 

To the Games themselves. Paris has shown us two potential takeaways for 2029. Make up an event. Breakdancing in the Olympics. Who’d have thought it? 

I feel we could definitely come up with something Manx enough to almost guarantee us a medal. Chips, cheese and gravy scoffing, Facebook comment moaning, illuminated tractor driving.

There must be something we can shoehorn into 2029’s schedule to boost our chances of overall victory? 

We should also take a leaf out of Paris’s books re some of the venues used.

Imagine table tennis in the glorious surroundings of the Gaiety Theatre, the field events on the lawn of Government House or archery in Peel Castle. Repurpose it and they will come. 

I’ve also got some ideas about the closing ceremony as well involving a horse tram, three tons of Queenies and Joe Locke on a zip wire. 

I feel to get the full ‘closing ceremony at a major sporting event’ experience though I ought to eat a lot of Manx vintage cheddar just before I go to bed and then we replicate exactly the subsequent dream…