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“In Paris, anything could happen,” says Fred Sirieix, laughing, and it is soon clear that he is no longer talking about diving, his Olympic-medal winning daughter Andrea or indeed his work for the BBC, but an ongoing party among fans.
“There is the city of love… this is sexy Paris!” he exclaims. “People will meet, they will kiss, they will make love, people will have affairs, nobody will know about it! You are in France. It’s going to be fun, man. And we are going to eat super well.”
To be clear, Sirieix is also not referring to the much maligned athletes’ restaurant in the Olympic Village but the gastronomic competition on every corner of the city which, in his expert opinion, is akin to an Olympic event in its own right. The star of First Dates and Million Pound Menu also has some advice for British fans who have another five days to visit the French capital before the Games end.
“Paris is an amusement park — it’s a pleasure of the senses,” says Sirieix, who has been providing dispatches as part of the BBC’s Olympic coverage between watching his 19-year-old daughter compete. “You just have to walk down the street, be a bit savvy, you can clock a good restaurant from the outside, see the menu, you can maybe see the food on the plates, very quickly you can put two and two together and see if it’s a good place. Rather than follow guides, go randomly in the street. More often than not you will have a good meal and meet interesting people. I do that all the time. It’s fun — you never know where the conversation is going to take you.”
With Team GB fans outnumbering everyone in Paris except for the French themselves, Sirieix, who has lived in Britain since he was 20, also hopes that this can be a moment to celebrate and strengthen the Anglo-French axis. He cites some of the shared history, such as how the modern Olympic Games were inspired by Pierre Coubertin’s visit to meet William Penny Brooks in Shropshire, and how Concorde was built by manufacturers from Great Britain and France.
Perfect bedfellows
“There is this collaborative spirit and sense of partnership,” he says. “We did the Concorde. When I grew up [in Limoges], the Concorde was just French. For the Brits, it was just Brits, but actually it was 50-50.
“There is so much that has come from this Franco-British collaboration. There is so much inspiration that has come from both countries and I think the Olympics is a great example of that; of how we managed to partner, do something together and get inspired by each other.
“I’ve been here [Britain] 32 years. I feel very British even though I am not officially British. Obviously, I am very French — my children keep reminding me of this: ‘Daddy, why do you speak like that?’ It is lovely to share that French perspective to my fellow Brits in a way that people can understand and get behind the story. I can’t help but think of London 2012, how it brought the country together, the sense of pride and belonging that everybody felt. The French want to do the same. I was in tears at the [London] Opening Ceremony. I‘m cheering on Team GB and France.”
And, while that has mostly been a relaxing experience, he admits that watching his daughter Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix dive produces a whole kaleidoscope of emotion.
Emotional scenes
We meet before the final of Tuesday’s 10m platform when, having followed up a bronze medal in the synchronised event with sixth in the individual event, Spendolini-Sirieix revealed the depth of the mental-health challenges she had faced since going to the Tokyo Games aged 16 without family and friends because of the Covid restrictions. She said after Tuesday’s competition that she “didn’t even want to be alive” three years ago. “Today I’m just happy that I am alive, I’m breathing and I’ve got my family to support me,” Spendolini-Sirieix said.
Fred was among those comforting her poolside at the Aquatics Centre in Paris and there was a genuinely moving moment as she tearfully digested the outcome while he conveyed all the support that was flooding in on his phone. “Let Andrea know the whole country is proud of her. My daughter now wants to try diving because of her. She’s a super-hero,” he said, reading out one message before telling his daughter: “It’s sport, some days you win and some days you lose. You did your best Andrea.”
He had earlier told me how he tries to not let his natural nerves show when she is competing.
“I’ve watched her all over the world and I do get this kind of anxiety and this stress and I always say to myself, ‘Fred you cannot be like that — because maybe you are projecting’,” he says. “I have nerves and excitement — all sorts of emotions; there will be tears no matter what. Andrea started when she was eight. She had a talent but what got her there was the hard work.
“She has just done her A-levels and, for all those years, she had two jobs. Doing school and diving. She has that athletes’ mentality. It’s hard core. Andrea is only interested in ripping the perfect dive. She gets up in the morning and that is what she does. She totally inspires me.”
Spendolini-Sirieix had hoped to win a second medal but Fred believes that, after overcoming “a mental block” aged 14 when she could not dive off the 10m board for six months and then what he calls the “tough” period in 2021, she has learnt to process her diving passion with perspective.
“Andrea is Andrea, whether she wins or loses,” he says. “It’s about doing the best you can and the hard work you put in before. Winning is not everything — I think that is a good lesson. You lose more than you win in life and I think you have got to be able to take the losses with the same ability as when you win. She has got that ability.
“This will not define her life. Everything has a place. Life is like a great big slice of pizza. This is one slice; there are lots of other slices.”
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