**Note on the appearance of the site. I was trying out a new format. There were some things I liked (stylistically and the mobile version) and some things I didn’t (the organization of posts on the desktop version), so I’m back to the old way for now. I reserve the right to keep playing around because there are also some functionality issues I’ve never been quite happy with on the old one.

Honestly, the most noteworthy feature of the Paris World Cup was the gigantic size and volume of the crowd—I mean, especially when we’re used to elevens of silent people.

This was particularly evident in the men’s floor final, when the phalanx of children in the crowd were instructed to scream ALLEZ (either that or AHHHLJKEDHFLKSHDLSHD, hard to say) on every tumbling pass. It was…sure a thing. But of course, they all lost steam about 2/3 of the way through the final because they were expending too much energy too early. So if you went up later in the order, you just got the sputtering of an old steam engine. Anyway…