In her latest Sky Sports column, Laura Robson reflects on her experiences at the Paris Olympics, including watching Mondo Duplantis leap into the pole vault world record books and watching Novak Djokovic fall to his knees in tears after completing a career Golden Slam…
I had the best time at the Olympics. It was everything that I had hoped for and more because when you play at the Olympics, you’re kind of removed from it all in a way. You just don’t have the time to do much other than your sport, and when you’re finished, you leave.
For this Olympics, I was there for two-and-a-half-weeks start to finish and just got everywhere. I literally went to as many venues as I could. I’d get back to the hotel in the evening, look at the schedule to see what sports were still on, then go straight to a different venue.
The atmosphere was incredible. Even at Roland Garros, it felt so different and so energetic compared to what we’re used to.
Robson watched Duplantis break his own world record for the ninth time
My highlight was the pole vault world record because the atmosphere was electric. I was just so obsessed with [Mondo] Duplantis!
I didn’t really know anything about the pole vault. I had gone specifically to watch the 800m and Britain’s Keely Hodgkinson, then you see all the build-up where fellow athletes were struggling to get to 5.70m and he wasn’t even trying.
He was like ‘I might as well skip this one because it’s so easy’ and then the camera would cut to him, and he was lying on the floor having a relaxation moment and then he’d jump another height and make it look like a breeze. It looked like he had enough time to take a selfie up there.
Duplantis does his best impression of Turkish pistol shooter Yusuf Dikec
He won gold half an hour before he broke the world record, but what I loved about it was by the time we got to his final height there was nothing else going on in the stadium. At any given time, there are like four events going on, but 75,000 people stayed to see him jump 6.25m at the third attempt!
He needed about 10 minutes in between attempts, so the build-up to this final attempt was just magic. I was thinking, ‘of course it was going to be on his third attempt’ because that was the most amazing fairytale Olympics moment. Maybe he planned it – but that was my moment. I’m still on cloud nine from the experience.
Now I want to be in Los Angeles for 2028 – I need to be working on it somehow!
A stunning men’s tennis final…
Novak Djokovic celebrates defeating Carlos Alcaraz in the men’s singles gold medal match at Roland Garros
It’s incredible the way Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz can play tennis and it meant so much to them both.
All that build-up and pressure for Djokovic knowing it was one thing that he hadn’t done in tennis and to play that well against someone he had lost to just a couple of weeks before. Someone who has just won two Grand Slams, who was having an incredible summer – I found it really inspiring!
How he was so motivated to just win this one thing that he had never completed in tennis, so the reaction said it all in the end.
Djokovic collects his Olympic gold medal
I loved the fact that you could see Djokovic crying and Alcaraz crying all on the same court. There was so much going on but there were happy tears and sad tears.
That was kind of the theme for the entire week. Everyone that came through the mixed zone cried at some point.
The 25th Grand Slam doesn’t feel too far away for Novak, but he’s on a well-earned break and I think we will need to see if he even wants to show up at the US Open…
We know Djokovic can win the US Open!
He’s achieved something that he’s described as the pinnacle of his sporting career, so I think it’s quite hard to reset after that.
We know he can win it! We absolutely know he can do it, but whether he wants to at this point I think that is the challenge.
How can anything live up to that moment and then to see his homecoming in Serbia and to see the reaction that he’s had.
At the end of the day, it’s probably just another US Open which is an amazing problem to have. It must be quite hard to go from one to the other.
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