Tadeu Edgar Coelho’s job in Barcelona is to verify the “Know Your Client”, more commonly known as KYC, documents for Amazon. From Monday to Friday, his job leaves him no time at all. But he loves his sports – everything from football to beach volleyball. The Brazilian was at the 2014 football World Cup in Brazil and was also watching live action at the Olympic Park and Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. Since he couldn’t get away from work, Coelho made two trips to Paris on the first and last weekends of the Olympic Games to catch as much action as he could. Come Monday, he would take a flight back to Barcelona and resume work.
He has been taking his Rio 2016 mascot Vini to all venues and fan parks and taking pictures with it. “This is my way of ensuring that there is a little bit of Brazil in these Paris games,” he says.
From watching beach volleyball on a rainy day to water polo on the second last day of the Games, Coelho has had some great and some not so great experiences in Paris. But his favourite is watching France play Spain in the football gold medal match, which ended 5-3 in Spain’s favour, on big screens with thousands of sports enthusiasts at the Parc des Champions fan park in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.
“It feels like we are in the stadium because we are surrounded by so many fans and they cheer and shout as if we are in the stadium. The best part, this is free and they also sell beer here,” he said.Parc des Champions was one of the most popular fan parks in Paris as Olympic medal winners would come out and greet the fans and show their medals on the ramp that was set up at the venue.
