Editor’s note: Anna Laible of Lehighton is covering the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, with a team of fellow journalists from the University of North Carolina. On Monday she covered a Team USA field hockey game. She is reporting regularly on her experience there for the Times News.

Day 3

A new day calls for new adventures and that was true for Monday for sure.

We started off the day taking the train out to Columbus, France, which was a cute little town so that I could cover Team USA field hockey’s second pool play game. After a long hike to the stadium, there were actually two stadiums (one which had men’s and one with women’s today) for field hockey.

The atmosphere was unique. For my first time seeing international field hockey, I really enjoyed it. What was really cool was that the whole Team USA field hockey team was singing the national anthem as it played before the game in front of a huge crowd. The game was filled with back and forth chants between “USA, USA” to “Espana, Espana.”

After the United States worked itself to a tie, I was able to talk with two former Tar Heels, a Duke alum, and the USA goalie in the mixed zone.

What I enjoyed most was just that it felt like a normal conversation and I had more time to talk to the athletes since the media wasn’t as crazy as it was at gymnastics. Once I finished my story from it, that’s when the true adventure began.

I made it all the way to the swimming arena but unfortunately wasn’t able to come and cover swimming this evening due to the high demand of the media. But I made it back after and hope to be able to cover swimming finals tomorrow night.