After the buzz of the sporting venues at Paris 2024, the mood inside is tranquil, almost a little fusty. And tinged, in some quarters, with frustration.
“Unfortunately there is so little pins that have been shaken loose,” says Tanya Ollick, a 57-year-old network engineer from Seattle, who joined the Olympic collecting community during the London Games of 2012. “It’s been very disappointing.”
Ollick blames professional, business-minded collectors for harassing the athletes and putting them off the whole trading-with-strangers business.
“This time around, unfortunately, there are a few people that are trading to sell on eBay. If an athlete or a volunteer walks out of the village, usually we want to stand there and trade with them. But these guys have been a bit aggressive. Because you they’re selling pins for on eBay for 30 bucks. So security has been challenging. Athletes tend to avoid us. Mostly because of the begging that is going on.”
The NOC badges are not the only pins available, however. Ed Schneider – a 68-year-old from Long Island in New York State – explains that he prefers the sponsors’ badges, having worked in merchandising in a former life.
“Lake Placid [the 1980 Winter Olympics, also hosted in New York State] jump started it,” says Schneider of the whole pin-collecting business, “and then it exploded in LA in 1984.
“Would you believe that Budweiser sponsored the first Olympic trading centre in 1984? Before that, the only trading had happened among athletes and Olympic committee-people. But there’s not that many people in the world who are really active: maybe 500.”