Achi news desk-
Paris, France –
Usain Bolt’s sprint world records were never in danger. Then again, even the world’s fastest ever human probably wouldn’t have been that fast at balancing a tray with a croissant, a coffee cup and a glass of water through the streets of Paris, and not spilling it everywhere.
The French capital resurrected a 110-year-old race for its waiters and waitresses on Sunday. The run through the center of Paris celebrated the dexterous and, yes, by their own admission, sometimes famously moody men and women without whom France would not be France.
Why? Because they make French cafes and restaurants tick. Without them, where would the French gather to give the world rights over drinks and food? Where would they quarrel and fall in (and out of) love? And where else could they simply sit and let their minds wander? They have written songs and poems about their “bistrots,” so attached to their humble watering holes that for generations have nourished their bodies and souls.
“That’s where you’ll find the small flowers of the population,” sang composer-poet Georges Brassens, but also “very boring, down on their luck.”
So drum roll, please, for Pauline Van Wymeersch and Samy Lamrous – the newly crowned fastest waitress and waiter in Paris and, therefore, ambassadors for an essential profession in France.
And one who has a big job ahead of her: Taking the food orders and quenching the thirst of millions of visitors who will flock to the Olympic Games in Paris in July.
The resurrection of the waiting race after a gap of 13 years is part of Paris’ efforts to bask in the Olympic spotlight and put its best foot forward for its first Summer Games in 100 years.
The first waiters’ race was held in 1914. This time, a couple of hundred waiters and waitresses dressed in their uniforms — sporting the best bow ties — and loaded their trays with the regulation pastry, a small (but empty) coffee. cup and a full glass of water for the two kilometer (1 1/4-mile) loop starting and finishing at City Hall.
Van Wymeersch, a runaway winner in the women’s category in 14 minutes, 12 seconds, started waiting at the age of 16, now 34 and said she can’t envisage any other life for herself.
“I love it as much as I hate it. It’s in my skin. I can’t leave it,” he said of the profession. “It’s difficult. He is tired. It is demanding. It’s 12 hours a day. It’s not weekends. It’s not Christmas.”
But “it’s part of my DNA. I was brought up in a way with a tray in my hand,” he added. “I have been shaped, in life and in the job, by the bosses who have trained me and the customers, all the people I have met .”
Van Wymeersch works at Le Petit Pont cafe and restaurant facing Notre Dame cathedral. Lamrous, who won the men’s race in a time of 13:30, is staying in La Contrescarpe, in the 5th district of Paris. Their prizes were medals, two tickets each to the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on July 26 along the River Seine and a night out in a hotel in Paris.
Although all smiles this time, contestants recognized that is not always the case when they are rushed off their feet at work. The customer may always be right in other countries, but the waiter or waitress has the last word in France, living up to their reputation for being abrupt, moody and even rude at times.
“French pride means in small professions like this, they don’t want to be trampled on,” said Thierry Petit, 60, who is retiring in April after 40 years waiting tables.
“It’s not disrespect, it’s more of a state of mind,” he said. Switching to English, he added: “It’s very Frenchie.”
The capital’s mayor, Anne Hidalgo, said that cafes and restaurants are “really the soul of Paris.”
“The bistrot is where we go to meet people, where we go for our little coffee, our little drink, where we also go to argue, to love and hug each other,” he said.
“The cafe and bistrot is life.”
