Paris at Easter was in turbocharged preparation mode for the Olympics. Boulevards were being torn up, some 55 kilometres of new bike lanes were laid in, Metro lines extended, plans to get the Seine swimmable tenaciously intact. And every day, at some seemingly random time, a squad of a dozen or so riot police vans, blue lights blazing and sirens blaring, would dart across town apparently running anti-terrorism drills. To say it was a little lively or un peu animé would be an understatement.

But nowhere seemed more animated than inside the Grand Palais, where almost 1000 workers were toiling away daily to get the Beaux-Arts behemoth that lies between the Champs-Élysées and the Seine into tip-top shape to host the fencing and taekwondo competitions.