The host nation is under a brighter spotlight — and a bigger pressure — at the Olympic Games. For any event in which the hosts have athletes competing, they’re often the crowd favorite. Even fans who normally aren’t fond of said country might find themselves subconsciously wanting to see them win something on their home soil, if for no other reason than we all like a thunderous audience reaction.

At this summer’s Paris Olympics, the host nation had a 573-athlete delegation, second-largest behind the United States (592). France had 90 track & field competitors, 36 soccer players, 33 swimmers, 32 basketball players, and 14 gymnasts, to name a few. Which means France had a lot of chances plus the home-court advantage to deliver iconic gold-medal moments — and yet it felt like the lasting memories for France in these Olympics had them coming up just shy of glory.

Don’t get it twisted: France had a good run at the Olympics. They won 64 total medals and 16 gold medals, fifth-best out of all nations in both categories. But some of France’s 26 silver medals (third-best) were especially hard losses. Among them:

Cyrena Samba-Mayela (track & field)

Only one medal went to France in track & field, and it was about as close to gold as possible. In the women’s 100-meter hurdles final, Samba-Mayela finished 0.01 seconds — that’s one one-hundredth of a second — behind Masai Russell of the U.S. for silver.

Given that France had been shut out of the track & field medals up to that point, and it was the last day of competition at Stade de France, Samba-Mayela’s second-place run was received like more of a triumph than a tragedy, but it still had to hurt the French cheering section to get that close to the elusive gold.

Women’s basketball

The U.S. women’s basketball team landed in Paris winners of seven straight gold medals and 55 straight games at the Olympics. And most of those victories came in dominant, dare-I-say easy fashion. This time, Team USA kept to form in the group stage and knockout rounds before meeting France in the gold-medal game. Led by Gabby Williams, a native of the U.S. who is of French descent and plays professionally in France, the team knows as Les Bleues gave the Americans all they could handle. In the end, they fell agonizingly short in a one-point loss after Williams (19 points, 7 rebounds, 3 steals) hit a shot at the final buzzer that was a few inches away from being the game-tying 3-pointer that France needed.

Men’s basketball

The men’s basketball gold-medal game mirrored the women’s: a heavily-favored Team USA vs. France. Although the U.S. men aren’t quite as dominant as the women — they usually win gold, but famously failed in the 2004 Olympics and a few FIBA World Cups in recent years — this year’s roster was loaded with legends like LeBron James, Stephen Curry, and Kevin Durant. France, meanwhile, was led by 20-year-old phenom Victor Wembanyama and four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert, a pair of 7-footers. In short, France had a chance here. With three minutes to go in the fourth quarter, the home team was within three points, but then Curry went off and kissed the French delegation goodnight.

Women’s handball

At the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, France won gold in women’s handball. So going into the Paris Olympics, the reigning champs were naturally a front-runner to repeat. It looked like a smart pick. France was the only team to go undefeated in group play, then got past Germany and Sweden in the knockout rounds before a gold-medal matchup with Norway. That’s where the favored French suffered its first defeat, 29-21, settling for silver.

Men’s soccer

From what I could tell through my very-casual-observer lens, in 2024 the soccer world’s attention was mainly split between the UEFA Euro and Copa America tournaments, plus everyone looking ahead to the FIFA World Cup in 2026. That made soccer in the Paris Olympics seem like an undercard at best, afterthought at worst. But it’s still big-stage soccer in Europe, so winning gold still would’ve been a big deal for France. Again, though, the hosts couldn’t finish the job.

France was flawless in group play, going 3-0 without giving up a goal. They posted another shutout in the quarterfinals over Argentina, and took care of Egypt 3-1 in the semis. And so, going into the gold-medal match, France had outscored its opponents 11-1 in five matches, anchored by starting goalkeeper Guillaume Restes. So what happened with gold on the line? France got lit up by Spain in a 5-3 loss.

Billal Bennama and Sofiane Oumiha (boxing)

France sent eight boxers (four men, four women) to the Olympics, and if you had watched as many hours of boxing as I did during the summer games, you’d know the home crowd was eager to see their guys and gals win some gold.

Unfortunately for them, Uzbekistan and China wanted to win, too. The Uzbekistani men took gold in five out of seven weight classes, while the Chinese and Chinese Taipei women took gold in four out of six weight classes. They didn’t leave much room for France (or anyone else) to stand atop the podium.

France did produce two silver medalists on the men’s side: flyweight Billal Bennama and lightweight Sofiane Oumiha. A three-time gold medalist at the world championships and silver medalist from the 2016 Rip Olympics, Oumiha lucked out and didn’t have to face anyone from Uzbekistan during the entire tournament. The Frenchman did, however, wind up across the ring from Erislandy Alvarez in the gold-medal match. Representing Cuba, another perennial powerhouse in amateur-style boxing, Alvarez was carrying the pride of a nation solely on his shoulders and trying to prevent Cuba from being shut out of winning gold in one of their best sports. Oumiha just wasn’t able to stop this man on a mission. Bennama, meanwhile, ran into the tiniest buzz saw — flyweight king Hasanboy Dusmatov of Uzbekistan, gold medalist from Rio 2016 and the favorite to win gold in Paris. Bennama had taken out fighters from the U.S. and Cuba in his first two fights, but ran out of magic against the masterful Dusmatov.

Anastasiya Kirpichnikova (swimming)

If Bennama ran into a star, Kirpichnikova ran into a straight-up legend. The Russian-born swimmer won three European Championship gold medals representing her native country before switching allegiances to France last year. In her first Olympics on that side, in front of her new home crowd, Kirpichnikova made it to the final of the women’s 1,500-meter freestyle … where Katie Ledecky was waiting. Arguably the greatest women’s swimmer of all time, Ledecky added to her collection of nine Olympic golds, winning in 15:30.02; about 10 seconds behind her, in second place, was Kirpichnikova, who finished in 15 minutes 40.35 seconds. It was a national record for France — but well behind Ledecky’s Olympic record time.