I went to Paris to look for the super fans. What I found was a beautiful state of love for the world around us | Jacinta Parsons

During Covid-19, when crowds of spectators were absent from stadiums they had once roared into life, we realised, or perhaps we had always known, that the essence of sport does not really exist without the fans. Sure, we tried simulating the sound, but we realised quickly that nothing can replace the energy, the spontaneity and the beauty of a crowd, alive to the moment and passionately invested.

We are drawn to fandom for different reasons – community, nationhood, the love of a sport or a desire to be on that field ourselves – and most of us can claim to be a fan of something. Fandom, although embedded with its own complex emotional terrain, is a beautiful state of love for the world around us. It’s an investment in other people doing extraordinary things that somehow stop being theirs alone and feel as if they might also be ours. A goal kicked is ours. A tumble executed is ours. A sharp shot across the ping pong table – ours.

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But what turns a regular fan – adorned with badges and colours – into a super fan? How does the fan transition from regular to super? What moment cements that love of something that requires you to witness and involve your whole self, a lot of money and a life’s commitment to that witnessing?

In Paris, it wasn’t hard to find the super fans. In fact, the Paris Olympics has dedicated an entire space to super fans in Créteil, a commune in the south-eastern suburbs. After organising to meet my first super fan I realised as I approached our agreed meeting spot that I had no idea what she looked like. But it wasn’t hard to pick her out of the crowd: she was wearing a flak jacket covered with Olympic Games’ pins she has collected over the decades.

“My name is Catherine, and I’m an Olympics super fan,” she proudly proclaimed. She became hooked in 1992, at the Albertville winter Olympics in France. Since then, she has attended more than 14 summer and winter games.

“What was it about those games in Albertville that did that to you?” I asked her. It’s a hard question to answer, I realised, as Catherine looked for the right words to explain something that almost defies reason. “It’s magical, you need to experience this for yourself to understand. It’s like a drug … a good drug.” Catherine now dedicates her time between the games to a website where people can buy and trade Olympic pins and other items.

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And then there were Laura and Hilda, who came to the games as a duo to support their beloved Matildas – who were eliminated from the Paris Olympics this week after they lost to the USA. Following the Matildas across the globe goes deep for them. It is about what the Matildas represent. For Hilda, who has always loved sport, it’s only now that she can see herself running on that pitch. “I was a 90s kid; there weren’t women, queer women or women of colour to look up to,” she told me. “And I imagine how different my life might have been if there was a normalisation of women’s sport and a normalisation of being a fan of women’s sport.”

I met a couple from America who were wearing matching “team USA” T-shirts, and a couple from Nigeria who had travelled to Paris for the women’s soccer. A group of cyclists had ridden five days to get here. They declared that although they committed to the trip during a drunken night at a pub a year ago, they confidently call themselves super fans.

This is fundamentally about joy. Hilda mentioned a few times how much sport didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but for those 90 minutes of a match she feels connected to the people around her in a way she doesn’t normally feel.

I’m beginning to think we underestimate the importance of sport more broadly. When it can be the spark for a glorious if momentary connection between people, in spite of our political, social and cultural differences, then maybe it is more than just a game. Maybe these moments of joy we share standing shoulder to shoulder help us connect in vital ways. Maybe, this is the “magic” that Catherine was talking about.

While the world is burning around us, it’s those 90 minutes or that perfect javelin throw – or when your team loses for the 25th time in a row and you share in that pain with those around you – when the magic is conjured.

It’s the feeling of rising and falling as one. It’s the tremendous feeling of being a fan.

• Jacinta Parsons is a broadcaster, radio maker, writer, and public speaker. She co-hosts The Friday Revue with Brian Nankervis on ABC Melbourne. She is the author of Unseen (Affirm Press 2020) and A Question of Age (HarperCollins/ABC Books 2022). Her next book, A Wisdom of Age, will be published in 2024