'No better place' than Olympics, says superfan on her 7th Games | ABS-CBN News

The Olympics bug bit Vivianne Robinson in Los Angeles in 1984, where her mother was a volunteer, and she’s still hooked. Paris 2024 is the seventh Olympics for the 66-year-old Santa Monica native, after Los Angeles, Atlanta, Sydney, Athens, Rio and London. When she’s not watching the sports, she walks on the Champs Elysees avenue in a patchwork Olympics track suit, which took a year to create. Wearing a bucket hat with Eiffel Tower figurines and waving flags from different host countries, she greets Olympic volunteers and tourists, some of whom recognise her from her viral TikTok videos or her Instagram account. “You actually meet more people when you're dressed like this… I get to meet the world this way,” Robinson told Reuters, in between selfie requests from passersby on the Champs Elysees. Robinson said she had been saving up for the Paris Olympics for the past eight years, working two jobs, selling personalised rice grain necklaces on an L.A. beach in the day and bagging groceries in the evening. The price tag for Paris: $10,000, which includes tickets to 38 sporting events and a $1,600 seat to the opening ceremony. “I was on a bridge called Pont Royal, and it started pouring rain, which is OK, I don't mind the rain, but the problem was that I didn't get to see anything. They had only a big television screen. So I paid $1,600 to look at a television. Little bit disappointing,” she said. To increase her chances on the tickets draw, she used the names of her mother and sister. But once in Paris, she realised there’s not enough time to see all the events. One she couldn’t miss though was U.S. gymnast Simone Biles’ return to the Olympic stage. A huge credit card bill awaits Robinson when she returns to L.A., she said, but the sky seems to be the limit in Paris. “Well, you just can't be in a better place in the world, just to be surrounded by athletes and tourists and monuments and just the fun of the Games,” she said. - Report from Reuters For more ABS-CBN News videos, click the link below: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgyY1WylJUmgUHWUpi2ioSp4xAP1SmAaf For more latest news and analysis from ABS-CBN News videos, click the link below: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgyY1WylJUmg4pcvfM9a96rbUcLD_0P_U For more News Digital News Raw Cuts, click the link below: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgyY1WylJUmi83yKJH8Dv0p_3D4cyZKzV Subscribe to the ABS-CBN News channel! - http://bit.ly/TheABSCBNNews Watch the full episodes of TV Patrol on iWantTFC: http://bit.ly/TVPatrol-iWantTFC Visit our website at http://news.abs-cbn.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/abscbnNEWS Twitter: https://twitter.com/abscbnnews #Exclusive #LatestNews #ABSCBNNews