Why everyone in the Olympic Village wants to meet a man from Liechtenstein
Summary
If you think being the only athlete from your country at the Olympics sounds like a lonely experience, think again. It turns out being all by yourself can actually make you wildly popular.
Andy Murray’s bid to close out his tennis career with a gold medal at the Paris Games came to an end on Thursday, when he lost in the quarterfinals of the men’s doubles.
His other quest for an Olympic souvenir turned out to be much more successful.
Ever since he arrived here, Murray had been on a mission to collect as many Olympic pins from as many athletes and as many countries as possible. Which meant that the three-time Grand Slam winner and two-time Olympic gold medalist spent a bunch of his time away from the Roland-Garros courts, trying to hunt down a skinny man from Liechtenstein.
Romano Puentener, a 20-year-old mountain-bike rider, was the only athlete from Europe’s fourth-smallest country at the Games. That distinction not only gave him the responsibility of carrying the Liechtenstein flag at the Opening Ceremony. It also gave him a box of pins bearing the red-and-blue bands and golden crown of the principality’s flag.
It was the second of those that put him squarely on Murray’s radar.
“He was searching the village high and low," said Laura Robson, Murray’s doubles partner at the London Games. “He tracked him down, he got [the pin]—and it was like he had won the Olympic gold."
If you thought being the only Olympic athlete from your country made for a lonely experience at the world’s biggest multisports event, it turns out it can actually make you surprisingly popular.
Puentener was staggered when one of the most famous athletes in Paris knew exactly who he was.
“He was fascinated by me," Puentener said.
Puentener isn’t the only solo athlete who has been sought out by a surprising number of complete strangers. Shaun Gil, a 100-meter runner and the sole Olympic representative from Belize, said he has been showered with attention ever since he stepped off the plane.
“I’ve been on everyone’s wish list to meet," he says.
Most of those meetings turned out to be brief introductions. Few people asked Gill about his life growing up in Belize City, his job as a telecoms technician or the time he was recruited by a track coach at Texas A&M Kingsville in his mid-20s, igniting his Olympic dream.
“Most people just ask, like, where is Belize?" Gill said.
There are other perks of being the only athlete from your delegation. Puentener got a room to himself with two beds, which made him the most comfortable person in the notoriously uncomfortable Olympic Village. Tennis star Coco Gauff, by contrast, posted on TikTok that the Team USA contingent had led to “10 girls, two bathrooms."
Gill, meanwhile, roomed with the president of Belize’s athletic federation.
Puentener’s Olympic experience ended pretty quickly. He finished 28th in the men’s mountain bike event last week, and returned home after just a few days.
He wouldn’t have minded spending that time alone. As it turned out, he spent most of it being chased by Andy Murray.
Write to Lindsey Adler at Lindsey.Adler@wsj.com
