A plush version of Phryge, the mascot for the Paris Olympic Games, sits atop the pastry case at Sylvia’s Coffee in downtown Eatonton. The stuffed mascot reminds owners Michael and Diana Homeier of the once-in-a-lifetime experience they had attending the Paris Olympics.
Michael and Diana closed the coffee shop for two weeks earlier this summer to go see their niece, Team USA water polo player Rachel Fattal, compete in the Olympics. This year’s Games marked the first time Michael, Diana, and their son Gabriel saw Rachel compete live in an international competition.
Rachel won Olympic gold medals at the 2016 and 2020 Olympic Games, and her team took home gold medals from those competitions as well as from the 2012 Olympics.
Team USA vied for an unprecedented fourth-straight gold medal in Paris, but after nailbiting finishes, they ended up fourth, just short of the podium.
Australia won the semifinal match on Aug. 8, beating the USA 14-13 in a shootout to send the Australians to the gold-level game, which Spain won. The Netherlands beat the USA 11-10 in the bronze-level match on Aug. 10, scoring a heartbreaker in the last second of regulation.
Regardless, Michael said he, Diana, and Gabriel were “thrilled” to attend every USA match and thought Rachel and the team played very well.
“To come one point away from the gold medal round and then one point out of the bronze medal is really frustrating, especially since the team played pretty well and we thought she played very well,” Michael said. “You can’t help but feel for your relative and for all the ladies on the team who came so close and worked so hard over the four years [since the last Olympics].
“Water polo is a tough sport. You think the men are tough; the women are tougher,” Michael continued. “The women’s game is a really tough game, and these ladies are strong. They’ve got to be mentally strong, but it’s physical, too. There’s no way around it. These women have to elevate themselves out of the water; they’re treading water for the whole game and constantly moving.
“About half the team retired after the Tokyo Games, so there were a lot of ladies new to the team, new to this level of competition, and I think they learned a lot. I have been told they learned a lot, and the team would be stronger because of the experience. It’s exciting to think where the team could be competitively four years from now in Los Angeles.”
Michael remembers rooting for Rachel when she played water polo at the University of California—Los Angeles and notes how exciting it is to see her now at the Olympic level.
“She’s a tough competitor,” he said. “She played particularly well, as primarily a defensive player rather than an attacker. But surprisingly, I think she scored a goal in every game, some of which were the last goals. A couple of them were the winning goals. Even if I wasn’t related to her, I had to respect the heck out of how tough she competed. She is a lady who’s pretty strong-minded and pretty driven. I imagine you’d expect that of someone who can compete on that level.”
Michael said they hung out with Rachel after every game, and he believes it meant a lot to her to have family there.
“I don’t think she expected many of us to be there because of the cost and heavy time commitment, but we’re so glad we went,” he said. “There are always those voices saying, ‘Maybe you’d have a better view on TV,’ or you could sit back on the couch and not have to run around a foreign city, but it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I don’t know that Rachel will compete in the next Olympics, and even if she wants to, it’s four years from now. As tough a competitor as she is, she’s 30 now, and things start to change.”
Despite the disappointment of the result, Michael insisted there were no regrets about making the trip to Paris. He said nothing compares to being at the Olympics, getting caught up in the immediacy and emotion of it all.
He called it “a remarkable experience,” and though pricey, he suggested anyone who could make an Olympics trip would never regret the effort.
“We may be paying it off for a while, but it was well worth it,” he insisted. “It’s a big part of our life. “I don’t know that we’ll ever do this again, or have the circumstances to do it again, but I’m glad I didn’t miss this one.”
When water polo wasn’t playing, Michael said his family had the opportunity to take in some other Olympic events. They attended swimming, tennis, and beach volleyball, which he notes was “pretty remarkable” since the volleyball venue was under the Eiffel Tower.
“You look down on the court, and then you look up, and there’s the Eiffel Tower decked out in all these lights," he said. "I kept thinking, ‘Am I here, or is that just some kind of photographic background that they’re hanging up?’”
Michael said they also visited several museums, sampled Parisian cuisine – notably France’s “terrific” bread, and, of course, tried the coffee at multiple cafes.
He noted that the cafe experience was different from the experience they had a couple of years ago, when they trained as baristas in Italy.
“The French sit at a cafe and watch the world go by. In Italy, they’ll run in, get an espresso, drink it standing up at the bar, and then be out the door in three minutes. That’s quite a bit different than sitting leisurely at a café table somewhere and watching the street scene walk by.”
Michael said they also brought Sylvia’s beans from Oconee Coffee Roasters and made coffee in their hotel rooms, so they had a little bit of home at the Olympics.
Their coffee wasn’t the only thing that made it to Paris. Sylvia’s T-shirts did, too. The Homeiers wore the shirts at the bronze-level match, and Rachel wore one in the Olympic Village.
“We just wanted to wear the shirts to let our customers at home know that we were doing the work on the coffee side of things, and we did get a real kick out of it,” Michael explained. “[When Rachel wore the shirt], we were able to say, ‘Hey, look, Sylvia’s has made it to the Olympic Village.’”
Michael said he heard many Sylvia’s Coffee fans also tuned into the Olympics because they were there.
“People have been supportive and encouraging. They said they tried to watch some of the water polo games or saw [Rachel] play in some of the games and got a kick out of getting some of that experience. It ended up being positive all the way around,” he added. It really was once in a lifetime. I’m thrilled we didn’t miss it, and I’m thrilled that everybody, fans, and patrons, have just been terrific.”
Still, Michael said it’s nice to be back home in Eatonton and see everyone again. When anyone asks about that “red blob” on the pastry case, Michael said he tells them of the time Sylvia made it to the Olympics, an experience he recommends for everyone’s bucket list.