PARIS, FRANCE – JULY 26: Lebron James, Flagbearer of Team United States looks on prior to the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 on July 26, 2024 in Paris, France. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James has gotten to do a lot of awesome things in his life so far, but perhaps one of the coolest was carrying the USA flag at the Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
James was going for his third gold medal in likely the last Olympic games of his career. And he was selected by his peers to represent Team USA as their flag bearer along with tennis star Coco Gauff.
After having time to reflect on what that meant, James revealed that he felt a different kind of nerves and didn’t understand the magnitude of it at first, via Uninterrupted’s The Shop:
“I had an idea that I could part of the finalists to carry the flag for our country. But to be honest, I didn’t understand the significance of it, I didn’t know how prestigious it was, I didn’t know how much of a grand thing it was. I grew up watching the Olympics but I didn’t grow up seeing who was the flag carrier or flag bearer, things of that nature. Those are the things that kind of like, I never saw that before. Once I was getting closer and closer to the moment, and then Steph Curry did the video congratulating me on it, if you guys saw it, he’s an unbelievable person, unbelievable guy and I thank him for what he did. And then being there with my teammates and getting that moment, that’s when it kind of started hitting me. Then people from home, my wife congratulating me on it, the fam congratulating me. Then once we actually got to the Opening Ceremony and it was like five minutes until it’s time for you to go up there and carry the flag, I started to feel very nervous. Super nervous. I get nervous before every ballgame too, but this was different nerves. I was representing the entire country at that moment. I just thought about it just in the sense of my grandkids and kids’ kids’ kids and the generations and people in my community, kids who look like me and come from my background and areas that are not promised to make it to the next day. To be able to see an inspiration like that, hopefully I inspired so many. Not only in America though, but even other kids in different countries globally to want to be a flag bearer in the Olympics as well and just be a representation of what positivity is. There’s so much negative shit going on in the world, not only in America which we live in, we see all the negativity. To be able to have that shining moment right there, to be able to just have positivity for all of our people, no matter the race, no matter the color of your skin, no matter what you believe in, it was like a unity thing. It was pretty cool. It was pretty cool, for sure.”
James ended up having an awesome time in Paris as he and USA Basketball won another gold medal with the 39-year-old bringing home MVP honors.
That, combined with getting to be the flag bearer, made for an experience that James and his family will never forget.
LeBron James on winning MVP at 2024 Olympics
LeBron James playing at an MVP level at the 2024 Olympics was pretty crazy to see given his age and mileage on his body. He continues to play at an extremely high level and recently discussed what the honor of winning MVP meant to him.
