Sports often are a secondary attraction in Paris, with athletes having a difficult time standing out in a cultural sphere driven largely by food, fashion and the arts.
Victor Wembanyama may use the Paris Olympics to be the first homegrown sports star to dismantle that dynamic.
The 7-foot-4 French-born phenom made San Antonio Spurs NBA games appointment viewing as a rookie in the league this past season, boosting his already swelling global brand. Now the 20-year-old is returning home for the Paris Games as by far the biggest name in his country's entire Olympic delegation.
Wembanyama literally will be a center of attention this month, and not just because of what he can do on the court, but because he's become a central figure with the charisma to draw in both ardent sports fans and casual French citizens alike.
"I tend to underestimate the fan enthusiasm for me. I don't pay more attention to it than that," Wembanyama said recently. "But when I returned to France a few weeks ago for the first time, I felt the enthusiasm of the public that was different from before."
