Victor Wembanyama: can France’s ‘exquisite linguine’ unite a nation at the Olympics?

In France, the days leading up to the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics have unfolded amid a frazzled atmosphere of heightened anxiety. Traffic bans, QR codes, and security barriers have effectively barred public access to the center of Paris, where the bulk of Friday’s opening ceremony will take place. Parliamentary elections have thrown the country’s politics into disarray, with the outlines of a new government still not clear weeks after left-wing parties united to form an electoral coalition to prevent the far right from gaining power. A small industry of panels and podcasts has emerged to debate whether France has any realistic hope of meeting President Emmanuel Macron’s target of a top-five medal finish in the home Olympics. And everywhere a broader cultural worry about France’s place in the world – of sport, of politics, of language – amid the ongoing supremacy of the United States and the rise of China and India has accompanied the countdown to Friday. The modern Olympics were, of course, the creation of a Frenchman – Pierre de Coubertin – and French remains one of the two official languages of the Games. But “over the last 30 years,” laments a recent piece in the French press, the “language of Molière” has “lost ground to the language of Shakespeare.” “Will we speak French at these Olympics?” asks Le Figaro, mournfully.

Related: ‘A true unicorn’: Expectations for Victor Wembanyama were wild. He exceeded them

Into this unusual climate of hope and declinism steps the scarcely believable frame of Victor Wembanyama. Everything about the 20-year-old prodigy of French basketball is big: the potential, the hype, and of course the height, which is impressive whether it’s quoted according to American convention (7ft 4in) or European (224 centimeters). After years of watching various Greeks (Giannis Antetokounmpo), Serbs (Nikola Jokić), and Slovenians (Luka Dončić) capture all the headlines for non-US players in the NBA, the French now have an authentic superstar to call their own, and he’s perhaps the closest to a sure thing that the world of basketball has seen since LeBron was stomping around high school courts in Sampras shorts. After just one season in the NBA – which saw him record a string of miraculous scoring performances, dominate players in the prime of their careers at both ends of the court, claim the rookie of the year award by unanimous vote, and richly deliver on the promise announced by his selection as the number one pick in the 2023 draft – Wembanyama has become, along with Kylian Mbappé, the most recognizable French athlete on the planet, and the expectations he carries into these Games are immense.

But whereas Mbappé has made his name in France, “Wemby” is now arguably bigger in America than he is on home soil: his stature, both literal and figurative, says something about France’s ability to project itself beyond Europe. He’s become a symbol of something more than pure sporting excellence, and it’s no surprise that he’s now, in many ways, the face of these Olympics. As Wemby’s star has risen over the past 12 months, the French media has followed every utterance and minor incident in the extended Wembanyamaverse with rapt fascination. The scoring feats in the NBA, his recent call to avoid “extremes” when voting in the French elections, even the extensions made to the hotel bed Wembanyama has slept in during his team’s pre-Olympics camp: all have been reported and discussed in detail. Unsurprisingly, Macron himself – perhaps seeking a rebound after the cooling of his bromance with Mbappé – has sought to associate himself with Wembanyama wherever possible, presenting the young man as an exemplar of his country’s dynamism, of French exceptionalism. “You’re already making us dream,” Macron wrote after Wembanyama was confirmed as the top draft pick last year. And once Wembanyama’s rookie of the year award was confirmed the French president went even further: “Make it iconic!” Promise kept @wemby, Rookie of the Year! French pride. Bring on the Paris Olympics!” Bilingual, boomingly talented on the court, and thoughtfully articulate off it, Wembanyama is Macron’s dream of France as a “startup nation” made incarnate – a national champion with global reach that everyone throughout a bitterly divided country can get behind. At times the one-way presidential love-fest has become so intense that it’s been possible to wonder whether Macron actually wants to be Wembanyama.

The man himself shows absolutely no sign of being fazed by the attention. During a recent interview with influential French YouTuber HugoDécrypte – an encounter that was itself dissected extensively by the local media – Wembanyama reflected on the “Alien” nickname that LeBron James gave him and has now become his default alias. “In life, in sport, I always try to bring something different – I attach a lot of importance to originality, to being unique,” he said. Both on and off the court, Wembanyama projects an effortless, lightly worn confidence in his own destiny, which seems as much a product of talent as upbringing. The Wemby story is not the tale of triumph over adversity or poverty typical of many second generation children of immigrants who rise to sporting prominence in France. He grew up in Paris, but in the comfortable western suburbs of the city, and his parents are former athletes who are over 6ft 3in tall (they also appear, from the photo on their still-functional wedding website, to be in the conversation for coolest parents in the world of professional sport).

From those promising beginnings his rise through the ranks of professional basketball, like his surging teenage height, has been placidly assured. Wembanyama bounded into the NBA on a cloud of anticipation and his first season, if anything, suggested that the expectations were too modest. Most professional basketball players, even the very best ones, have to make tradeoffs to compensate for their deficiencies in skill or size; Wembanyama is the rare basketballing creature who struts the court without compromise, a player who can do it all at both ends of the floor. Court vision, soft hands, shooting precision, speed, defensive courage, and presence in the paint: at the age of 20, this exquisite linguine of a player already has it all. Wembanyama is the basketballing equivalent of the pasta pan’s “sound of love”, and he’s become a must-see attraction for fans every night the San Antonio Spurs have been in action, noodling across the courts of the NBA with a casual, creamy sensuousness. The one area in which he could improve – his strength and durability – will surely come with time, as he grows into his frame and populates those spindly limbs with muscle. For Wembanyama, MVP honors, NBA titles, and Olympic medals are, most seasoned basketball watchers agree, a mere matter of time.

What’s less within Wembanyama’s control, of course, is the quality of the players surrounding him. San Antonio have time to build a franchise around their generational talent, but for the French team, competing for an Olympic gold that Wembanyama has said is “attainable”, the pressure to deliver on home soil is more immediate. Minnesota center Rudy Gobert is the other elite presence on the French roster, and NBA stalwarts Evan Fournier and Nicolas Batum offer experience (if not exactly a surfeit of talent), but beyond that the French will be hoping that a promising cast of youngsters around Wemby – including Washington Wizards forward Bilal Coulibaly, a fellow first round draft pick in 2023 – can give their young superstar the support he needs to lift France beyond the silver medal the team achieved in Tokyo.

The warm-up games before France’s opener against Brazil on Sunday have not been especially encouraging, with the French losing their last four games on the bounce; opposing defenders have begun to show some awareness that if they double team Wembanyama out of the action, Les Bleus have few other dependable routes to the basket. But France’s group seems fairly kind, with reigning world champions Germany looming as the greatest threat and none of the thrilling unpredictability of Group A, which has thrown Australia, Greece, Canada, and Spain together. A quarter-final berth represents the minimum of France’s basketball expectations at their home Olympics. But with Wembanyama on the court, the host country can dream of the absolute maximum – and no one will be dreaming, aiming, blocking, or shooting higher than Wemby himself.