On your marks, Garcons, go!

Speedy service isn’t just something the cafes of Paris pride themselves on. It’s a competition.

La Course des Cafes has returned to the streets of Paris, with waiters challenged to deliver a tray of food 2km along a gauntlet. Billed as the “World’s quickest coffee run” the course was first held 110 years ago and is one of the many events being hosted in the run up to the 2024 Olympic games.

Samy Lamrous was named toast of the town, delivering the perfect trio of croissant, coffee and a glass of water in a winning time of 13 minutes, 30 seconds flat. Pauline Van Wymeersch served the winning women’s entry in an impressive time of 14 minutes 12 seconds. Having started waitering at age 16, she is now 34 and said she cannot envisage any other life for herself.

“I love it as much as I hate it. It’s in my skin. I cannot leave it,” she said of the profession. “It’s hard. It’s exhausting. It’s demanding. It’s 12 hours per day. It’s no weekends. It’s no Christmases.”

The winning waitress, who works at Le Petit Pont cafe en face de Notre Dame, said she felt she been born with a tray in her hand.

“I have been shaped, in life and in the job, by the bosses who trained me and the customers, all of the people, I have met.”

While it’s not an event you’ll see on the podium of the Paris Games in July and August, the town’s hospitality workers took it very seriously. Race organisers said there were over 200 entries for the competition with professional serving staff chomping at the bit to compete.

The original Course des Cafes took place more than 100 years ago, in 1914 with waiters - all of whom were men - taking on a 8km course “in order to honour the values of sport, the excellence of French service”.

Waiters carry trays with a cup of coffee, a croissant and a glass of water as they take part in a 2km waiter's run through the streets of Paris. Photo / AP

The dash through central Paris celebrated the dexterous and, yes, by their own admittance, sometimes famously moody men and women without whom France wouldn’t be France.

Why? Because they make France’s cafes and restaurants tick. Without them, where would the French gather to put the world to rights over drinks and food? Where would they quarrel and fall in (and out of) love? And where else could they simply sit and let their minds wander?

They have penned songs and poems about their “bistrots”, so attached are they to their unpretentious watering holes that for generations have nourished their bodies and souls.

“That is where you will find the population’s fine flowers,” sang songwriter-poet Georges Brassens, but also “all the miserable, the down on their luck”.

This year’s competitors have a big job ahead: Taking the food orders and quenching the thirsts of millions of visitors who will flock to the Paris Olympics this July.

The resurrection of the waitering race after a 13-year hiatus is part of Paris’ efforts to bask in the Olympic spotlight and put its best foot forward for its first Summer Games in 100 years.

The first waiters’ race was run in 1914. This time, a couple of hundred waiters and waitresses dressed up in their uniforms — with the finest sporting bow ties — and loaded up their trays with the regulation pastry, small (but empty) coffee cup and full glass of water for the 2km loop starting and finishing at City Hall.

La Course des Cafes has been resurrected in the streets of Paris, after the first course 110 years ago.

Although all smiles on this occasion, competitors acknowledged that’s not always the case when they are rushed off their feet at work. The customer may always be right in other countries, but the waiter or waitress has the final word in France, feeding their reputation for being abrupt, moody, and even rude at times.

“French pride means that in little professions like this, they don’t want to be trampled on,” said Thierry Petit, 60, who is retiring in April after 40 years of waiting tables.

“It’s not lack of respect, rather it’s more a state of mind,” he said. Switching to English, he added: “It’s very Frenchie”.

The capital’s Mayor, Anne Hidalgo, said cafes and restaurants are “really the soul of Paris”.

“The bistrot is where we go to meet people, where we go for our little coffee, our little drink, where we also go to argue, to love and embrace each other,” she said.

“The café and the bistrot are life.”

- Associated Press with additional reporting