Here are 16 facts to help you get ready for the excitement.
Markham carrying the Olympic torch
EDITOR’S NOTE: Author Reed Markham is affiliated with the International Olympic Committee News Service and was an Olympic Torchbearer at the 2002 Olympic Winter Games.
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The 2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games opening ceremony will take place on Friday, July 26, at 1:30 p.m. EST. However, several competitions, including football and rugby, will begin before the ceremony. The Games will run through the closing ceremonies on Sunday, August 11th.
Here are some interesting facts to help prepare you for the upcoming Games:
1. Baron Pierre de Coubertin, The founder of the modern Olympics, once said: “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part; the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.”
2. Paris 2024 will be the first Olympics in history to achieve numerical gender parity on the field of play, with an equal number of female and male athletes participating in the largest sporting event in the world. Of the 10,500 athletes participating in the Games, 5,250 will be men and 5,250 women. Those 10,500 athletes will compete in 32 different sports and 339 events.
3. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Olympics, returning to Paris after 100 years. Paris first hosted the Olympics in 1900 and then in 1924. While Paris is the central host city, events will be held in 16 other cities across metropolitan France and Tahiti.
4. The surfing event will be held 15,000km away in Tahiti, part of French Polynesia. That beats the record for the furthest event from a host city, set at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics when equestrian events were held in Stockholm due to quarantine restrictions.
5. Soccer will be played in Lyon, Saint-Étienne, Nice, Marseille, Bordeaux, and Nantes. The shoot will be held in central France, in Châteauroux. Lille will host basketball preliminaries and handball finals, and sailing events will be held off the coast of Marseille.
6. Most of the estimated billions of spectators will watch the Olympics on television. NBC has the U.S. broadcasting rights, having paid $7.75 billion to air the Games from 2021 to 2032 on its network and Peacock app. The flagship network plans at least nine hours of live coverage daily, plus prime-time show packaging highlights. Tune in to Telemundo for Spanish-language coverage.
7. The Paris Olympics are featuring fewer events. Tokyo 2020 had the largest number of events at 339. The count for Paris 2024 is still high at 329. However, the following Olympic events have been discontinued: Gone are karate (not entertaining enough, according to Reuters) and baseball (the Olympics schedule conflicts with Major League Baseball). But there is also one entirely new sport this summer: breaking—or, as it’s more commonly known, breakdancing. No other dance sport has previously been included in the Olympics.
8. During the 2024 Opening Ceremony, athletes won’t parade through a stadium. Instead, they are expected to float on boats down the River Seine toward the Eiffel Tower.
9. LeBron James, who will compete in his fourth Olympics, will be the flag bearer for Team USA at the Opening Ceremony.
10. The surfing competition will occur in the French territory of Tahiti, on the Pacific Ocean’s legendary Teahupo’o waves. Located 15,000km (9,320 miles) from Paris, the surfing venue will break the record for the furthest medal competition staged outside a host Olympic city.
Official 2024 Games logo
11. The Paris Games will feature a new Olympic sport, breaking, an urban dance style with roots in hip-hop culture. The competition will feature two events—one for men and one for women—and will be held August 9-10 in Paris following its success at the Summer Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires in 2018.
12. The Eiffel Tower will be part of the Olympics. The iconic Eiffel Tower will be part of the Olympics in more ways than one. While the beach volleyball event will be held in a temporary outdoor arena under the tower, athletes will also carry a piece of the monument home as the Olympic medals will be adorned with original iron metal from the Eiffel Tower.
13. The River Seine will host the marathon swimming event and the swimming leg of the triathlon at the Olympics, a century after it held some events during the first Paris Games in 1900. From 1923 until recently, swimming had been banned in the Seine due to water-quality issues, and for decades, the river was too toxic for most fish. Paris organizers have repeatedly assured the competitors that the water will be clean enough to swim during the Olympics. However, doubts remain, and some events may be moved or canceled if the river toxicity is too high.
14. For the first time in history, the public can have a first-hand Olympic experience, being allowed to run the same course of the Olympic marathon on the same day as the Olympians. You can sign up at this website.
15. The 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics mascots are the Phryges, a tribe of colorful red characters based on the Phrygian cap. The Phrygian cap symbolizes freedom and has been part of French history for centuries, dating back to ancient times. During the French Revolution (1798-1799), the cap symbolized liberty and served as a metaphor for freedom throughout France’s history.
16. The Olympic motto is Citius – Altius – Fortius, which, from Latin, means Faster – Higher – Stronger.
*For the latest Olympics news, schedules, and results, go to: https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024
