Whether you’re a casual sports fan, a rabid must-watch-it-all viewer, or simply curious about what all the chatter is about, the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics is an event you’ll definitely want to mark on your calendar.
This historic international competition brings together the best of the best athletes from around the world for a thrilling few weeks of competitions, rivalries, and can’t-miss cultural moments. An anticipated 10,500 athletes across 32 sports will soon flock to France for the 33rd edition of the Summer Games, and trust us: You don’t want to miss any of the action.
With that in mind, we compiled the all-inclusive guide below to answer all your important Olympics questions. From intel on when and exactly where the Games take place to key stats on the different sporting events and how to tune in from home—plus a whole bunch more—here’s what you need to know. Let the countdown to Games begin!
So, when are the Olympics?
The Paris 2024 Summer Olympics will officially run from Friday, July 26, to Sunday, August 11, with the opening and closing ceremonies happening on those dates. A few sporting events, including handball, soccer, and rugby, will kick off earlier, on July 24, but the bulk of the competition will take place in between the opening and closing ceremonies.
And where exactly will the Games be held?
You’d expect all the events for the Paris Olympics to take place in, well, Paris. But here’s the twist: Competitions will actually be held throughout France, plus one will actually be in Tahiti (!), an island that’s part of French Polynesia. There are 35 different sporting venues, including 13 in the Paris area, 12 in the Île-de-France (a broader region that surrounds the capital city), and nine scattered across other parts of the country (and Tahiti).
These include a soccer stadium in Nice (a city on the southern coast of France), a sailing venue in Marseille (also on the country’s southern coast), and a basketball and handball arena in Villeneuve-d’Ascq in northern France. Then of course, there’s Tahiti, which will host five days of surfing competition off the shores of the coastal city of Teahupo’o.
Where will the Olympic stadium be?
The Olympic Stadium is the Stade de France, the country’s largest stadium, located in Saint-Denis, a suburb north of Paris. Constructed in the ’90s to bolster France’s chances of hosting the 1998 FIFA World Cup, the Stade de France will host the closing ceremonies, along with various sport events, including rugby matches and lots of track and field competitions.
How many sports and events will be at the Paris Games?
There will be 329 total events at the Games across 32 different sports. This includes breaking (a.k.a. break dancing, a brand-new Olympics sport this year!), plus a bunch of others. You can expect all the classics—like swimming, tennis, gymnastics, and athletics (i.e. track and field)—as well as more niche ones, like archery, skateboarding, and trampoline, to name a few.
How many countries are competing in the 2024 Games?
Athletes from more than 200 countries will participate in the Games, along with members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC)’s Refugee Olympic Team. The Refugee Olympic Team was first created for the 2016 Rio Summer Games to both offer a symbol of hope for and shine a light on the global refugee crisis; it formed again for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Games. The 2024 team is still in the works, but the IOC website currently lists several dozen athletes as members. They come from countries such as Syria, Iran, Eritrea, and others, and will compete in a number of different sports, like cycling, swimming, taekwondo, track and field, and more.
What will the opening ceremony be like?
Short answer: pretty cool. For the first time in Olympic Summer Games history, the opening ceremonies won’t be held in a stadium—instead, they’ll likely happen along the Seine, the iconic river that charts through the heart of Paris. (The caveat: There’s a chance the festivities could be moved to the Stade de France due to security threats, French president Emmanuel Macron announced in April, according to the Associated Press.)
If the Seine plans hold, there will be boats floating in the river for each national delegation, and the athletes will parade along a six-kilometer route that ends at the Trocadéro, an area facing the Eiffel Tower. That’s where the ceremonies will wrap up with several final shows and Olympic protocols.
What’s especially neat is that the opening ceremonies will be free to some 220,000 spectators, who will be granted access to watch it from the upper banks via invitation, the AP reported in March. (Originally, Olympic organizers planned for the event to be open to the general public, with no tickets required for most spots, but the French government scaled back those plans in March over concerns about logistics and security, per the AP.) Access to certain up-close areas along the river, though, will require paid tickets, which can get pretty pricey.
This all sounds so great that I kinda want to see it in person. Can I still buy tickets?
Eager to catch all the action IRL? You can buy tickets to the Games through the official ticketing website. The price varies widely based on which events you’re eyeing—for example, as of press time, tickets to certain soccer matches were as cheap as 24 euros while prime seats for the opening ceremonies cost a whopping 2,700 euros a pop.
Keep in mind: Tickets for the Games are only sold through the official ticketing website, meaning no other platforms are authorized to sell them. So, if you buy them from another source, there’s a chance it could backfire—you may not actually receive the tickets or they may not actually be legit. That would obviously be a a big bummer, which is why it’s probably wisest to just go through the official channels.
A trip to France isn’t in the cards right now. I can watch the Olympics at home, right?
Absolutely. NBC is the official US network, so it’ll be hosting all US coverage of the 2024 Games—-from live broadcasts of competitions throughout the day to nightly recaps of highlights.
You can watch via your local NBC channel, USA Network, GOLF Channel, CNBC, E!, Telemundo, and Universo, or stream coverage through a subscription to Peacock Premium, which will cost you $5.99 a month or $59.99 a year (plus tax). Another option: Access live streaming coverage, highlights, and commentary via various NBC platforms, including NBCOlympics.com, NBC.com, the NBC Olympics app, the NBC Sports app, and the NBC app. Here’s a detailed schedule of when all the events are happening.
Will the time difference in Paris mess with watching the Games?
Potentially, depending on your schedule. Paris time is six hours ahead of Eastern Time here in the US, and nine hours ahead of Pacific Time. That means for us folks tuning in from North America, many of the live events will be held in the wee hours of the morning and during the earlier part of the day. So consider setting your alarm (and maybe brew some extra coffee) to catch any must-watch live events as they unfold in real time!
So…once the Paris Games are in the books, what comes next?
We still have plenty of competition to look forward to in France, but if you’re already wondering what happens after 2024, we’ve got you covered there too. Let us pass on the exciting news: The next iteration of the Summer Olympics will be held in the US—Los Angeles to be exact—in July 2028! So if you’ve always wanted to watch the Olympics live, well, now might be a great time to start planning and saving for a California trip.
SELF is your one-click source for all things Summer Olympics. Read our latest coverage of the Paris Games here.
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