Paris Olympics 2024: Opening ceremony, sports, athletes, medals – All you need to know about event

A hundred years after it last hosted the Summer Olympic Games, Paris is all set to welcome the best athletes in the world as it hosts the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The 2024 Olympics gets underway in the French Capital from July 26 with the closing ceremony scheduled for August 11.

Nearly 10,500 athletes from 206 nations will participate in 329 events across 32 sports. The United States of America boast the biggest contingent with 592 athletes competing in Paris followed by hosts France with 573 athletes. Belize, Lichtenstine, Nauru and Somalia have the smallest contingent with only one athlete each.

India will be represented by 110 athletes across 16 sports. Two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu and five-time Olympian Achanta Sharath Kamal will be India’s flag bearers at the opening ceremony.

ALSO READ: Olympics 2024: 117-member contingent to represent India in Paris, confirms IOA

Here’s all you need to know about the 2024 Olympic Games:

Sports

Paris will feature 28 core Olympic sports along with four optional sports in skateboarding, sport climbing, surfing and breaking [break dancing]. While skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing made their debut at Tokyo 2020, breaking will make its debut in Paris.

How does breaking work?

32 breakers – 16 b-boys and 16 b-girls – will compete in solo battles against each other with judges awarding points. The breaker with the most points wins the battle.

Each breaker will have to perform to a track they have not heard before. Judges score the breakers based on five categories – musicality, vocabulary, originality, technique and execution. Each category makes up 20 percent of the score.

Battles are best-of-three rounds, also known as throwdowns. Each breaker has 60 seconds to complete a routine in a throwdown.

Athletes can be penalised for misbehaviour.

In Paris, the breakers in each gender will be initially divided into four groups of four in the round robin. The top two breakers from each group will qualify for the quarter-finals followed by the semi-finals and finals.

Also read: Breakdancing, a sport that marries physics and creativity, debuts in Paris

Recap of Tokyo 2020

USA finished as the top nation for the third Olympic Games in a row at Tokyo after winning 113 medals including 39 gold, 41 silver and 33 bronze medals.

China finished second with 89 medals with hosts Japan coming in third with 58 medals. India finished 48th after winning seven medals.

Of the seven Indian medallists from Tokyo, five will be in action in Paris as well. Leading the charge will be javelin gold medallist Neeraj Chopra as he looks to defend his title.

Also in action will be two-time medallist PV Sindhu, Mirabai Chanu, Lovlina Borgohain and the Indian men’s hockey team. Wrestlers Ravi Dahiya and Bajrang Punia will be absent in Paris after failing to qualify for the Games.

Opening Ceremony

For the first time in the history of the Summer Olympics, the opening ceremony will be held outside a stadium. The Paris Olympics opening ceremony will take place across a six-kilometre stretch of the Siene river which runs through the heart of the city.

Close to 100 hundred boats will deployed for the parade of the athletes as they float down the river.

French theatre director Thomas Jolly, who is the artistic director of the opening ceremony, has kept the entertainment acts a secret. Around 3,000 artists will be a part of the opening ceremony.

However, a potential workers strike threatens to disrupt the opening ceremony. The SFA-CGT union which represents roughly a tenth of the dancers have called for a strike over “outrageous disparities” over pay.

Additionally, many public sector unions have gone on or called for strikes demanding bonus payments for overtime work during the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The Games will be held in 35 venues with a majority of them in and around Paris. Some football matches will be held in the cities of Marseille, Bordeaux, Lyon, Nantes, Nice and Saint-Etienne. Marseille will also host sailing while Lille will host the basketball preliminary matches and handball finals.

French Polynesia, which is more than 15,000km away from France in the Pacific Ocean, will host all surfing events.

Medals at Paris

The gold, silver and bronze medals for the Olympic and Paralympic Games have been designed by French luxury jewelery brand Chaumet.

Each medal contains a piece of France’s iconic Eiffel Tower in it. The centre of each medal will have the iron piece from the Eiffel Tower in a hexagonal shape with the logo of the Games imprinted on it.

From the iron hexagon centre, lines radiate outwards to give it a sparkling effect. The back of each medal features the Greek goddess of victory Nike, flanked by the Panathenaic Stadium on the right and the Eiffel Tower on the left.

Mascot and Motto

The mascot for the 2024 Paris Olympics is Olympic Phryge based on France’s iconic Phrygian cap. According to the organisers, the name and design were chosen as symbols of freedom and to represent allegorical figures of the French republic.

After the Tokyo Olympics was hampered by the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2024 Paris Olympics will see the return of an open Olympic Games with fans in the hundreds of thousands descending on France.

Accordingly, the organisers came up with the motto of “Games Wide Open” for the Olympics and the Paralympics.

Athletes to watch out for

An Se-young (Women’s Badminton)

Ariarne Titmus (Women’s Swimming)

Eulid Kipchoge (Men’s Marathon)

Leon Marchand (Men’s Swimming)

Neeraj Chopra (Men’s Javelin Throw)

Noah Lyles (Men’s 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay)

Sha’Carri Richardson (Women’s 100m and 4x100m relay)

Simone Biles (Women’s Gymnastics)

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (Women’s 400m hurdles)

Yui Susaki (Women’s 50kg wrestling)

Where can you watch the 2024 Paris Olympics in India?

Fans in India can watch the Paris Olympics on Sports18 and Jio Cinema.

Click here to follow Scroll’s coverage of the Paris Olympics.

ALSO READ

In the build up to the mega event in Paris, Scroll looks at the eight different Olympic disciplines where Indians have returned with a medal.

Athletics: Neeraj Chopra India’s best bet, but don’t forget Avinash Sable in Paris

Badminton: Satwik-Chirag India’s favourites for podium; Chinese hurdle for PV Sindhu

Boxing: Nikhat, Lovlina shoulder hopes but pressure on male boxers mounts

Hockey: Harmanpreet & Co have tough task in Paris, but podium finish not impossible

Shooting: Manu Bhaker and Co hope to bury Tokyo ghosts in Paris

Tennis: Rohan Bopanna and Sriram Balaji lead charge; Sumit Nagal ready to run on clay

Weightlifting: Resilient Mirabai Chanu expected to shine after injury-plagued year

Wrestling: Indian grapplers aim to kickstart new era in Paris