The countdown is on with just two years until the Olympic Games return to Paris. And here’s a fun fact, it will be exactly 100 years since the Olympics were previously held in Paris!
The Paris Olympics will be held from the 26th of July till the 12th of August 2024 and will see some exciting changes, never seen before at an Olympics.
The Paris Olympics will feature 32 sports, covered in over 306 events, and will include a brand-new sport, Breaking. Breaking is making its debut as a sport and is a competitive form of breakdancing which involves athletics and footwork skills. We can’t wait to see this in action!
Paris will be breaking more than just dancing, it will be breaking records.
The 2024 Paris Olympics will break the record for the farthest Olympic medal event to be held outside of the host city with Tahiti hosting the surfing competition (15,700 kilometres from Paris). Tahiti— the largest island in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France, was chosen as the venue over four potential locations in mainland France (Biarritz, Lacanau, Les Landes and La Torche).
But back to Paris……this will be the third time Paris has hosted the summer Olympics with the other occasions in 1900 and then again in 1924.
The 2024 Games are expected to entertain more than 13 million spectators across 35 unique competition sites. In fact the 2024 Paris Olympic Games will be the biggest event ever organized in France – putting it at the center of the world’s cultural calendar.
While it will be the biggest, it will also be the most compact and connected. www.paris2024.org notes that “80% of competition venues, hosting 22 sports, will be located within a 10-km radius of the Olympic and Paralympic Village. The true epicentre of the project, the Village will be located a short 7 km north of the centre of Paris and less than 2 km from the Stade de France. 85% of athletes will be accommodated less than 30 minutes from their competition venues.
All venues are spread across two main zones, connected by the Seine river:
- A zone in the heart of Paris, with the capital’s emblematic sites highlighting the Games
- A Paris / Grand Paris axis, in line with the Greater Paris urban development project, for the Games to benefit the general public by meeting the needs of the various regions.
This unique design, which incorporates competition and celebration venues in the heart of a city with an exceptional heritage, will guarantee an unforgettable experience for spectators as well as the Olympic Family.”
And with a great tie in with our own Bastille Day Festival, the logo for the Paris 2024 Olympics is based on and incorporates together the gold medal, the Olympic flame and the ‘Marianne’, a very iconic French symbol.
Marianne, the icon of the French Republic and French Revolution, will be front and centre on all Olympic designs in Paris. This isn’t the first time Marianne has been featured heavily in design. Her most iconic appearance was in the painting ‘Liberty Leading the People’, a painting by Eugène Delacroix painted in 1830 commemorating the French Revolution in July that same year. In this painting she leads commoners with one hand on her gun, the other carrying the French flag. In the foreground lay the bodies of fallen farmers and workers, who sacrificed their lives for the freedom of the people.
In the modern day, the Marianne is not only the symbol of freedom and equality, but also of emancipation.
Want to know more about the Paris Olympics? Visit https://www.paris2024.org/en/
Interested in more of our sporting articles? Check out our recent exposé on the French Open here