The Latest Updates for the 2024 Paris Olympics
The Paris Olympics will be held from July 26th to August 11th. With the dates edging closer, interest is starting to grow, and chatter is getting louder about who the potential favourites are in each event. Some of that chatter is always patriotic bragging but other voices are happily discussing the strengths and weaknesses of each national team in their sports.
When people start discussing the Summer Olympics, there are always some sports that attract the most attention. Swimming, boxing, football, and athletics are classic sports with long histories and longer discussions about who’s going to win this year. However, now that new sports can be added to each Olympic Games, these attract even more attention.
New sports tend to be some of the most interesting to argue about and even bet on because there isn’t the weight of expectation behind them. The classic sports have their traditional winners, but with the new sports, it’s all just speculation and studying the available stats of the individual athletes and their current careers.
It surprises some people to learn that it is possible to bet on the Olympics. In reality, betting on the Olympics has been increasing in popularity over the last 25 years. There are many legal betting sites in Australia that offer odds on the Olympics.
In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the latest updates for the 2024 Paris Olympics. This includes looking at the new venues and exciting tech involved, as well as the news we’ve heard so far about some of the competitors.
Venues
The construction of the Olympic Village and sports venues is currently in progress in Paris. A high-tech modelling system called ‘digital twinning’ has been used to virtually construct all of the required buildings, tourist spaces, and transit lanes before anything has been built in the real world. This will hopefully make the actual construction process much smoother and faster.
Most of the events will be held in and around Paris. There are a few exceptions, however. The northern city of Lille will host the handball events and the southern city Marseille will host the sailing events. Football matches will be held across six cities¾Lyon, Marseille, Nantes, Nice, Bordeaux, and Saint-Étienne.
Most of the venues in Paris are already established and some are being renovated to hold a higher capacity and to meet the Olympic standards. The rest will be temporary structures built in the vicinity of Parisian landmarks. For example, the beach volleyball court is being built on the Champs de Mars at the foot of the Eiffel Tower and the gardens of the Palace of Versailles will host a temporary equestrian and pentathlon venue.
New Events
The new sports that have been added for 2024 are breaking, sport climbing, skateboarding, and surfing. Breaking is the new official name for breakdancing. Breaking will have two events, a single men’s and a single women’s solo dance battle series. Judges will score them based on their use of power moves and their ability to respond to changes in the beats laid down by the DJ.
Sport climbing was introduced at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and competitors were scored on their performance in all three disciplines¾speed, boulder, and lead. At Paris, this will be broken up into two separate events, one combining boulder and lead, the other just speed. Skateboarding was also introduced at the Tokyo Olympic Games. During the Paris Olympics, there will be two skateboarding events¾Park and Street. The Park event will feature jumps and tricks on ramps and halfpipes, with each skater performing a 45-second routine. The Street event will also require a 45-second routine but on an urban course that includes handrails and stairs.
Surfing was another sport introduced for the Tokyo Olympic Games. The event will be the same in Paris. The exciting development is that the surfing events will be held at the legendary surfing destination of Teahupo’o in Tahiti. There will be men’s and women’s shortboard events.
Medal Forecasting
People love trying to predict and forecast what the outcomes of each of the Olympic events will be and which country will take home the most medals. Russia remains banned from team competitions, but some solo Russian athletes will be competing. This removes them from any real competition for the most medals.
Forecasts done by Nielsen’s Gracenote Sports are predicting that the United States and China will be vying for the top of the medal table. The other countries predicted to win multiple gold medals are Great Britain, Japan, France, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, and South Korea. In previous years, the forecasts have been able to name the top medal-winning countries but not in the correct order.
While it’s still too early to tell, there are some predictions being made by experts. Canada’s Summer McIntosh seems poised to win medals in the swimming freestyle, butterfly, and individual medley events. Keely Hodgkinson is likely to claim a medal for Great Britain in the 800 m. In breaking, Japan’s Shigekix and USA’s Logistx are among the names getting a lot of buzz.
Disappointing News
One of the more intriguing rumours swirling around the Paris Olympics was that legendary electronic duo Daft Punk would be making an appearance. When the pair split up in 2021 with a dramatic goodbye video, the music world was shaken. The rumours that the Olympics would be the debut of a reunited act quickly caught fire after the artistic director of the Paris Olympics suggested that they might appear. Unfortunately, the pair were quick to inform fans that this would not be happening. Currently, the music acts that will be performing during the opening and closing ceremonies have not been announced.
Final Thoughts
It’s still a bit too early to say who will win any of the events during the Paris 2024 Olympics. What we can say for certain is that the city will be a magical and exciting host for these games.