The 2024 Paris Olympic Games are just days away from their opening ceremonies.  To kick off the worldwide sporting event of today's greatest athletes, here are a few fun facts you should know about this years’ games.

The Olympic Games Paris 2024 take place exactly 100 years since Paris hosted the Olympics back in 1924.  The 1924 games included only 126 events across 17 sports and 23 disciplines, with over 3,000 athletes from 44 countries competing.  Today, 10,500 athletes representing teams from 206 countries will compete in 329 events across 32 sports.  

The Olympic Torch began its path to the games on April 16, 2024 in Olympia, Greece, where the ancient Olympics were once held. The torch then made its way to Athens where it was taken across the Mediterranean Sea to France’s shore in Marseille.  Beginning May 8, the Olympic flame began a journey traveling across the country, paying tribute to “the memory of the people who marked France’s history, honor the country’s natural heritage, showcase France’s ancestral creativity and know-how and demonstrate the vitality of local sports
and athletics.”

The Paris 2024 Opening Ceremony will not be held in a stadium for the first time ever. Instead the historic event will take place on the Seine, the river that crosses the center of Paris.  Rather than athletes marching along a track as typically seen in years past, guests and those watching from home will see a colorful river parade through the French capital city.  The teams will begin at the Austerlitz Bridge and then will continue west along the Seine, passing under historic bridges and by iconic landmarks, such as the Notre-Dame, the Louvre, as well as some Games venues, including the Esplanade des Invalides and the Grand Palais.

The 2024 Olympics will be the first in history to have an equal number of men and women competing, 5, 250 men and 5, 250 women, participating in the same number of sports and events.  The sport with the most medals being awarded at Paris 2024 will be aquatics with 49 events across the disciplines of swimming, marathon swimming, diving, water polo, and artistic swimming. Athletics follows closely with 48.

There will be one new sport for the Paris 2024 edition of the Olympics: Breaking. Competition in the dance sport will comprise two events – one for men and one for women – where 16 B-Boys and 16 B-Girls will go face to face in solo battles.  In canoe, there will be a new event introduced at Paris 2024: Extreme slalom. Four athletes tip off a ramp at the same time and whoever gets to the bottom of the course first is the winner.

There will be a total of 35 Olympic venues at Paris 2024, with fourteen sites hosting 24 Olympic sports located within 10km of the Olympic Village.  Some Olympic events will happen in iconic places of Paris including beach volleyball held at the Champ de Mars (under the Eiffel Tower), urban sports held at La Concorde, fencing and taekwondo at the Grand Palais, and the start of the Marathon at the Hotel de Ville.

For the first time ever, the 2024 Games will also take place in the French territory of Tahiti, where the surfing competition will be held on the Pacific island’s legendary Teahupoo wave, located about 15,000 km from Paris.  The surfing venue will break the record for the furthest medal competition staged outside a host Olympic city.

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.

For the very first time in the history of the Summer Olympic Games, the Opening Ceremony will not be held in a stadium. Instead, Paris will launch the festivities with a boat parade down the Seine on July 26th. Floating through the heart of Paris, the athletes, coaches, leaders and staff will make their way from the Austerlitz Bridge, near the Jardin des Plantes, and finish at the Iéna Bridge in front of the Eiffel Tower at Trocadéro. 

The official mascot chosen for the Paris Olympics is, surprisingly, a hat.  Representing freedom and highlighting important historical figures of the French Republic, the official mascot is the Olympic Phryge, pronounced “freege,” a traditional hat that was once worn by French revolutionaries. 

Not only will medalling athletes be taking home a piece of the Olympics with them, but also a piece of Paris.  This year’s Olympic medals include the most iconic part of Paris- iron from the original Eiffel Tower infused within each medal. The pieces of iron were cut from parts of the tower that were saved from renovations over the years.

Information taken from https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024.