Paris 2024: The Olympic Games of Paris, 100 years later

From July 26th to August 11th, 2024, the gods of the stadium will compete on the biggest and most beautiful sports field in the world: Paris! The best athletes on the planet and over 500,000 foreign visitors will come to attend the 33rd Summer Olympiad. Already, Paris 2024 promises to be the Games of youth, celebration, and spectacle! Get ready to experience the Olympic Games in Paris. 

As in 1900 and 1924, Paris is gearing up to host the Summer Olympic Games and thus attract the attention of the entire world. Paris will showcase its best to captivate over three billion viewers and millions of visitors.With just 500 days to go, as the ticket sales have just opened, Parisians eagerly anticipate this event, heralded as a spectacular celebration! So, if you haven't yet decided between the couch and the stadium, we offer you a glimpse into the intertwined history of the Olympics and Paris. Whether you're a sports fan or a lover of Paris, this article will surely convince you to plan your stay in the most beautiful city in the world at the end of July 2024.

Did you know that the history of the modern Olympic Games began in Paris? In 1894, the first Olympic Congress was held at the Sorbonne, the University of Paris. It was decided there, under the leadership of Pierre de Coubertin, to create the International Olympic Committee and to reinstate the ancient Olympic Games. The first modern Olympic Games took place in Athens in 1896, followed by the second in Paris in 1900, and then every four years in different cities.

In 1900, when Paris hosted its first Olympic GamesThe event was part of the Universal Exposition held in the same year. This Universal Exposition, which saw the creation of the Grand Palais, the Petit Palais, and the Pont Alexandre III, was a huge popular success. The first line of the Paris Métro, connecting the Colline de Chaillot to Vincennes, was primarily built to transport spectators to the competition venues, which were organized in the Bois de Vincennes. The Gare d'Orsay, now the Musée d'Orsay since 1986, was also created in the year 1900.

Since 1900, the Olympics have come a long way, with changes in the sports presented, the number of disciplines, and the nations participating. In 1900, France notably outperformed the United States in the medal table. This was partly due to France having 745 athletes compared to 75 for the United States, with only 24 countries represented. By 1924, there were already 44 different delegations. We expect over 200 in 2024!

If Paris retains only a few infrastructures from the 1924 Olympic Games – the Olympic Stadium (of the Racing Club de France in Colombes) and the aquatic stadium (the Tourelles swimming pool in the 20th arrondissement) – the Olympic movement has kept a fundamental idea: the Olympic Village! The village, also located in Colombes, was made up of wooden barracks, and numerous services were offered to the athletes: meals, hairdresser, laundry, post office, newspapers, and more.

Paris 2024 will be the Games of an entire city! Most of the competitions will take place in the heart of the city, in magnificent and historic locations, and very few venues will be constructed for the occasion. Paris will showcase itself as it is, and as we love it, authentic, monumental, and luminous.

The Opening Ceremony will be unique and splendid! Organized on the Seine, it will be a landmark event in the history of the Olympics. Indeed, the 200 expected national delegations will parade on the Seine aboard barges, while the 600,000 spectators will be seated in stands built for the occasion along the river.

From the Austerlitz Bridge to the Iéna Bridge, from the Jardin des Plantes to the Eiffel Tower, the world will marvel at the illuminated Parisian monuments and the most beautiful bridges of Paris : the Île Saint-Louis, the Île de la Cité and Notre-Dame, the Palais de la Cité, the City Hall, the Palais Royal, the Louvre, the Institut de France, the Pont des Arts, the Musée d'Orsay, the Place de la Concorde, the Palais Bourbon, the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, Les Invalides, and of course, the Iron Lady, the iconic symbol of a whole country, the Eiffel Tower.

The marathon also promises to be a fantastic moment of this Olympiad. The route, a loop of 42.195 km linking Paris to Versailles, will pay homage to a remarkable event in French history: the Women's March on Versailles on October 5, 1789. As famine threatened the capital, thousands of women marched on Versailles to bring the king and his family back to Paris. Louis XVI would never leave Paris again and would sign the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

This unprecedented move for an Olympic marathon will be open to the general public. Thus, nearly 20,000 runners will take the route of the Paris Olympic marathon! If you're a marathon runner, this is an incredible opportunity to experience Paris in a different way.

In addition to the marathon, other events will be accessible without a ticket. The walking and cycling events will also provide great excitement for spectators who haven't obtained tickets for the stadium. It will be possible to watch these events from the streets of Paris, on the Esplanade des Invalides, the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville, or along the Seine riverbanks.

The choice has been made to organize a maximum of events in the center of Paris. Thus, the Grand Palais will host the fencing and taekwondo events. Place de la Concorde will be the playground for 3x3 basketball, skateboarding, BMX freestyle, and breaking. The Esplanade des Invalides will see archers compete to determine the new Olympic champions in archery. A beach volleyball stadium will be built on the Champ de Mars, between the Eiffel Tower and the Military School. As for the equestrian events, as an obvious choice, they will take place in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles.

Spectacular, unprecedented, magnificent, festive, grandiose, breathtakingly beautiful... Paris 2024 hasn't even started yet, and we are already convinced that the world won't have enough superlatives to describe these Olympics of a new kind.