8 Things You Need to Know About the Paris Olympics—Plus How to Watch

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Lots has modified within the final 100 years. Feathers, jazz, and radios are out. Mother denims, T-Swift, and TikTok are in.

(We don’t make up the foundations.)

Grime tracks have been changed by vibrant shades of bouncy mondo. Leather-based sneakers cower subsequent to featherlight carbon-plated spikes. Scouts sprinting alongside marathons, calling within the motion by phone to announcers projecting the data to spectators sitting within the stands, have been put out of enterprise by helicopters and motorcades livestreaming the race on TV.

However one factor hasn’t modified: the 2024 Olympic Video games might be held in Paris, France—the place they had been held for the final time precisely 100 years in the past. And as soon as once more, observe and subject would be the star of the present.

(Sorry, break dancing and skateboarding.)

Right here’s what it’s good to learn about observe and subject, or what the remainder of the world calls “athletics,” on the 2024 Paris Olympic Video games on August 1-11.

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The Stade de Yves-du-Manoir, the primary stadium of the 1924 Paris Olympic Video games which hosted amongst different issues observe and subject, has a brand new 1,000-seat grandstand and can host the sector hockey occasions on the 2024 Paris Olympic Video games. (Photograph: Archives CNOSF / Archives CNOSF / CNOSF by way of AFP)

1. It’s the largest sport

Of the ten,000 athletes from 206 nations competing in 329 occasions on the Paris Olympic Video games, 1,800 of them might be within the 48 occasions of observe and subject. That makes observe and subject by the numbers the largest of the 32 sports activities.

It’s a becoming designation for a historic sport that traces its roots again to about 200 B.C. in Historical Greece and the delivery of the Olympics. Then, males (sure, simply males) competed in sprints, the lengthy leap, discus, and javelin to have fun human potential and to honor the gods.

These occasions are all nonetheless contended at the moment (plus an entire lot extra that may make the Historical Greeks—and plenty of of our contemporaries, for that matter—scratch their heads, like the three,000-meter steeplechase and the 20K racewalk), giving particular import to this sporting self-discipline.

As well as: in contrast to say, soccer or basketball, which have the Soccer World Cup and the NBA Finals, the Olympics represents the top of the game for observe and subject. For all of the disciplines inside observe and subject, from the 100 meters, to hammer throw, to the decathlon, there isn’t a increased honor than successful Olympic gold.

Olympic gold medalist Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone indicators a miniature Eiffel Tower after setting a brand new world file within the girls’s 400 meter hurdles remaining on Day Ten of the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials at Hayward Discipline on June 30 in Eugene, Oregon. She’s going to signify Crew USA once more on the Paris Olympics. (Photograph: Christian Petersen/Getty Photos)

2. It’s “gender equal” (lastly)

It’s been a protracted, arduous street since Pierre de Coubertin, founding father of the fashionable Olympic Video games in 1896, famously mentioned that the purpose of the Olympics was “the solemn and periodic exaltation of male athleticism…with the applause of girls as reward.”

On the 1900 Olympics, additionally in Paris, 22 girls defied Coubertin’s dream and competed in a complete of 5 occasions: croquet, equestrian, golf, crusing, and tennis. They made up a minuscule 2.2 p.c of the 997-person subject. This 12 months, due to tireless work beginning with the Worldwide Olympic Committee, the Paris Olympics would be the first to (mainly) obtain gender parity.

Of the 329 medal occasions, 157 might be contested amongst males, 5 greater than the 152 for girls. (There are additionally 20 mixed-gender occasions, together with the mixed-gender 4×400-meter relay on the observe and the mixed-gender marathon race stroll relay.) However throughout the 32 sports activities, 28 are gender equal—together with, for the primary time, observe and subject.

The satan is within the particulars, and if we’re placing true parity paramount then there’s nonetheless some work to go. Even inside observe and subject, the lads nonetheless compete within the decathlon (10 occasions) whereas the ladies compete within the heptathlon (seven). After which there’s everybody on the workforce past the athletes themselves: in Tokyo three years in the past, 13 p.c of coaches had been girls—and that’s up from 11 p.c in Rio in 2016. 1 / 4 of Nationwide Olympic Committees give much less prize cash to girls gold medalists than males.

For the primary time ever in any Olympic sport, Olympic gold medalists in each girls’s and males’s observe and subject races will win $50,000, with relay groups splitting that pot 4 methods. (Photograph: Getty Photos, Noah Lyles after punching his ticket to Paris on the U.S. Olympic Trials for observe and subject.)

3. It’s the primary sport with Olympic prize cash

Talking of prize cash, observe and subject is breaking boundaries this Olympics by turning into the primary sport to provide out prize cash. Gold medalists in each girls’s and males’s races will win $50,000, with relay groups splitting that pot 4 methods. In complete, that’s $2.4 million that World Athletics might be coughing as much as foot the invoice, an indication of change for a way the Olympics have bloomed from an exhibit of amateurism to full-blown commercialization.

Notably, this prize cash is lower than World Athletics palms out on the World Athletics Championships, which awarded gold medalists $70,000 in Budapest final summer season. World Athletics intends to increase prize cash to silver and bronze medalists on the 2028 Olympic Video games in Los Angeles.

That prize cash from World Athletics stays separate from prize cash awarded by some nationwide federations—together with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, which can award $37,500, $22,500, and $15,000 to Crew USA gold, silver, and bronze medalists, respectively, in Paris.

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4. It’s the greenest Olympics ever

Paris vowed to make this Olympics the greenest ever, constructing as little new infrastructure as potential and utilizing the town’s iconic landmarks as venue backdrops as an alternative. Reasonably than construct dazzling new stadiums which rapidly fall into disuse and disrepair after the Video games—as we’ve seen at earlier Olympics—Paris opted to revamp present infrastructure, a few of it relationship again to the final Olympic Video games right here in 1924.

The Stade de Yves-du-Manoir, the primary stadium of the 1924 video games which hosted amongst different issues observe and subject, has a brand new 1,000-seat grandstand and can host the sector hockey occasions.

The pastel-colored high-rise residences of the Olympic Village, the place many athletes keep in the course of the Video games, add a splash of colour to Seine-Saint-Denis, the poorest space not solely in Paris, however the nation. Water pumped from deep beneath the earth cool the residences made out of a mixture of wooden and concrete (though many delegations have requested AC models nonetheless) and the avenues exterior are made out of a permeable pavement composed of crushed seashells that cool the streets by permitting water saved beneath the bottom to evaporate on sizzling days.

This initiative has additionally fast-tracked cleansing up the famously romantic and infamously grey metropolis. Paris has constructed 250 new miles of motorcycle lanes, continued to develop its Metro community, allegedly cleaned up the Seine, and planted 300,000 new timber.

The observe inside Stade de France has been resurfaced to purple for the Olympic Video games, an homage to the ashen colour observe of the 1924 Olympics throughout the town. (Photograph by Xu Zijian/Xinhua by way of Getty Photos)

5. It’s held on France’s greatest stage

Observe and subject might be held on France’s greatest stage, fairly actually. Constructed for the 1998 Soccer World Cup, Stade de France seats greater than 80,000, making it the most important stadium in France. It’s dwelling to the French nationwide soccer (soccer) and rugby groups in addition to the nation’s greatest live shows.

As you’ve most likely seen by now, the observe has been resurfaced to purple for the Video games. The shade is paying homage to lavender, a homage to each the creativity of the 2024 Olympics and to the ash-colored observe on the 1924 Olympic Video games throughout the town.

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6. Because of a brand new system, mainly everybody will get a second likelihood

Should you’ve watched observe and subject meets previously, you’ll have been confused why some athletes names’ seem with a giant “Q” or just a little “q” on the scoreboard after the preliminary and semi-final rounds.

If that’s you, don’t stress. Within the spirit of second probabilities, and properly, simplicity, the Paris Video games are disposing of this method (for probably the most half).

For the primary time ever, particular person observe occasions starting from the 200 meters to the 1500 meters (together with hurdles races) will embody a “repechage” spherical. Athletes within the preliminary spherical who don’t mechanically qualify for the semi-final can have a chance to race their means into the subsequent spherical by way of this extra warmth, the entomology of which comes from repêchage, or “second likelihood” in French.

Below this new format, occasions can have 4 rounds: preliminary, repechage, semi-final, and remaining. This ensures that each athlete competing within the 100 by way of the 1500 can have the chance to race twice. The variety of athletes who will advance out of the repechage to the semi-final varies relying on the occasion.

The repechage spherical replaces the previous system, wherein athletes superior by operating the quickest of their heats (Q), plus the subsequent finest getting in on time (q).

The 100 meters already has an extra spherical of preliminary heats, and the space occasions (3,000-meter steeplechase, 5,000, and 10,000) require satisfactory time to recuperate, so these occasions might be carried out with out the repechage spherical.

Below the brand new repechage spherical format, occasions can have 4 rounds: preliminary, repechage, semi-final, and remaining. This ensures that each athlete competing within the 100 by way of the 1500 can have the chance to race twice. (Photograph: Kevin Morris, Nikki Hiltz wins the U.S. Olympic Trials 1500-meter finals in Eugene, Oregon on June 30.)

7. The marathon follows within the footsteps of historical past

Increasing on the theme of gender equality on the Paris Olympics, the marathon route pays homage to a pivotal second in girls’s historical past in the course of the French Revolution: the Ladies’s March on Versailles. The roughly 160 rivals within the males’s and ladies’s races (in addition to the citizen’s race, Paris 2024 Marathon Pour Tous) will observe within the footsteps of roughly 7,000 Parisian ladies and men who marched from Paris to Versailles on October 5-6, 1789 to demand bread and arms. (It labored: King Louis XVI lastly agreed to signal the Common Declaration of the Rights of Man and Residents that day.)

Identical to these disgruntled Parisians 235 years in the past, runners will begin at Hôtel de Ville, the town corridor within the middle of Paris, and can make their means on foot to the Palace of Versailles about 12 miles to the west. Alongside the way in which, runners will move by way of 9 districts of the Île-de-France, in opposition to a backdrop of the Metropolis of Mild’s most iconic landmarks, parks, and forests, together with the Place de Concorde, Rue de Rivoli, Tuileries Backyard, and, in fact, the Louvre.

Along with being steeped in historical past and splendor, the course might be notably grueling for a street race: the center part packs some kickers that add as much as over 1,430 toes of climbing and descent, with a most grade of 13.5 p.c. Throw in some warmth and humidity and we’re in for 2 unpredictable, action-packed occasions.

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View from the Eiffel Tower to the Trocadero Stadium, the place the marathon, 20K race stroll, triathlon, street biking occasions will end on the Paris Olympics. (Photograph: Sina Schuldt/image alliance by way of Getty Photos)

8. Race strolling is again, and higher than ever?

You might be questioning why race strolling, wherein rivals mainly try to cheat as a lot as potential with out getting caught, is an Olympic self-discipline. We’re, too. Simply watching race walkers swing these hips alongside at 6-minute per mile paces appears injury-inducing. However hey, three-on-three basketball, badminton, and trampoline are within the Olympics, too, so who’re we to guage.

However judging is the truth is a essential part of sport. Race strolling guidelines stipulate that rivals should maintain one foot on the bottom always, to the purpose the place any lack of contact just isn’t seen with the bare eye. In different phrases, the foundations are mainly begging athletes to cheat and run with out getting away with it. As well as, the lead leg should stay straight till that leg passes underneath the physique. Utilizing simply the bare eye, that’s, no expertise by any means, judges monitor rivals to try to uphold these rules.

For the primary time because the self-discipline grew to become an Olympic occasion in 2000, race strolling will present gender-equal medal alternatives. There might be a males’s and ladies’s 20K race, in addition to a marathon-distance mixed-gender relay, which can substitute the lads’s 50K.

In a extremely distinctive format, the mixed-gender relay will see 25 groups of 1 man and one girl every. They’ll full a marathon-distance race damaged up into 4 10K chunks, with every competitor racing twice (man, girl, man, girl).

Antonella Palmisano of Crew Italy leads the sector within the Ladies’s 20K Race Stroll on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Video games at Sapporo Odori Park on August 06, 2021 in Sapporo, Japan. Along with a males’s and ladies’s 20K, there might be a mixed-gender relay on the Paris Olympics. (Photograph: Clive Brunskill/Getty Photos)

9. You may watch all of the motion from dwelling

Maybe the best enchancment from the 1924 Olympic Video games is that we will watch all of it with out even being there. NBC Common, the American multinational mass media and leisure conglomerate that owns the media rights to the Olympics, is planning to air greater than 7,000 hours of complete protection of the Paris Olympic Video games. Observe and subject protection might be broadcast on the NBC, USA, and E! TV networks and streamed on Peacock, NBCOlympics.com, NBC.com, NBC app, NBC Olympics app, and NBC Sports activities app.

The motion kicks off with the lads’s and ladies’s 20K race stroll on August 1, and concludes with the ladies’s marathon on August 11. In between, take pleasure in a nine-day action-packed feast on the observe at Stade de France. Discover the complete observe and subject schedule of occasions right here and the complete observe and subject viewing schedule right here.

Morning viewing classes on August 2-9 will start at 4 A.M. ET, and medal occasions might be proven on NBC’s tape-delayed prime time broadcast. Don’t fear, you possibly can watch them dwell, too! Peacock, the streaming service of the Olympics, will stream each sport and occasion.

These prepared to sacrifice some sleep can catch the lads’s marathon protection dwell starting at 2 A.M. on August 10 on USA Community, Peacock, and the NBC Sports activities app, whereas the ladies’s marathon might be proven dwell starting at 2 A.M. on August 11.