Jeff Farrell won two gold medals at the 1960 Rome Olympics. He is a member of the International Swimming Hall of Fame and the Santa Barbara Athletic Round Table Hall of Fame.
The 2024 Paris Olympics, the Summer Games, will officially start on July 26 and end on August 11. These will be the third Olympic Games held by Paris, after those of 1900 (the first Games that included women competitors) and 1924.
They will be much different from the classic 1960 Rome Olympics, where I competed as a member of the American swimming team. In Rome there were 83 countries with 5,347 athletes; the Paris Games will have 206 countries represented by about 10,500 athletes.
Some athletes come from areas with National Olympic Committees recognized by the International Olympic Committee, but may not have universally accepted “country” status, like Palestine, Kosovo and Puerto Rico, among others.
Because Russia invaded Ukraine, the Court of Arbitration for Sport banned Russia and its supporting neighbor, Belarus, from the Olympics. Still, almost sixty Russians and Belarusians have been approved to participate as “Individual Neutral Athletes”, i.e. not representing their countries and officially designated as AINs (for the French “Athlete Individuel Neutre“).
Their uniforms/sweatsuits must not show their country’s name and must be unicolor or white. Any medals they win will not be officially counted.
Russia appealed the banishment at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but it was upheld, not on the grounds of the Court taking a stance on the war, but because the Russian Olympic Committee has illegally annexed Ukrainian Olympic committees in areas they have occupied.
There are even AIN uniforms and an AIN flag: white with the AIN emblem. Not all of the approved AINs are expected to participate in the Paris Games.
The 1960 Rome Games had 150 events in 17 different sports and Paris will have twice as many: 329 events in 32 different sports.
The new Olympic sports of breaking (also known as breakdancing) and kayak cross, similar to canoe slalom, will be held and this will be only the second Olympics for surfing, skateboarding and sport climbing.
Baseball and softball have been dropped by the Paris organizers because the two sports are played mainly in the United States. Also, Major League Baseball would not alter its calendar to accommodate the Olympics. (Baseball might be a demonstration sport in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.)
Karate is excluded because it is believed to lack entertainment value.
Some of the 2024 events will take place outside of Paris, e.g. in Lyon, Nice, Bordeaux and other French towns. Sailing events will be in the Mediterranean Sea near Marseille.
Surfing, introduced as an Olympic sport by Tokyo in 2020, will take place about 10,000 miles away, near a small Tahitian village in French Polynesia. This will also be the second Olympics for skateboarding and sport climbing.
Olympic villages (where athletes, their support staff and officials stay during the Games) for athletes are in Paris, Marseille, Lille, Chateauroux and Tahiti.
Paris event ticket prices vary widely, depending on the sport and whether it is an early competition, semifinal or final. You can see many sporting events for under $50, but tickets to some can cost several hundred dollars or more.
Opening ceremony seats can cost as much as $3,800, which includes admission to special post-ceremony events. All original tickets have already been sold and current prices are for resales, so prices could change.
On Friday, July 26, the Olympics opening ceremonies will start with the traditional parade of athletes, with boats carrying the athletes for the first time in Olympic history.
The 6-kilometer parade on the River Seine starts under the Austerlitz Bridge beside the Jardin des Plantes and ends at the Place du Trocadero, where the formal swearing-in ceremony will take place.
Situated on the far side of the Seine across from the Eiffel Tower, the Trocadéro is home to beautiful gardens and ornamental ponds and fountains as well as the cultural richness of the Palais de Chaillot, the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine and the Musée de la Marine.
This marks a unique deviation from previous opening ceremonies, which have traditionally taken place in stadiums.
The Place du Trocadéro will be a central hub for Olympic activity, hosting the triathlon, paratriathlon, road cycling, marathon racewalk, and swimming at the new Aquatics Center.
The gardens of the Trocadero closed on July 1, 2024, but the Paris Aquarium remains open.
There will be 17 swimming events in Paris, including, for the first time, a relay event that has two men and two women on each team.
The most complete U.S. television coverage of the Paris Olympics will be by NBC’s Peacock streaming service for all events, starting with the opening ceremonies on July 26 at 10:30 A.M., PST.
Several sports will start early: soccer and rugby sevens will begin on July 24 and archery and handball on July 25.