Paris is ready for the Olympics with a rich history across many traditional sports.
But many sports have been introduced since the marathon at the first modern Games in Athens in 1896.
Tokyo 2020, which eventually took place in 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic, welcomed three new sports to the Olympic family.
Paris will provide a first outing for breaking, while other sports will expand the number of events with on show.
Here’s a look at breaking and what’s new for Paris 2024:
Breaking has its moment
Breaking, referred to as breakdancing by many, makes its Olympic debut in Paris. A form of dance with its origin in the Bronx in the 1970s, breaking has exploded in recent years with worldwide events and a highly-detailed judging system.
After a successful introduction in the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, Paris will roll out the sport at the senior level.
There will be 16 men and 16 women (referred to as “B-Boys” and “B-Girls”) and fans can expect a round-robin before the quarter-finals, semi-finals and medal battles. Each contest involves a best-of-three one-on-one contest and each athlete is given around one minute to perform.
There is no pause between each dance and when both are complete, a panel of nine judges score the B-boys and B-girls on six criteria: creativity, personality, technique, variety, performativity and musicality. There is extra emphasis on performativity and creativity (60%), while the other categories combine for 40%.
The B-Girls and B-Boys’ performances are instinctive given they do not know the music ahead of time, making their spontaneous moves even more impressive.
Team USA’s Victor Montalvo is the favourite in the men’s event to win gold, while compatriot Sunny Choi (B-Girl Sunny) will battle it out with Logan Edra (B-Girl Logistx) in the women’s competition alongside Lithuania’s Dominika Banevic (B-Girl Nicka), who is the 2023 world champion and just 17 years of age.
Surfing makes second Olympics appearance – but not in Paris
Surfing will be at the 2024 Olympics but not in Paris, instead, the sport travels 9,000 miles away to Teahupo’o, Tahiti in French Polynesia. The island boasts a beautiful environment to surf with daunting waves on offer for the likes of Brazil’s Italo Ferreira, the defending men’s champion from Tokyo, and reigning women’s champion Carissa Moore from Team USA.
The competition runs from 27 July to 4 August and medal events take place on 30 July.
Skateboarding is back
It’s a second appearance for skateboarding, too, with Japan dominating on debut in Tokyo, delivering three of four possible gold medals including Sakura Yosozumi, Yuto Horigome and Momiji Nishiya. There are four events once more — men’s and women’s street and men’s and women’s park — with the action going down in Place de La Concorde.
The street finals are on 27-28 July and the park finals take place 6-7 August.
Climbing is back – but with a twist
Climbing debuted in Tokyo, but Paris will see the total number of athletes spike from 40 to 68 as the competition is divided into two events. From one combined event, Paris will deliver bouldering and a lead combined event in addition to the speed event.
The speed event sees athletes race alongside one another up a 15m wall for time.
The combined event leans on technique rather than just speed, with points handed out for certain moves.
Bouldering will see athletes tackle multiple walls and attempt to reach the finish point of as many of them as possible within a time limit. Athletes can lose points for unsuccessful attempts, but there is no limit to the amount of attempts per wall within the time limit.
In lead, the goal is to reach the highest point possible on the wall within a six-minute window. The higher the athlete goes, the more points they are awarded. But they are only permitted one attempt.
The maximum score for both bouldering and lead is 100, meaning 200 points is the maximum score.
The speed finals will take place 7-8 August and the bouldering and lead combined finals are on 9-10 August.
3×3 basketball returns
Team USA’s basketball team are one of the most exciting collections of athletes in Paris with their NBA stars, but 3×3 basketball is back after a debut in Tokyo where Latvia triumphed in the men’s competition and USA won gold in the women’s event. The finals this year will be on 5 August at Place de La Concorde.
Kayak cross ready to provide thrilling racing in Paris debut
Kayak cross is part of the canoe slalom and makes its debut here.
There are four athletes racing against each other from a ramp above the water. The course will have six downstream gates and two upstream gates in this all-action event.
This is the first time canoe slalom has an Olympic event where athletes race against each other and not the clock in a time trial scenario.
Team GB’s Joe Clarke and Kimberley Woods are the reigning world champions in kayak cross.
Other changes at the 2024 Olympics
Men will make their debut in artistic swimming, with a team acrobatic routine round debuting in Paris.
There’s a new women’s weight class in boxing, too, while a men’s class has been cut, meaning just seven men’s weight categories (51 kg, 57 kg, 63.5kg, 71 kg, 80 kg, 92 kg, +92 kg), and now six for the women (50 kg, 54 kg, 57 kg, 60 kg, 66 kg, 75 kg).
There are kite events in sailing added to the schedule this year. There will be two events with mixed boats and four boats for each gender, producing a total of 10 events.
The mixed skeet team event has been introduced for shooting, meaning there will be no mixed team trap event.
The marathon race walk mixed relay is an addition to athletics, replacing the men’s 50km race walk.
And look out for the repechage round in track for all races (including hurdles) from 200m to 1500m. Here’s how it works: The idea is to give athletes who do not advance from the preliminary rounds a second chance, otherwise known as a “lucky loser”. The idea is to hand athletes more than one race at the Games.
At previous Olympics, the men’s and women’s volleyball fields of 12 teams had been split into two pools of six, with each team playing five matches total in the pool phase. There will be three pools of four teams in volleyball this year, and just three pool-stage matches per team, a change from the previous schedule when two pools of six teams led to five matches each in the pool stage.
Weightlifting has cut down its weight categories, too, going from 14 to 10.
