The opening ceremonies of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris are quickly approaching and attention will soon turn back to one of the Summer Games’ most memorable settings: the pool.
For those interested in watching Olympic swimming events begin on July 27 this year. Most events will take place at La Défense Arena’s Olympic swimming pool, which, according to NBC Olympics, contains 660,000 gallons.
The Seine River will host triathlon and marathon swimming races. Swimming in the Seine has been banned since 1923, and athletes have expressed frustration with the high amounts of fecal bacteria plaguing the river. Olympic organizers invested $1.5 billion to bring the water back to safer standards for the 2024 Paris Games, but it hasn’t come without backlash, as some Parisians in June threatened to defecate in the Seine to protest the large sums France committed to river clean-up instead of social causes.
Here’s what to know about the swimming schedule for the 2024 Olympics.
Meet Team USA: See which athletes made the U.S. Olympic team and where they are from
2024 Olympics swimming schedule
You can catch the first Olympic swimming events on Saturday, July 27.
Which swimmers are on Team USA?
Team USA is headlined by stars such as Katie Ledecky, who is only the ninth American swimmer to qualify for four Olympic games, and Caeleb Dressel, who won five gold medals in Tokyo.
Michael Phelps, the most decorated male athlete in Olympic history, will return to the Games as a broadcast contributor for NBC.
To see every athlete representing the U.S. in this year’s Olympics, click here.
How many gallons are in an Olympic swimming pool?
There’s no exact requirement, but Olympic swimming pools generally have 660,000 gallons of water. Residential pools, for comparison, typically only contain 15,000 to 48,000 gallons.
How do we figure 660,000? We did a little bit of math. To find the volume of a rectangle prism, you need to multiply the length by the width by the height.
According to the competitive water sport governing body World Aquatics, formerly the Fédération Internationale de Natation, Olympic swimming pools must be 50 meters long and at least 2 meters deep. It recommends pools for artistic swimming be an even deeper 3 meters. Using the requirement for lane dimensions, we found that Olympic pools are typically 25 meters wide.
Converting these numbers from meters to feet, we rounded and multiplied to get 88,261.92 cubic feet. Converted to liquid gallons, it equals 660,245, or a similar figure, depending on how you round.
Contributing: Clare Mulroy, USA TODAY
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: When is Olympics swimming? Full events schedule at 2024 Paris Games
