The 2024 Paris Olympics opens on July 26. Some competitions will start 2 days before, but the main event actually starts with the Opening Ceremony. At that time, Paris will mark the second city after London to host the Olympics three times.
The French capital was the site of the second Olympics in 1900 and the second in 1924. This year's Olympics marks 100 years since that time.
It can be said that quite a lot has changed in the world since the last time Paris played host. What are those changes?
Perhaps the first thing that strikes you when looking back at Paris 1924 is the time schedule of the event. The tournament begins on May 4 and ends on July 27, with 17 sports and 126 medal events - lasting about a month. In complete contrast, the 2024 Olympics will have nearly double the number of sports (32) and 329 medal events, but in only about 2 weeks.
Next is the Olympics program. Most sports organized in 1924 still exist in 2024. It should be noted that women's events are still not included in most competitions, including athletics, soccer, wrestling and boxing.
For soccer, the 1924 Olympics are considered the first world championships of any kind. The titles won here and in 1928 were two instances where FIFA, soccer's global governing body, considered an Olympic gold medal equivalent to a World Cup title.
Paris 1924 was the last time tennis was included in the Olympic program until it returned at Seoul 1988.
This was also the last time rugby was seen in a 15-player format, the sport only returned at Rio 2016 in a 7-player format.
The 1924 Olympics marked the first time athletes were housed in the Olympic Village . Organizers built wooden huts and established an accommodation center near the Olympique de Colombes stadium, now the Yves-du-Manoir stadium, and called it the "Olympic Village", allowing teams different world recruitment in the same location, under the same conditions, with the usual services.
The 2024 Olympic Village is located 5 minutes from Saint-Denis stadium, 7km from the center of the French capital. It is designed to accommodate more than 14,000 residents.
Regarding the number of athletes, 100 years ago, there were exactly 3,089 athletes (135 women and 2,954 men) from 44 countries. Ecuador, Ireland, Lithuania, Philippines and Uruguay had delegations attend for the first time.
Latvia and Poland were also participating in the Summer Olympics for the first time, but a few months earlier they had participated in the Winter Olympics in Chamonix.
A total of 44 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) were represented at the 1924 Games.
At the 2024 Olympics, there are expected to be about 10,500 athletes representing more than 200 countries.
A few other details:
In 1924, the Olympics took place in 19 locations, this year, the event took place in 35 locations.
In 1924, 635,000 people came to watch the event live. In 2024, the Organizing Committee announced that 8.6 million tickets had been sold.
100 years ago, there were more than 1,000 reporters reporting, this year's event has more than 6,000.
