OLYMPIC GAMES
Why do some 2024 Olympic events start before the opening ceremony? Soccer, handball, rugby sevens…
The Paris 2024 Olympic Games officially get underway on Friday, July 26, although events in four sports will already have taken place.
The 2024 Olympic Games in Paris officially run from Friday, July 26 until Saturday, August 11, but the eagled-eyed among you may have noticed certain events will actually get underway before the opening ceremony takes place.
This year’s opening ceremony will be the first in the history of the Summer Games that hasn’t been held inside a stadium, with nearly 11,000 athletes representing 206 national Olympic committees taking part in a parade that takes them by boat along the river Seine. Some of them, though, will have already started their bid to claim a gold medal.
Why does soccer start before the Olympics opening ceremony?
The Olympic action actually gets underway on Wednesday, 24 July, with soccer first up. Kicking off the 2024 Games are group stage matches in the men’s tournament between Argentina and Morocco, along with Uzbekistan against Spain, which both kickoff at 9am ET / 6am PT.
The United States also play later on Wednesday against host nation France at 3pm ET / 12pm PT. The women’s tournament begins the following day (Thursday, July 25), when the USWNT face Zambia.
All in all, 14 soccer matches will be held before the “official” start of the Olympics. Benjamin Ceugnart, Competitions Calendar Project Manager for Paris 2024, explains why: “The players can’t play every day, so they need a recovery period of at least 48 hours. As a result, the men’s teams will play on D-2 and the women’s teams on D-1.”
Unlike FIFA, then, it seems the International Olympic Committee are keen to ensure soccer players get enough rest in between matches, hence the early start. In any case, Olympic soccer tournaments have started before the opening ceremony since 1992, so this is nothing new.
Which other sports start early at the Paris 2024 Olympics?
Handball and rugby sevens, on the other hand, normally get underway afterwards. Not this year, though. And it all comes down to space.
Six women’s preliminary round handball games will be played on Thursday at South Paris Arena 6, which will also host weightlifting. To make sure the venue has time to transition from one sport to another, the ladies will be getting underway a day earlier.
24 rugby sevens matches will be played on Wednesday and Thursday for the same reason. That event will be taking place at Stade de France in Saint-Denis and has to be completed before the athletics get underway on August 1.
Additionally, archery will also start early at Les Invalides in the centre of Paris on Thursday , with the rankings rounds in both the men’s and women’s individual ranking events.