The Olympic Games is an international spectacle that has been around for 3,800 years, with the first instalment of the Modern Olympic Games held in 1896 in Athens, Greece. Since then, the Olympics have grown into the largest international sporting event known to humankind.
However, the Olympics is not just any old sporting event, it is a time that the world unites every four years for the opportunity to watch their countries’ highest achieving athletes push themselves to the limits in the hopes of winning a gold medal. During the Olympic Games, political differences are pushed aside, the Olympic spirit is encouraged, and athleticism is at the forefront.
Literature is replete with analysis that population and income levels are good indicators of a country's ability to both participate and perform well at the Olympic Games. However, having one of the two is not enough, both a high population and high GDP are needed to influence performance overall.
The International Olympic Committee banned the South African team from participating in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics to demonstrate the unified and international disapproval of South African apartheid.
Paris was elected as the host city on 13 September 2017 at the 131st IOC Session in Lima, Peru. The two French International Olympic Committee members, Guy Drut and Tony Estanguet, were ineligible to vote under the rules of the Olympic Charter.
Read more: Olympic Games Paris 2024
Having previously hosted the 1900 and 1924 Games, Paris did not attempt to host the Olympics again until it bid, unsuccessfully, for the 1992 Games which were awarded to Barcelona.
Subsequent bids for the 2008 and 2012 Games were also unsuccessful, as they were awarded to Beijing and London, respectively. Undeterred, Paris decided to bid once more for the 2024 edition, which would mark the centenary of its last Games.
The six candidate cities were Paris, Hamburg, Boston, Budapest, Rome and Los Angeles. The bidding process was slowed by withdrawals, political uncertainty and deterring costs. Boston surpassed Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, DC, for the official US bid.
On 27 July 2015, Boston and the US Olympic Committee mutually agreed to terminate Boston’s bid to host the Games, partly because of mixed feelings among city residents. Hamburg withdrew its bid on 29 November 2015 after holding a referendum. Rome withdrew on 21 September 2016, citing fiscal difficulties. Budapest withdrew on 22 February 2017, after a petition against the bid collected more signatures than necessary for a referendum.
Following these withdrawals, the International Olympic Committee Executive Board met on 9 June 2017 in Lausanne, Switzerland, to discuss the 2024 and 2028 bid processes. The International Olympic Committee formally proposed electing the 2024 and 2028 Olympic host cities at the same time, a proposal which an Extraordinary International Olympic Committee Session approved on 11 July 2017 in Lausanne.
The committee set up a process whereby the LA 2024 and Paris 2024 bid committees met with it to discuss which city would host the Games in 2024 and 2028, and whether it was possible to select the host cities for both at the same time.
Following the decision to award the two Games simultaneously, Paris was understood to be the preferred host for 2024. On 31 July 2017, the IOC announced Los Angeles as the sole candidate for 2028, enabling Paris to be confirmed as host for 2024. Both decisions were ratified at the 131st International Olympic Committee Session on 13 September 2017.
Dramatic abseil
As with the opening ceremony, the closing ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics (Following the 1900 and 1924 Paris Summer Olympics) titled “Records” by artistic director Thomas Jolly, featured more than a hundred performers, including acrobats, dancers and circus artists, and concluded with a show-stopping moment as Tom Cruise made a dramatic abseil from the roof of the Stade de France on Sunday, 11 August, 2024.
It featured a mix of filmed and live segments, which included the second half of the Los Angeles 2028 presentation, recorded in Long Beach, California. Rapper Snoop Dogg, who has been working as a special correspondent for American television network NBC during Paris 2024, performed alongside Dr. Dre as part of a memorable finale that whetted the appetite for LA 2028.
The crowd watched in absolute amazement as the Golden Voyager floated through the stadium. The Paris (City of Light) Olympics concluded with an unforgettable blend of spectacle, emotion and star power – a fitting tribute to the Games filled with historic moments and extraordinary performances.
As per traditional Olympic protocol, the ceremony featured cultural presentations from both the current (France) and following (US) host countries, as well as closing remarks by International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach (who will step down in 2025) and the president of the Paris Organising Committee for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Tony Estanguet.
The official handover of the Olympic flag was aptly conducted by two women – from Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, whose city will host the 2028 Summer Olympics, and was duly followed by the extinguishing of the Olympic flame.
There were 204 out of 206 National Olympic Committees represented at the 2024 Summer Games, with 54 from Africa, 48 from Europe, 44 from Asia, 41 from the Americas and 17 from Oceana. North Korea returned to the Games in 2024 after missing the 2020 edition.
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the International Olympic Committee suspended the Olympic committees of Russia and Belarus for violating the Olympic Truce. Russian and Belarusian athletes instead competed as “Individual Neutral Athletes” without national identification, as long as they did not “actively” support the war and had to be approved by each sport’s International Federation and then the International Olympic Committee’s panel.
As individual athletes, Individual Neutral Athletes was not considered a delegation during the opening ceremony nor in the medal tables. The Refugees Team also competed.
Ten million tickets sold
The Games achieved 10 million tickets sold and more than three million for the Paralympics. As the Olympic Games Paris 2024 ended, Visa, the Official Payment Technology Partner of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, issued further data revealing the positive impact of the Games on tourism and spending in France.
Not only did Paris attract 42% more Visa cardholders in the first week of the Olympic Games than in the same period in 2023, but other cities hosting Olympic sports also saw significant increases in visitors and spending, especially among fans who attended the competitions. There were between 15 and 16 million sports enthusiasts and tourists who visited; plus an average of 30.7 million viewers per day – a composite figure that includes the live coverage in the afternoons and the traditional prime time windows; the most marriage proposals ever; and $7.3-billion to $12.1-billion was generated for the city and surrounding Île de France.
The programme of the 2024 Summer Olympics featured 206 nations (including the Individual Neutral Athletes and Refugee Olympic Teams), 326,000 tickets sold just for the opening ceremony, 45,000 volunteers, 10,714 athletes, 600,000 meals a day and 329 events in 32 sports, encompassing a total of 48 disciplines.
The Horsewoman, wearing the Flag of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), is seen on a Metal Horse on the River Seine during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 on July 26, 2024 in Paris, France. (Photo by Francois Nel/Getty Images)
This included the 28 “core” Olympic sports contested in 2016 and 2020 and four optional sports that were proposed by the Paris Organising Committee, namely breakdancing – which made its Olympic debut as an optional sport – while skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing returned to the programme, having debuted at the 2020 Summer Olympics.
Four events were dropped from weightlifting. In canoeing, two sprint events were replaced with two slalom events, keeping the overall event total at 16. In sport climbing, the previous “combined” event was divided into two separate disciplines – speed climbing and boulder-and-lead.
South Africa obtained six medals (double the number in the last Olympics) with one gold, three silver and two bronze. The US topped the medal table with 40 gold medals and 126 medals in total.
Tied in terms of gold medals, China finished second, with 40 and 91 respectively. Japan finished third with 20 gold medals and sixth in the overall medal count. Australia finished fourth with 18 gold medals and fifth in the overall medal count. The host nation, France, finished fifth with 16 gold and 64 total medals.
First golds
Dominica, Saint Lucia, Cape Verde and Albania won their first-ever Olympic medals, the former two both being gold, with Botswana and Guatemala also winning their first gold medals. The Refugee Olympic Team also won its first medal, a bronze in boxing.
Gold medalist Letsile Tebogo of Botswana celebrates winning the Men's 200m Final on day thirteen of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Stade de France on 8 August 2024. (Photo: Andy Cheung/Getty Images)
Skateboarding, sport climbing, surfing and breaking were four non-traditional sports that captivated audiences at the Paris Games. Breaking, also known as break dancing, made its Olympic debut. Skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing all first appeared at the 2020 Tokyo Games.
Under the watchful eye of the goddess of victory, long lost in antiquity and reborn in the modern era, we witnessed the raising of the five Olympic rings representing the five inhabited continents, creating the culture of peace in the new era in every respect under reforms with full gender parity.
With 19 days of artistic Parisian party, it was both inspirational and aspirational, stylish and record breaking in so many ways, characterised by opera and orchestra and the hope that humanity will thrive.
It showcased and celebrated each country’s national icons and was unashamedly a tribute to French innovation and ingenuity. The 2024 Paralympics will be held in the French capital from 28 August to 8 September. DM