Paris 2024 Olympics: dates, venues, TV guide, how to watch, Australian medal chances and everything you need to know

Please note that all times are listed in Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST).

When do the Olympic Games start?

The Paris 2024 opening ceremony begins on Saturday, July 27 at 3:30 am (or 7:30 pm local time), but the competition actually starts a few days earlier.

The action kicks off on Wednesday, July 24 at 11pm with a pair of men’s football matches, while the men’s rugby sevens kick off half an hour later.

The women’s football group stage also begins before the opening ceremony, as do archery and handball (the European variety, not the Australian schoolyard/Kevin Rudd variety).

Once the opening ceremony is complete, the official “Day 1” begins on Saturday afternoon with events including gymnastics, basketball, rowing and tennis, with medals awarded in cycling, diving, fencing, judo, rugby sevens, shooting, skateboarding and swimming.

When do the Olympic Games end?

After more than two weeks of competition, the final match in Paris will be the women’s basketball gold medal match, which kicks off at 11:30 p.m. on Sunday, August 11.

The closing ceremony will begin on Monday 12 August at 05:00 and is expected to end at 07:15, making Paris 2024 a reality.

Where are the Olympic Games held?

Most of the action takes place in 25 locations spread across Paris and the surrounding Ile-de-France region, many of which are situated on historic sites in the city.

For example, beach volleyball is organised in front of the Eiffel Tower, archery next to the Hotel des Invalides, horse riding in the Palace of Versailles and 3×3 basketball, breakdancing, freestyle BMX and skateboarding on the Place de la Concorde.

And then there are the region’s more traditional sports stadiums: the Stade de France, just outside Paris, plays host to athletics events and rugby matches, while the city’s Parc des Princes hosts football matches.

There are more venues spread throughout France to meet the event’s planning needs. Most are for football, but there are also sports that take place outside of Paris.

Shooting takes place in Châteauroux, just under 300 km south of Paris, sailing takes place in Marseille and basketball and handball matches are played in Villeneuve-d’Ascq, near the Belgian border.

But the sport that strays furthest from the opening ceremony is surfing. It is held in Teahupo’o in the French Polynesian country of Tahiti, almost 10,000 miles from Paris.

How can I watch the Olympic Games?

Streaming platform 9Now will have more than 40 channels, allowing viewers to watch any event they want during the Games.

If you prefer to watch on TV, Channel Nine will be showing 22 hours of Olympic coverage a day, with one-hour news breaks at 11am and 6pm. 9Gem will be showing the Paris 2024 games 24 hours a day.

The other platform where you can watch the Olympic Games is Stan Sport, which will broadcast all 329 events live and ad-free in 4K ultra HD.

There will also be eight international/multilingual live channels, with coverage from the UK, Spain, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, India and New Zealand.

Who are Australia’s top medal contenders?

Ariarne Titmus will defend her Olympic titles in the women’s 200m and 400m freestyle, Kaylee McKeown in the 100m and 200m backstroke. Both are world record holders and go to Paris as two of our top gold medal hopefuls.

World champion Mollie O’Callaghan is one of Titmus’ biggest challengers for the 200m freestyle and also a leading contender for the 100m.

The closest Australia comes to a medal guarantee is the women’s 4x100m freestyle.

The team of O’Callaghan, Shayna Jack, Meg Harris and Emma McKeon set a new world record at last year’s world championships, beating the fastest time ever set by Australia at the last Olympic Games.

O’Callaghan, Jack, Harris and Bronte Campbell are in an excellent position to make the team in Paris having finished in the top four in the 100m qualifiers last month.

Elsewhere in the pool, Elijah Winnington and Sam Short (both men’s 400m freestyle), Kyle Chalmers (men’s 100m freestyle) and Cam McEvoy (men’s 50m freestyle) are all in with a chance of going home with a medal around their necks.

And when it comes to team sports, it seems that the women’s rugby sevens team are the best Australian prospects, having won the most recent tournament in Spain and being crowned the first champions of the SVNS series.

The Opals just beat China, the second-highest ranked team in women’s basketball, but a gold medal would be a huge surprise given the US’s dominance in that event.