Three disciplines of the Paris-2024 Olympic Games, football (with seven venues spread across France), handball in Lille and rugby Sevens at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, will start on July 24, that is, two days before the opening ceremony, announced on Friday the Organizing Committee of the event (COJO).
They will be the first sports of the event to start.
The Executive Commission of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) validated this Friday the calendar of the competitions of the future Olympic Games in Paris. From that July 24, the sports competition will last until August 11, closing day.
The opening ceremony on the Seine River, in the center of the French capital, is scheduled for July 26 and no test will be scheduled that afternoon, Paris-2024 said in a statement.
In addition to the start of the tests two days before the opening, which is usual in the Summer Olympics, there are some adaptations for the next edition. For example, all the swimming finals at the Arena La Défense pool in Nanterre and the athletics finals at the Stade de France will take place in the afternoon-evening session.
To avoid overlapping, the women’s and men’s field hockey, handball, beach volleyball, volleyball, basketball and water polo finals will be spread over four days, between Thursday 8 and Sunday 11 August, explained those responsible for Paris-2024.
The Place de la Concorde in Paris, which will be transformed into an ‘urban park’ for skateboarding or breaking dance, for example, will host events “almost without discontinuity” throughout the duration of the Olympic Games, specifies Paris-2024.
At the moment, only the preliminary phase of the basketball trials has not yet been defined, after Hall 6 of the Puerta de Versailles Exhibition Park, in the south of the capital, was given up. The organizers are looking for a new place.
The final schedule will be revealed at the end of the first half of 2022.
cto/dec/jr/dlo/dr/psr
