2024 Paris Olympics slogan: 'Games wide open'

The Paris Olympics' slogan, which starts on Wednesday (local time), is “Games wide open.” As the slogan says, we will welcome everyone from all over the world to our wide and open stadiums,” said the Paris Olympic Organizing Committee.

The opening ceremony is unconventional. For the first time in the 128-year history of the modern Olympics, it will be held outdoors instead of inside a stadium. For the opening ceremony, 10,500 athletes from 206 National Olympic Committees (NOC) will participate in a 6-kilometer ‘water march’ along the Seine River on 116 boats. The closing ceremony on August 11 will also be held at Trocadero Square, where the Eiffel Tower can be seen.

Many landmarks in Paris will be transformed into stadiums. Major venues include Champ de Mars Park overlooking the Eiffel Tower, (beach volleyball), the Palace of Versailles, which was listed as France's first UNESCO cultural heritage site in 1979 (horseback riding), the Grand Palais built for the 1900 World's Fair (taekwondo, fencing), and the square in front of Les Invalides, where Napoleon's lies (archery).

For the first time in Olympic history, gender equality will be achieved in terms of the number of athletes participating in the event. According to the Olympic organizing committee, male and female athletes, 5,250 respectively, will participate in the games. The second Paris Olympics held in 1900 was the first Olympics where female athletes competed. At that time, there were only 22 female players among some 1,000 players. One hundred twenty-four years later, full gender equality has been achieved in the same venue. The IOC increased the proportion of female athletes by increasing the number of mixed-gender sports in which men and women compete as one team.

Three hundred and twenty-nine gold medals will be up for competition among 32 sports at the Paris Olympics. Compared to the 339 gold medals in 33 events at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, the Paris Olympics has one less event and 10 fewer medals because baseball, softball, and karate, which were official events during the Tokyo Games, were excluded despite the addition of breaking. This is the first time in 64 years since the 1960 Rome Games that the number of gold medals has declined compared to the previous Olympic games.


Heon-Jae Lee uni@donga.com