From the non-traditional opening ceremony floating down the River Seine to the huge caldron floating high in the sky, the 2024 Summer Olympic Games is like no other. Paris provides a beautiful setting full of color and at times, controversy. It takes a lot of people and money and patience to make this whole work. Here’s a snapshot of the Games by the numbers.
In General, the Summer Olympic Games consists of:
- 16 days of competition
- 206 countries are competing (Russia and Belarus are banned due to the ongoing war in Ukraine)
- 32 sports to watch
- 1 new sport to watch: breaking (aka, breakdancing)
- 329 medal events
- 5,084 medals to be awarded
- 10,500-11,000 athletes from around the world
Of those athletes who came to play…
- 631 came from the U.S.
- 588 came from France
- 471 came from Australia
- 37 of them make up the Refugee Olympic Team
- 4 came from Belize, Liechtenstein, Nauru and Somalia (1 each)
Of those athletes from the United States…
- 142 of them were sent from California
- 1 of them was sent from Maine
- 2 states did not send any athletes (North Dakota and Wyoming)
The youngest and oldest Olympians this year are:
- 11-year-old skateboarder Zheng Haohao from China
- 65-year-old equestrian Juan Antonio Jimenez Cobo from Spain
Apparently, there were…
- 100,000 people who applied to become a torchbearer
- 11,000 people actually were
(Image: Daieuxetdailleurs/Wikimedia)
The opening ceremony included:
- 3.7 miles of the River Seine
- 320,000 spectators
- 71 giant screens
- 170 cameras
- 1,000 loudspeakers
- 12 different scenes
- 3,500 actors, dancers and musical performers
- 1,800 costumes
- 6,800 athletes
- 85 boats carrying the athletes
- 1 mysterious hooded figure representing six different characters (Belphégor, the Iron Mask, the Phantom of the Opera, Fantomas, Ezio from Assassin’s Creed and Arsène Lupin)
The Olympic Cauldron is:
- 100 feet tall and has a…
- 22-foot round “ring of flames” and is raised…
- 200 feet from the ground each night
(Image: Chabe01/Wikimedia)
The people behind the scenes include:
- 3,000 NBC employees
- 45,000 volunteers
- 300,000 volunteers had applied
- 45,000 police officers during the opening ceremony
- 30,000 police officers each day
- 25,000 private security guards
- 2 mascots (Based on the Phrygian caps worn in France)
(Image: Olympics.com/Wikipedia)
The 330,000 square meters of the Olympic Village consists of:
- 82 buildings
- One 28,000 square feet fitness center
- 16,000 cardboard beds
- 18,000 pounds of clothing that needs to be cleaned each day
The 24-hour, 3,500-seat restaurant serves:
- 40,000 meals each day
- 13 million meals served throughout the event
- 0 French fries served there
Sources: Today, MSN, People, Time, NBC and The Independent
Main Image: Ibex73/Wikimedia
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