10 Stats and Facts to Kick Off the 2024 Summer Olympics

The Summer Olympics are now underway with the opening ceremony happening today.  Here’s a round-up of some stats and facts about the 2024 Games to help kick things off.

1.  Over 10,000 athletes from 206 different nations and territories will compete in the Games this year.  It’s actually more than 206 because of the Refugee Olympic Team, which has athletes from lots of places.  Team USA has over 500 athletes.

2.  There are 329 events across 32 sports, including four sports they’re testing out this year:  surfing, skateboarding, sport climbing, and breakdancing.

3.  Since the first modern Games in 1896, 10 sports have been dropped.  They include croquet . . . polo . . . lacrosse . . . motorboating . . . and tug-of-war.

4.  Between the Olympics and Paralympics, around 5,000 medals will be handed out.  Each one has over half-an-ounce of iron from the Eiffel Tower mixed in.

5.  Around 10,000 different torchbearers have carried the torch over the past three months.  It’s been winding its way through France since early May.

6.  The youngest and oldest athletes this year are both on Team USA.  Gymnast Hezly Rivera just turned 16 last month.  Steffen Peters will compete in dressage, the fancy horse-dancing event.  He’s 59, and it’s his sixth Olympics.

7.  59% of American adults plan to watch at least some of the events this year.  And around four billion people will watch worldwide.

8.  74% of people prefer watching the Olympics live if possible.  (Paris is six hours ahead of the East Coast, nine hours ahead of the West Coast.)

9.  Tickets to the events this year range in price from $24 all the way up to $980.  Tickets to the Opening Ceremony went for as much as $2,700.  They’re expecting to sell a total of around 10 million tickets.

10.  No matter what, no one’s passing Team USA on the all-time medals list.  Between the Summer and Winter Games, America has 2,975 medals coming into the Games.  The Soviet Union is next at 1,204, then Germany at 1,058.