New Sports and Events to Watch at the 2024 Paris Olympics

The 2024 Paris Olympics open July 26, and fans will be treated to 2.5 weeks of more than 300 medal events in 32 unique sports. This sounds like overload, but there were actually 33 sports played at the last Summer Olympics in 2021 in Tokyo (delayed a year due to COVID-19).

There has been a lot of tweaking with the schedule of sports for the Olympic games in recent years:

• Baseball and softball were back for 2020, but they’re out in 2024 (you should see them again in 2028).
• Karate got its trial run for 2020 but is not included this year and has no plan to return.
• Men are allowed to compete in the artistic swimming competition for the first time at the Olympics, and there will be a new team acrobatic routine round.
• Sailing will have 2 new kite events.
• You’ll have to wait until 2028 to see the Olympic debuts of flag football and squash as well as the return of cricket (not played since 1900) and lacrosse.

But don’t worry. In addition to Summer Olympic mainstays such as basketball, track and field, volleyball, and gymnastics, you can expect to see 1 entirely new sport and 4 events that debuted in Tokyo getting their 2nd shot at glory at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

We have the new sports and events to watch covered below, including the schedule of when they’ll take place so you don’t miss out on placing your bets at the top sportsbooks.

Breaking News: Breakdancing Is an Olympic Sport

• Sport: Breaking
• Medal Events: 2
• Dates: August 9-10, 2024

Your newest sport at the Summer Olympics is breaking, otherwise known as breakdancing. Yep, that popular style of urban street dance that originated in the Bronx in the 1970s with the rise of hip-hop music has become a global sensation and international competition over the decades.

Breaking was already an event at the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics, It got the green light for Paris in 2024, though be warned, it is not expected to be part of the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

How will it work? There will be 16 men and 16 women, also known as B-boys and B-girls, competing against each other in their own event. There is a round-robin followed by the quarterfinals, semifinals, and final medal battles.

The battles are a best-of-3 between contestants, and once one contestant finishes their round, the other immediately starts their routine in the battle format. Also, they will not know which song they will be dancing to ahead of time, so all the moves are improvised on the spot.

Nine judges will score the contestants on 6 criteria, including technique, variety, creativity, personality, musicality and performativity. The categories that hold the most weight (60%) are performativity and creativity.

3×3 Basketball Will See a Team USA Debut

• Sport: 3×3 Basketball
• Medal Events: 2
• Dates: July 30-August 5, 2024

While LeBron James and Team USA will try to win another gold medal in men’s basketball, the men’s Team USA for 3×3 basketball will make its Olympic debut after not participating in the 2020 event, which was the debut of this sport at the Summer Olympics.

In 2021, Team USA won the gold medal for the women’s side, but it was Latvia who took home gold on the men’s side. This year, 8 countries will participate in each tournament for men and women.

The Team USA men’s team will feature Jimmer Fredette, who was a big deal at BYU over a decade ago when he was the NCAA’s scoring champ and National Player of the Year. The rest of the roster will also have non-NBA players, so if you want to see a much different brand of basketball at the 2024 Paris Olympics, then you should check out 3×3 basketball.

Surfing Is Back

• Sport: Surfing
• Medal events: 2 (held July 31, 2024)
• Dates: July 27- August 5, 2024

Surfing is back after debuting at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 where surfers from Brazil (Italo Ferreria) and the United States (Carissa Moore) won the gold medals.

It has been a difficult sport to schedule for the Olympics, because what do you do when the host city is no near any major body of water like the ocean you need to pull this off? There’s also the danger of drowning, so insurance companies did not want to take this on for years before they finally worked it out for this decade’s Olympic games.

But the logistics of the ocean still comes into play here. That’s why you won’t actually see the surfers in Paris. Instead, they will be competing almost 10,000 miles away on the island of Tahiti in French Polynesia. Expect some large waves.

Skaters Rejoice

• Sport: Skateboarding
• Medal events: 4
• Dates: July 27-28 (street finals) and August 6-7 (park finals)

Skateboarding is also back after debuting in Tokyo last time out. It was a great start for Japan too as the host, winning 3-of-4 gold medals in the events that are split up between street and park finals and between men and women. The other gold went to Australia’s Keegan Palmer.

All the skateboarding events will be held at Place de La Concorde, which sounds like an opportunity to create a new French map for a future version of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. The seminal game turns 25 years old this year, showing just how far the popularity of skateboarding has come that it is a featured event at the Summer Olympics.

Sports Climbing Redux

• Sport: Sports Climbing
• Medal events: 4
• Dates: August 7-8 (speed climbing) and August 9-10 (bouldering and lead climbing)

Sports climbing debuted at the 2020 Olympics to some controversy as speed climbing was included along with bouldering and lead climbing. That has changed for 2024 as speed climbing will be its own event with medals available for men and women.

The number of climbers has also increased from 40 to 68. In the speed event, the contestants will go at it side-by-side to climb a 15-meter wall while being timed.

In the new combined event, bouldering sees contestants trying to reach the finish point of as many walls as possible in the allotted time. In lead climbing, they are given 6 minutes to reach the highest point possible and they only get one attempt at it.

There is a maximum score of 100 points for both bouldering and lead climbing, so the highest score anyone can reach is 200 points.

Last time out, Spain and Slovenia won the gold medals in 2021.

Embrace the Kayak Cross Chaos

• Sport: Canoeing (Kayak Cross to be specific)
• Medal events: 2
• Dates: August 5, 2024

Canoeing is an old-school sport at the Summer Olympics with a debut year of 1936. But 2024 is the 1st time you’ll see kayak cross as a canoe slalom event.

Kayak cross involves 4 athletes racing against each other from a ramp on the water. Their course will have up to 6 downstream gates and 2 upstream gates, setting the stage for a showdown that can get very physical with the kayakers competing against each other rather than the clock – an Olympic 1st for any canoe slalom event.