What's happening and when at the Paris Olympics?
![Olympics day-by-day guide graphic](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/2048/cpsprodpb/152c/live/6cf10ae0-44f4-11ef-b9f5-adf0805847e7.jpg)
- Published
Just one day of competition remains at the Paris Olympics, with only a handful of gold medals to be decided before Sunday's closing ceremony - all times BST.
Team GB has named a squad of 327 athletes and UK Sport has set a target of 50 to 70 medals at the Games. They will enter the final day on 63 medals, one short of their tally in Tokyo three years ago.
There will be live coverage of Paris 2024 across the BBC on TV, radio and online.
The Games officially opened at a unique and spectacular opening ceremony along the River Seine on Friday, 26 July and will close on Sunday, 11 August.
Gold medal events:
Athletics (women's marathon), basketball (women's), handball (men's), modern pentathlon (women's), track cycling (men's keirin, women's sprint, women's omnium), volleyball (women's), water polo (men's), weightlifting (women's +81kg), wrestling (men's freestyle 65kg, men's freestyle 97kg, women's freestyle 76kg).
Highlights
The final day of the Games brings three more gold medals to be won in the velodrome if Team GB are looking for a late boost.
Option one: the women's sprint (final from 11:45). While you have to go back to Victoria Pendleton in 2008 to find the last Briton who took gold in this event, GB's Emma Finucane is the defending world champion.
Option two: the men's keirin (final at 12:32), an event beloved first by Sir Chris Hoy with gold in 2008 and 2012, then by Sir Jason Kenny with gold in 2016 and 2021. Imagine adding your name to that list. That's the task ahead of GB’s Commonwealth silver medallist Jack Carlin and Hamish Turnbull, but the likes of the Netherlands’ Harrie Lavreysen could be hard to defeat.
Option three: the women's omnium (decided at 12:56). This is the final event in the velodrome at Paris 2024 and presents one last opportunity for GB, but perhaps even more of an opportunity for US rider Jennifer Valente, the defending world and Olympic champion.
Emily Campbell took Britain's first medal in women's Olympic weightlifting with silver in Tokyo. She has since added world silver and has won four successive European titles. Her +81kg category begins at 10:30, with China's Li Wenwen the favourite for gold.
The Paris 2024 closing ceremony is due to begin at 19:00. This time, we are back in the traditional stadium setting as the Stade de France hosts the world's athletes for a final goodbye. The show you will see performed during the closing ceremony is titled Records, although not too much has been given away by its creators. This also marks the handover to Los Angeles 2028 for the next Olympics and to the Paris 2024 Paralympics, which begin on Wednesday, 28 August.
Paris 2024: Could you lift like British weightlifter Emily Campbell?
Brit watch
Rose Harvey, Calli Hauger-Thackery and Clara Evans - a late replacement for the injured Charlotte Purdue - are the British athletes in the women's marathon, which starts at 07:00. The name to watch is Ethiopia's Tigst Assefa.
World watch
If the United States beat France in Sunday's gold medal match (14:30), it will be the nation's eighth consecutive Olympic women's basketball title, the record for any Olympic team sport.
Women’s volleyball concludes with the gold-medal match at 12:00. The US, who beat Brazil and Serbia to gold in 2021, face recently dominant Italy.
The men's water polo final is at 13:00. Hungary won this event three times in a row from 2000 to 2008 but have not been in a final since and will face the USA for bronze in Paris, with the final to be contested by Serbia and Croatia.
Expert knowledge
There's a really good chance for another GB medal in the women's modern pentathlon (from 10:00), and perhaps another gold, as defending Olympic champion Kate French lines up alongside world bronze medallist Kerenza Bryson.
You are also about to see the last Olympic modern pentathlon involving horses.
The sport's world governing body has been trying to find a way to, er, modernise the sport, since modern pentathlon was given that name in 1912 (when it made its Olympic debut) and may no longer feel quite so up-to-date to many viewers.
The showjumping leg of modern pentathlon - the others being fencing, swimming, running and shooting - has always attracted criticism because it involves pairing athletes with randomly assigned local horses, sometimes to competition-destroying effect when horse and rider fail to find the same wavelength. Those moments have become less a test of skill than a form of equestrian roulette that can make or break four years of training.
While some athletes advocated for simply improving the showjumping with various changes, the world governing body has pursued the idea of obstacle course racing as a replacement. Think Ninja Warrior, Total Wipeout, that kind of thing. Proponents say younger people will be more likely to watch that kind of event than showjumping, no matter how good the jumping is. While modern pentathlon was briefly threatened with being dropped from the Olympics entirely, it is on the schedule for LA 2028 with obstacle included at the expense of jumping.
Related topics
- Published26 July
- Published26 July