Your indispensable day-by-day guide to the Paris Olympics
France get their tournament under way in Marseille against the USA in what should be the key game in Group A â the two other sides in the group, Guinea and New Zealand, play just along the coast in Nice a few hours earlier.
Irelandâs rugby sevens menâs team open their campaign with pool games against South Africa (4.30pm Irish time) and Japan (8pm).
France won silver and then gold in the past two Olympic finals and were runners-up and winners in the past two world championships. Norway won bronze in both Rio and Tokyo and reached the last two world championship finals and will be their key rivals. On this day we see them both, as France play Hungary and Norway face Sweden in their first games of the tournament.
Ireland take on New Zealand in their third pool game in menâs rugby sevens in the afternoon, with a knockout game to follow that evening.
With the Stade de France busy hosting the rugby sevens, Paris has planned an innovative opening ceremony based along a 6km stretch of the Seine, with the athletes parading not at the end but at the start, and not on foot but on 94 boats, passing landmarks including the Louvre and Notre Dame before ending up at the Trocadéro for the main show, about which organisers have been tight-lipped.
Antoine Dupont, Franceâs captain, missed the Six Nations to throw himself into Olympic preparations, declaring a gold medal âthe holy grail of the sport, as simple as thatâ, and organisers have scheduled the menâs final in the hope that he will help them get their Games off to the best possible start. It is far from a done deal, though: France failed to reach the final four in the sportâs two previous Olympic outings, while Fiji have won both golds.
In the past two Olympic finals Denmark beat France (in Rio) and France beat Denmark (in Tokyo). Of the five world championships in the past decade France have won two and Denmark the most recent three, extending their unbeaten run in the event to 28 games by beating France in last yearâs final. This year they play on the first day of the menâs tournament, though it would be no surprise if they meet again when the medals are decided on 11 August.
A horde of Irish athletes open their campaign across various sports, with Phillip Doyle and Daire Lynch among those in action in rowing heats; the menâs hockey team take on Belgium in their opening pool game; gymnast Rhys McClenaghan goes in the qualification of the menâs pommel horse; Ryan Mullen goes in the cycling time trial; with the menâs rugby sevens tournament reaching its finale at the Stade de France.
Between 2014 and 2020 Adam Peaty won every available global gold in the 100m breaststroke and broke the world record five times. But after Tokyo he stepped away from the pool, citing mental health issues. He returned last October, with his eyes on this day. Assuming they both safely navigated Saturdayâs heats, his key rival could be Qin Haiyang, Chinaâs breaststroke king.
The United States have won 16 of the 20 menâs basketball golds, including the last four, and with LeBron James in an all-star side are inevitable favourites for another. Jamesâs notable teammates include Stephen Curry, who remarkably is playing his first Olympics. They get their tournament under way against a Serbia side that has in its ranks this yearâs NBA MVP in Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets.
Japan won four of the six womenâs skateboarding medals in Tokyo, including both golds, and in the street discipline have five of the worldâs current top seven. But Brazilâs world No 3, Rayssa Leal, has high hopes. Nicknamed Fadinha (little fairy â after her first viral video), Leal won silver in Tokyo aged 13, has got better since, and will be out to sprinkle some magic at La Concorde.
Nhat Nguyen and Rachel Darragh continue their pool games in the badminton singles. A horde of Irish rowing crews take to the water, including Olympic champions Paul OâDonovan and Fintan McCarthy in their double sculls heats. A slew of Irish boxers will be in action in the round of 32. The eventing team will be in cross country action. Mona McSharry gets her Olympics under way in the womenâs 100m breaststroke heats. The womenâs rugby sevens team have pool games against Britain and South Africa.
Eventing jumping team and individual final: The grounds of the Chateau de Versailles will provide a spectacular backdrop to the equestrian events, with the finale of the eventing competition using the temporary arena by the Grand Canal.
Irish rowers who fell short in their heats will be in action in repechages; the menâs hockey team take on Australia in their pool game. The eventing team are in jumping action. Tn the pool, Daniel Wiffen, Ellen Walshe and Danielle Hill will all be in action in swimming heats. The womenâs rugby sevens team take on Australia in a pool game. Liam Jegou will face the decisive day in canoe slalom.
Womenâs 100m backstroke Kaylee McKeown, Australiaâs backstroke queen, is going for six golds in Paris â twice the number she won in Tokyo â and July 30 could bring her first, with the 100m final in the evening session. McKeown broke her own world record last October and goes in as overwhelming favourite.
menâs and womenâs gold medal match: Olympic organisers chose to hold the surfing competition in Teahupoâo. The attraction is what surfer.com described as âwithout a doubt one of the heaviest, scariest, most dangerous left-hand reef break waves in the entire worldâ.
The first of the triathlon events.
One of the strongest Irish medal chances as Daniel Wiffen â assuming he qualifies â lines up for the 800m freestyle final. In rowing, Phillip Doyle and Daire Lynch will be in the menâs double sculls semi-finals. The Irish menâs hockey team play India. The womenâs rugby sevens tournament has its semi-finals and finals. A number of Irish boxers will be in round of 16/32 action.
menâs all-around final: Daiki Hashimoto won gold in Tokyo three years ago, has won two World Championships since and goes into the all-around final as favourite. Meanwhile the US are hoping for what would be just their second title, and first since 2004.
Franceâs LĂ©on Marchand is the son of Xavier Marchand and CĂ©line Bonnet, both former Olympic swimmers, is coached at Arizona State by Michael Phelpsâs former mentor Bob Bowman, is probably the greatest swimmer in the world, and is about to have the biggest night of his life. The 200m butterfly and 200m breaststroke finals were originally due to run consecutively, but after intensive lobbying the schedule was changed to separate the events by an hour and a half and give Marchand a greater chance of success.
Paul OâDonovan and Fintan McCarthy will be in action in the lightweight double sculls semi-final; Kellie Harrington faces a big test in her lightweight boxing semi-final with a number of Irish boxers also competing; Mona McSharry will be in the 200m breaststroke semi-final.
Womenâs all-around final: In 2021 Simone Bilesâs unexpected attack of the twisties was one of the stories of the Olympics, her troubles in the team event leading her to withdraw from the individual all-around competition to focus on her mental health. This June she won the event at the US Championships for the ninth time, and by a massive margin, and today she will be aiming for redemption.
Nhat Nguyen will be in the round of 16 in badminton if he qualifies; Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry face the opening day of the golf tournament; a number of Irish crews face finals in rowing; the menâs hockey team play Argentina; Irish boxers Jack Marley, Jennifer Lehane and Dean Clancy could face decisive quarter-finals; the Irish showjumping team face qualifiers; Noel Hendrick is in action in the K1 canoe slalom.
Men and women medal series: There has been a major change since the last Olympics, with the RS:X out and the eyecatching iQFoil in. The board is now attached to hydrofoils, which lift it out of the water when itâs going at speed. The Dutch tend to excel in this discipline but keep an eye out for Franceâs Nicolas Goyard.
Menâs +100kg: Franceâs legendary judoka Teddy Riner, a three-time Olympic and 11-times (thatâs 11 times) world champion, goes for yet another medal.
Thereâll be a huge chance of Irish rowing gold in the lightweight double sculls final through Paul OâDonovan and Fintan McCarthy while the other finals could also produce medals. Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry continue their hunt for a medal in golf. Nhat Nguyen could face a quarter-final in badminton. Siblings Luke and Jodie McCann are among the Irish in action on day one of athletics at the Stade de France.
Womenâs 100m final: The second night of athletics at the Stade de France and things are hotting up, with five titles to be decided including the womenâs 100m, in which the USAâs ShaâCarri Richardson will aim to stop Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Shericka Jackson hoovering up all the medals for Jamaica.
Womenâs 800m freestyle: At a meet in Orlando in February Canadaâs 17-year-old tyro Summer McIntosh beat Katie Ledecky in the 800m freestyle, the Americanâs first defeat over the distance in any kind of final for 13 years. But McIntosh, who trains at the University of Florida alongside Ledecky, has decided to concentrate on other events in Paris leaving Ledecky strong favourite to cement her all-time-great status with a fourth successive Olympic gold.
Rhys McClenaghan will try to realise his medal dreams in the pommel horse final. Ben Healy and Ryan Mullen are in the cycling road race. Kellie Harrington could face a huge semi-final clash in lightweight boxing. At the Stade de France, the Irish mixed 4x400m relay could be in medal contention in the final if at full strength.
Menâs singles final Novak Djokovic has won everything worth winning in tennis, with one glaring exception. His bronze in Beijing in 2008 remains the highlight of his Olympic career â he has reached the last four three times, but the top three only once â while in 2016 he suffered his first first-round defeat since 2009. At 37 this is surely the last chance, but he injured a knee at the French Open and returns to Roland Garros in far from ideal circumstances. The womenâs doubles final follows, the last tennis match of the Olympics.
Womenâs road race Organisers promise âa wide variety of landscapes switching between wooded areas [and] more urban segmentsâ, much of the former running along local cycling hotspot the Chevreuse Valley, with the race concluding with three cobble-strewn laps of a Parisian circuit around Montmartre. We can only hope for drama on a par with 2021, when Annemiek van Vleutenâs enthusiastic celebrations after winning what she thought was gold were curtailed when she was informed that Anna Kiesenhofer, author of a stunning solo breakaway, had actually beaten her to it.
Daniel Wiffen will likely be in the shake-up in the menâs 1500m freestyle final. The medals will be decided in the menâs golf tournament. In athletics, Nicola Tuthill goes in the womenâs hammer throw qualification while there will likely be Irish interest in the menâs 1500m semi-finals. The menâs hockey team could be in a quarter-final, while in boxing it could be a huge day with a number of Irish competitors facing potential quarter-finals and semi-finals.
Kayak cross menâs and womenâs final: A hybrid of normal kayak race, the dodgems and the Hunger Games, the kayak cross event is wild, splashy carnage.
Menâs and womenâs singles finals: China dominate Olympic badminton and won three times as many medals as their nearest challenger (Chinese Taipei) in 2021. Chinaâs Shi Yuqi is the menâs world No 1 but Viktor Axelsen, a 6ft 4in Dane, is hoping to defend his title despite having some injury problems this year â he promised to âcome back really scary for the Olympicsâ. Koreaâs An Se-young is the womenâs No 1 and has instantly rediscovered top form after a month out with a knee injury.
Menâs pole vault: There are few track and field athletes who dominate their event like Armand âMondoâ Duplantis in the pole vault. The US-born Swede (his father represented the USA internationally and introduced his son to vaulting as a three-year-old; his mother was a Swedish heptathlete), broke the world record twice in 2020, three times in 2022 and twice in 2023 before nudging it to 6.24m in China in April.
Rhasidat Adeleke, Sharlene Mawdsley and Sophie Becker will all race the heats of the womenâs 400m. Ciara McGing goes in the diving preliminary round. Finn Lynch and Eve McMahon continue their campaigns in sailing, while the Irish showjumpers compete in individual qualifiers.
Menâs 1500m final: Jakob Ingebrigtsen won gold in Tokyo but since then has twice been pipped by Britons at global tournaments, beaten by Jake Wightman at the 2022 world championships and Josh Kerr at the 2023 event. The 1500m has been a thrilling, hotly contested event in recent years and there are several athletes who could halt the Kerr v Ingebrigtsen hype including another Norwegian in Narve Gilje NordĂ„s, who is coached by Ingebrigtsenâs estranged father, Gjert (who has not been accredited for the Olympics because he faces criminal charges in Norway).
Womenâs park final: The 14-year-old Australian and world No 2 Arisa Trew is one to keep an eye on here: last year she became the first female to pull off a 720, and in June was the first to land a 900 (two and a half rotations) and a switch McTwist (if you know you know). Meanwhile Sky Brown, who won bronze for Britain at 13 in Tokyo, returns.
Kellie Harrington will box for gold if she makes the lightweight final while a trio of Irish boxers could be in semi-final action. Ciara Mageean, Sarah Healy and Sophie OâSullivan will be in action in the 1500m heats at the Stade de France, with the menâs 1500m final potentially holding an Irish interest. Shane Sweetnam, Daniel Coyle and Cian OâConnor could be in action in the showjumping final, while the menâs hockey semi-finals will also take place. The womenâs team pursuit will also be in action in track cycling.
Mixed dinghy medal race: In which Britainâs odd couple Vita Heathcote and Chris Grube â sheâs 23 and going into her first Games, heâs 39 and has been tempted out of retirement for one last go â have a chance of medals after coming second at the world championships in Mallorca this year, despite suffering from illness, injury and having worked together only for a matter of months. Heathcoteâs uncle, Nick Rogers, won silver medals in 2004 and 2008. Spainâs Jordi Xammar and Nora Brugman, who won that event in Mallorca, and Japanâs Keiju Okada and Miho Yoshioka are the key rivals.
Team acrobatic routine.
This could be the last round for Olympic boxing â the IOC has set a deadline of early next year to find a governing body to replace the IBA as its partners, leaving the sportâs place at Los Angeles 2028 in doubt. So catch it while you can: two golds are up for grabs.
Leona Maguire and Stephanie Meadow compete in the first round of the womenâs golf tournament. Jack Woolley goes in the round of 16 in taekwondo. In athletics, Sarah Lavin, Brian Fay, Mark English and Rhasidat Adeleke are among those in action, while in boxing Michaela Walsh and Dean Clancy could both face medal bouts.
Two of the great velodrome events conclude, with the quarter-finals, semis and final of the womenâs keirin â where riders follow a speed-controlled electric bike for a few laps before launching a wild sprint for the line â breaking up the four events of the menâs omnium, each of greater drama than the last, concluding with the brilliant, chaotic, bewildering and wonderful points race. The schedule is reversed, with menâs keirin and womenâs omnium (plus the womenâs sprint finals), on Sunday.
Womenâs 400m hurdles: The anticipated showdown between Femke Bol of the Netherlands and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone of the USA, the two fastest women of all time over this distance, could be one of the highlights of this yearâs athletics competition.
In athletics, Kate OâConnor goes in the heptathlon while Ciara Mageean and others will likely be in action in the 1500m semi-final. Jude Gallagher, Aoife OâRourke and Jennifer Lehane could all face medal bouts in boxing.
The breaking competition, incongruously held at the historic Place de la Concorde, lasts only one day. Nicka â the Lithuanian Dominika Banevic, who has been breaking since the age of eight â won the world and European championships last year aged 16 but the two Asian Games finalists, 671 (Chinaâs Liu Qingyi) and Ami (Japanâs Ami Yuasa) are seen as the breakers most likely to make the final throw down.
Menâs 86kg final: There have been rivalries, and then there was David Taylor v Hassan Yazdani. For years it seemed nothing could keep these representatives of clashing cultures of the USA and Iran apart: in Tokyo both breezed through the competition before Taylorâs last-second takedown saw him edge a thrilling final 4-3, and theyâve gone on to meet in the final of every major championship since. But in a stunning upset Taylor, by then unbeaten in two and a half years, lost to Aaron Brooks in the US trials and promptly retired to go into coaching, and this is the start of a new era.
Womenâs final: The Netherlands have dominated womenâs field hockey for years. They top both the menâs and womenâs world rankings, the latter by a huge margin. It would be a major surprise if they are not involved in the two medal games, but can anyone stop them?
Rhasidat Adeleke will try to make her medal dream a reality in the womenâs 400m final, with Mark English and Sarah Lavin in semi-final action. Track cyclists Alice Sharpe and Lara Gillespie will hope for a big showing in the womenâs madison final, while boxers Aidan Walsh, Daina Moorehouse, Jack Marley and Grainne Walsh could all be fighting for gold in their respective categories.
Poland are hoping to finally end their Olympic jinx: they are comfortably top of the menâs rankings and have emerged with two golds and a silver from the last three world championships, but they have not reached an Olympic final since 1976 and in Tokyo lost a fifth successive quarter-final.
This is a sport easy to dismiss as absurd for the idea of giving medals for glorified hoop-throwing and fancy ribbon-waving, but miss it at your peril. The group event in particular involves stunning displays of athleticism, coordination and synchronisation â it is basically people throwing and catching stuff, but in the most extraordinary ways. An unmissable highlight of the Olympic schedule.
The Olympic motto might be âfaster, higher, strongerâ but for modern pentathlon the slogan since Tokyo has been âquicker, shorter, less confusingâ. The event has been streamlined to the point that what took six hours before now takes just a couple, but if the changes benefit the spectator they havenât necessarily helped the British reigning champion, Joe Choong, who says he âwouldnât say they favour me if Iâm perfectly honestâ.
All Irish eyes will be on the womenâs 1500m final and womenâs 4x400m final to see if Ireland can get a medal on the track, while Brian Fay, Sarah Lavin and Mark English could also be in action in their respective finals. Michaela Walsh, Jude Gallagher and Aoife OâRourke could also be boxing for gold.
Tradition has it that the menâs marathon should close the Olympic athletics programme, but not this year. At the end of a route that partly follows the womenâs march on Versailles, one of the most significant events of the French Revolution, this will be the final medal decided in the Stade de France. Ethiopiaâs Tigst Assefa, who shattered the world record last year, will be hoping to improve on her previous Olympic experience: coming fifth in an 800m heat in 2016.
Though Serbia have won gold at the last two Olympics a three-peat would be a massive achievement given the pure competitiveness of this event â the last four world championships have had four different winners and seven different medallists, with Croatia coming out on top in the latest, in Doha in February. âI have no favourites,â their coach, Ivica Tucak, said. âThere is a circle of nine teams from which any can beat any, where every match can be won or lost. Any medal is a magnificent result.â
Five-time Olympian Fionnuala McCormack is the sole Irish representative in the womenâs marathon, though Mayo native SinĂ©ad Diver will also race for Australia. In track cycling, Lara Gillespie will compete in the womenâs omnium.
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