Paris 2024 Olympic Games kick off today with football and rugby sevens
SMA NEWS – PARIS
The 2024 Olympics kick off on Wednesday with the first games in football and rugby sevens, two days before the official ceremony scheduled for Friday.
The anticipation is huge as Paris 2024 has already set a record by selling 8.6 million tickets, the highest ever.
The opening events feature two football matches, Argentina vs. Morocco in Saint-Étienne for Group B, and Uzbekistan vs. Spain in Paris for Group C.
Australia-Samoa opened the rugby sevens competition in Paris only half an hour later, at 3.30 pm CET.
Fans in the Dominican Republic won’t get to watch the country’s powerhouse baseball team at the Paris Olympics after the sport was left off the 2024 slate.
But the Dominican men’s football team filled in.
The Caribbean nation’s debut is bolstered by a roster with several players who have played in European leagues.
Most of them represent the country for the first time in France.
France will get their medal campaign underway in rugby sevens, when they take on the United States in their first Pool B game.
Stade de France will be at capacity and most of the attention will be on star Antoine Dupont when the French kick off in the third game of a three-day men’s tournament.
It’ll be the same on Day 2 when the French meet two-time Olympic champion Fiji, the most formidable force in rugby’s condensed sevens format.
The US men face France and Fiji on Wednesday, giving them a unique view of a pair of title favorites.
France hosted the Rugby World Cup last year and the national team again failed to lift the title. They have been the finalists three times at the sport’s biggest tournament.
With the undisputed star of the 15-a-side game joining its ranks, France has peaked in the rugby sevens format in 2024. Dupont helped the French win a spot in the World Series for the first time in 19 years, and then capped it with a victory in the series finale in Madrid.
