Our road to Paris 2024 actually started in 2022 with the first opportunity available to purchase event tickets for the Olympics….more on that in a moment.
Our previous experience with the Olympics was for the men’s marathon in London 2012. We had attended the U.S. Olympic Team Trials for the marathon held in Houston, Texas in January 2012 where Meb Keflezighi, Ryan Hall, and Abdi Abdirahman were the top 3 male finishers and Shalane Flanagan, Desiree Davila, and Kara Goucher were the top 3 female finishers who were all named to the U.S. Olympic Team.
I really wanted to see Ryan Hall compete in London, so we built our European travel plans that summer around spectating at the men’s marathon. With the exorbitant cost of hotels, we limited our time in London to the final weekend of the Olympics. One of the things that I remember most about our experience there was how well organized everything was around the city.
Fast forward ten years later to the prep for Paris 2024. Our experience getting tickets for Paris was vastly different and much easier than our previous attempts at ticketing for London, Rio, and Beijing. The process for buying tickets for those Games was administered by CoSport in essentially a first come, first serve format. In reality, this turned into long and unrealistic queues online that left us shut out from actually getting tickets.
In late 2022, we each signed up for the initial drawing to purchase a set of three event tickets (“Make your own Games pack”). Then, in mid-February to mid-March 2023, notifications were sent by email if you were successfully drawn with a specific 48-hour timeslot that you could purchase your tickets. Kurt got drawn first, so we got our first set of tickets then (Rugby Sevens, Tennis, Beach Volleyball). I didn’t get selected to purchase tickets until later, and by then, there wasn’t much of interest left available from that initial ticket drop. With the promise of some tickets secured, we went ahead and made a reservation for lodging. I was pleased to find a flat near Champs-Elysees at an affordable price on Airbnb, so I jumped on it! Pleased with my advance planning, we had a confirmed trip to the Olympics!
That is, until I received a notice in August 2023 from Airbnb that our reservation had been cancelled. This left me scrambling to find us a place to stay at a point much later in the preparation process than I would have liked. Thankfully, I found a hotel for the first week of the Olympics, albeit in a less central location and at a higher rate than my original Airbnb booking. But, our crisis was averted. We made sure to prepay in full for the hotel too so that we could avoid any last-minute cancellations on their part.
And then, ticket sales picked up in 2024. With unannounced and announced ticket releases occurring throughout the first half of the year, I have been methodically adding events to our itinerary with additional tickets purchased every month since February. A couple notable instances involved waking up in the middle of the night to purchase Athletics (Track & Field) finals tickets at 3am and grabbing Opening Ceremony and Swimming tickets when they were released while we happened to be in Europe in April (meaning that I didn’t have to wake up in the middle of the night to purchase them at home!). And, just today I was able to snag some highly sought after tickets via the official ticketing resale site for Artistic Gymnastics in the section of the draw that Team USA women will be competing! While I have spent a lot of time monitoring the ticket website(s), some folks have found this (paid) tracker useful to receive real-time notifications for when tickets of interest become available.
Here is our (current) itinerary for Paris 2024!
Friday, July 26 | Opening Ceremony (River Seine) |
Saturday, July 27 | Rugby Sevens (Men Semi-Finals, Bronze & Gold Medal Matches) |
Sunday, July 28 | Artistic Gymnastics (Women) – Qualifications Subdivision 1: Great Britain and Romania; Subdivision 2: Team USA, Italy, and People’s Republic of China |
Women’s Soccer (Brazil vs Japan) | |
Monday, July 29 | Swimming (Women’s 400m Medley-Heats, Women’s 100m Backstroke-Heats, Men’s 800m Freestyle-Heats) |
Tuesday, July 30 | Swimming (Men’s 200m Butterfly – Heats, Men’s 100m Freestyle – Heats, Women’s 1500m Freestyle – Heats, Women’s 100m Freestyle – Heats, Men’s 200m Breaststroke – Heats, Men’s 4x200m Freestyle Relay – Heats) |
Tennis (Court Philippe-Chatrier at Roland Garros – Men’s Singles Second Round, Women’s Singles Third Round) | |
Wednesday, July 31 | Beach Volleyball at Eiffel Tower – Women and Men Prelims (Draw announced June 29) Men: Czechia – 2023 World Champs Ondrej Perusic/David Schweiner vs. Austria – Julian Hörl/Alexander Horst Women: Switzerland – Nina Brunner/Tanja Hüberli vs. Germany – Laura Ludwig/Louisa Lippmann; Germany – Cinja Tillmann/Svenja Müller vs. Czechia – Barbora Hermannová/Marie-Sára Štochlova; Latvia -Tina Graudina/Anastasija Samoilova vs. Paraguay – Michelle Valiente/Giuliana Poletti |
Friday, August 9 | Diving Men’s 10m Platform Preliminary |
Athletics (Women’s 400m Final, Women’s 10,000m Final, Women’s Heptathlon 800m, Women’s 4 x 100m Relay Final, Women’s Shot Put Final, Men’s 400m Hurdles Final, Men’s 4 x 100m Relay, Final Men’s Triple Jump Final) | |
Saturday, August 10 | Men’s Marathon (Finish) |
Women’s Soccer (Gold Medal Match) | |
Sunday, August 11 | Women’s Marathon |
Not to mention visits to the Hospitality Houses hosted by various countries! I found a couple of resources online that were helpful in securing tickets to a couple of them. We will be attending the events hosted by Germany, Netherlands, and France in addition to any free ones that fit into our schedule. We will also be taking advantage of the perks offered to Chase Sapphire Reserve cardholders, as we did the same with Visa in London 2012.
And, last but not least, I won an entry to participate in the 10k that is being held on Saturday night in between the men’s and women’s marathon events on Saturday and Sunday mornings, respectively. Again, this is a process that began in 2022 with the accumulation of points earned for participating in various physical activities through the end of 2023. If you reached the points threshold, then you were placed into a drawing for an entry into the marathon that is also being held that same night. Neither of us won a marathon entry (and, you couldn’t buy your way in), but I did win an entry in December to the 10k by participating in various online challenges last year. And, given the hills of the marathon course and the likely heat in August, I’m perfectly content to “just” run the 10k! So, then we had to make plans to return to Paris for the final weekend of the Games.
This past weekend, a group of us from around the area who will be attending the Games met up in person in Austin, Texas to share tips and, most importantly, excitement for what is to come. It was fun to meet others who have similar event and travel interests! One of the attendees was a family friend of one of the athletes who we will see competing, Brazilian soccer player Rafaelle Souza!
The countdown to Paris 2024 is officially on!
I can’t wait to see the Olympic rings installed on the Eiffel Tower next month!
