Friday Briefing: The Olympics Begin

The Paris Olympics are finally here. And unlike the Tokyo Games in 2021, the stands will be packed with fans.

The opening ceremony is at 7:30 p.m. Paris time (that’s 3:30 a.m. Saturday in Sydney, 1:30 a.m. in Hong Kong). Athletes will float in on boats in the Seine, dressed in their national costumes for the parade of nations.

Some competitions have already begun, but the Games get into full swing tomorrow, with women’s swimming, men’s basketball and tennis. More than 300 events, many sprinkled across Paris, will take place before the Olympics end on Aug. 11.

“Gymnastics, swimming and track remain the heartbeat of the Games,” said Andrew Das, our lead Olympics editor. “Good stories there will make any Olympics more memorable.”

Names to watch: Leon Marchand, a swimmer known as the “French Michael Phelps,” and Teddy Riner, a fashionable French judoka looking for his third heavyweight gold medal, are generating some excitement. There’s also Simone Biles, the American gymnast who pulled out of the Tokyo Olympics, and the American swimmer Katie Ledecky, who is looking to add to her seven gold medals.

“There are few bigger stars than Simone Biles,” Andrew said. “And Katie Ledecky has a chance to become the most decorated American woman in Olympic history — a fitting moment in a Games that may, for the first time, have as many women competitors as men.”