The last time Paris hosted the Olympics was 100 years ago, in 1924 — and the games looked drastically different.
Ahead of this year’s Summer Olympics, we looked at how Paris is paying homage to the 1924 Games and how the city has changed its approach since it last hosted 100 years ago.
The cost of staging an Olympic Games — in either century — is staggering.
According to a WalletHub report, Paris is estimated to have spent $8.2 billion on the 2024 Olympic Games. The country spent an estimated 10 million francs in 1924, according to “A Look At Olympic Costs” at The Olympic Studies Centre.
This year, Paris is dedicated to reusing and restructuring as many existing facilities as possible in an effort to be more sustainable. According to the Olympics, the city is also reusing some original facilities used during the 1924 Games, including the Stade Olympique de Colombes, which is now known as the Yves-du-Manoir Stadium.
Here’s a look at the 1924 Olympics compared to this year’s games.
The 1924 Olympics took place in Paris.
The Olympics were held in Paris and the suburb of Colombes, France, between May 4 and July 27, 1924.
Paris will host the Olympics for the third time this year.
The 2024 Paris Olympics will be held from July 26 to August 11, and most of the events will take place in the heart of the French capital.
The 1924 Olympics had 17 sports and 126 medal events for its 3,089 athletes to compete in.
Female fencing was introduced at the 1924 Olympics.
It also marked the last time — for more than 60 years — that tennis was included in the Olympic lineup, according to the Olympics. It would eventually return for the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.
The number of athletic events at this year’s Olympics has doubled since 1924, and 10,500 athletes will take part.
At this year’s Olympics, 32 sports will be represented, including the brand-new sport of breaking, and there will be 329 medal events.
The 1924 Paris Olympics attracted a record number of spectators and were the first games to be broadcast on the radio.
According to the Olympics, 625,000 people watched the events live in Paris, but many more were also able to tune in at home for the very first time.
According to Guinness World Records, the 1924 Olympics became the first to air live radio broadcasts of Olympic events, a huge technological advance for the games.
However, according to Guinness World Records, international radio broadcasting was still being developed, so the broadcasts were mostly heard by French audiences.
This year’s Olympics could be the most-watched Olympic Games in history.
The International Olympic Committee reported that the past two Summer Olympic Games, held in Rio and Tokyo, each brought in over 3 billion viewers worldwide, according to EMarketer.
Millions of people are expected to flock to France to view the events in person, including 20,000 accredited journalists and 45,000 volunteers, according to the Olympics.
The Stade Olympique de Colombes served as the main venue during the 1924 Olympics.
The stadium hosted many of the Olympics’ main events, including gymnastics and the opening and closing ceremonies.
The same stadium will be used again this year, though it won’t serve as a central venue.
According to the Olympics, the Yves-du-Manoir Stadium, as it is now known, will be used for field-hockey events at this year’s games.
The Stade Nautique des Tourelles was used for swimming, diving, and water polo events.
The stadium still exists, though it won’t be featured in the official competition.
Now known as the Georges-Vallerey swimming pool, the original stadium will be used this year as a training facility for athletes entered in swimming, marathon swimming, and triathlon events, according to the Olympics.
This year’s swimming events will take place in the Seine River and at Paris La Defense Arena.
One of the most notable additions to this year’s Olympics is the use of the Seine River as a site for official Olympic events, including the opening ceremony, the triathlon, and open-water swimming.
Following a rigorous cleaning process, the Seine will be used for the open-swimming event, marking a historic moment.
Bloomberg reported that no other city has held Olympic swimming events in an “urban river” since 1896, and swimming in the Seine has been banned since 1923.
The 1924 Olympic Village was the first of its kind.
The Olympics reported that the first Olympic Village, known as the Village Olympique, was constructed near the Yves-du-Manoir stadium in Colombes, a suburb northwest of Paris.
According to the Olympics, the 1924 Olympic Village consisted of temporary wooden cabins with three beds. Since the buildings were temporary, they could easily be deconstructed after the games were over.
This year’s Olympic Village is located near the Saint-Denis stadium, just north of central Paris.
The 2024 Olympic Village was built with sustainability in mind and used wood and recycled materials in its construction — though the facilities look remarkably more modern than the wooden cabins built 100 years ago.
To construct the Olympic Village, the city also used methods with a lower carbon footprint than other building projects across the country, according to the Olympics.
The facilities in the first Olympic Village were bare-bones.
According to the Olympics, athletes staying in the temporary housing complex had access to a currency exchange bureau, a dry cleaner, a hair salon, a newsagent, a restaurant, and a post office.
This year’s Olympic Village will remain after the games end.
According to the Olympics, the village, which the organization says offers “state-of-the-art” living quarters, will be converted into 2,800 apartments, providing housing for about 6,000 people.
Of those, a quarter will be part of a local social-housing initiative for lower-income residents after the games wrap up.
The 1924 Olympics were revolutionary in many ways, though women were still barred from certain sports.
Taking place soon after World War I, the 1924 Summer Olympics were marketed as an opportunity for the world to come together and celebrate peace — though German athletes were not allowed to take part in the 1920 or 1924 Olympics, according to History.
According to Britannica, more than 100 women competed in the 1924 Olympics. However, there were not women’s competitions across all sports.
For example, at the 1924 Olympics, gymnastics events were limited to men only, according to the Olympics, a stark difference compared to the female-driven gymnastics programs of modern Olympic Games.
The Olympics have arguably never been as diverse as they are now.
The Olympics reported that 44 countries competed in the 1924 Games. Many countries also made their Olympic debut, including Ecuador, Ireland, and the Philippines.
This year, more than 200 countries will take part in the Olympics, in addition to the Refugee Olympic Team.
The post Vintage photos show how the 1924 Paris Olympics compare to this year’s games, from the Olympic Village to the venues appeared first on Business Insider.
