Special content across BBC.com, BBC News, podcasts and newsletters.
“As always, the BBC is marking the world’s oldest sporting festival with all the richness, depth and authority that only the BBC can bring. Across our digital, television and audio platforms, we will be offering a definitive but also singular and surprising overview of the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games for our audiences worldwide.” – Cassian Harrison, SVP Content Creation & Acquisition at BBC Studios
The BBC have announced extensive content from Paris during the Olympic Games for international audiences (ex-UK). The BBC is bringing people together so they can watch, listen to and read the latest from Paris, with comprehensive international coverage across its digital, TV, audio and newsletter platforms, and special content across the BBC News channel, BBC.com/Sport, newsletters, podcasts and features.
BBC.com/Sport
Throughout the games BBC.com/Sport will have a dedicated “Paris 2024” sub-section which will cover the latest news from the Olympic and Paralympic Games. It will feature live text commentaries with the latest medal winners, expert analysis and user interaction; in-depth reporting on key athletes, major medal events, the host city and newsworthy events around Paris. There will also be regular star name columns from some high-profile former Olympians and Paralympians including Michael Johnson and Steve Cram. As well as live medal tables, schedules of events with results and stats, a day-by-day guide, as well as interactive content including a daily Olympic quiz and audience voting.
TechXplore
The BBC News channel’s technology and travel programme TechXplore will be airing three very special episodes before and during the games, exploring how cutting-edge technology and innovations are influencing how athletes train and compete, and also how the games are broadcast and experienced by viewers around the world.
In the first episode ‘Countdown to the Games’ (TX July 20th weekend), BBC tech journalist and huge Olympic and Paralympic fan, Paul Carter goes behind-the-scenes to see how technology underpins so much of the Olympics and Paralympics – from the events themselves to the way ‘digital twins’ of most of the key venues have been created in the virtual world. These simulations allow organisers, broadcasters and athletes to see precisely how these arenas will operate before they are even built, reducing the number of site visits needed to Paris. TechXplore also gets a sneak peek at the tools developed to streamline the Olympic experience for fans and athletes including the private 5G networks installed to help capture the opening ceremony and sailing events.
In episode two ‘The Global Experience’ (TX August 10th weekend) Carter continues his tech journey looking next at how the events taking place in the summer games in Paris will be experienced by a global audience. With AI and the Cloud transforming the global experience of the Paris games, this will be the first ever games not to use satellites as a key component in the broadcast infrastructure, instead all footage will be transferred via huge data centres in Frankfurt to broadcasters around the world, making the Paris Games far more sustainable than previous competitions.
The third episode ‘Breaking Barriers’ (TX August 17th weekend), airing in between the Olympics and Paralympics, sees Carter head to join the crowds in Paris to capture and join in with their experiences during some of the exciting highs and lows of the Olympic action. This is an opportunity for Paul to witness for himself some of the Paris atmosphere and to test the technology transforming the fan experience, including maps which are designed to help visually impaired people navigate the city and its venues.
Paul Carter, host of TechXplore Paris said: “As a lifelong fan of the Olympics and Paralympics, it’s been a privilege to see up-close how Paris will depend on technology like never before. From athletes to venues to broadcasters, tech will play a key role in making these Games a success and it’s been a real joy discovering what’s happening behind the scenes and I can’t wait for people to see it.”
TechXplore Paris ‘Countdown to the Games’ airs on BBC News on Saturday 20th July at 01:30 and 07:30 and Sunday 21st July at 14:30 and 21:30 (all times GMT).
BBC News Channel
There is a lot more Olympic related content across the BBC News Channel too, with a number of its flagship programmes including Influential with Katty Kay, The Travel Show and Talking Movies, as well as other special programming, all sharing a theme of celebration of the upcoming games.
The second season of the popular interview series Influential with Katty Kay, features four episodes with sporting legends in basketball legend Magic Johnson, alpine ski racer Lindsey Vonn, track and field star Jackie Joyner-Kersee and 2-time Olympic gold medal gymnast Aly Raisman.
There will also be a repeat of the Paris special of The Travel Show titled ‘Paris: Beyond 2024’ (airing Saturday 20th July) which aired earlier this year, in which former Paralympian Steve Brown visited Paris to find out how the games are transforming the city.
Pedal to Paris will see UK celebrities traveling by bike from London to Paris and discuss issues of pollution, sustainability in sport, and beating the heat. Content will be featured across digital as well as on the BBC News Channel.
Film programme Talking Movies have also produced a special French Cinema Classics episode (repeating in August) , celebrating one of the most successful film industries in Europe.
Alongside all this special content, BBC News channel’s regular sports update Sportsday will have a reporter on location in Paris to capture the Olympic atmosphere and excitement providing updates on the games plus interviews with athletes and commentators,. The programme airs at 23:45 (GMT) with overnight repeats.
Audio
In podcasts from BBC World Service English, Comedian Eliza Skinner and BBC Athletics Commentator Ed Harry interview remarkable athletes about the journeys they took to the Olympics and Paralympics in On the Podium. Presenter Rana Rahimpour takes a deep dive into the complicated relationship between Iran and its heroes with the deeply personal Amazing Sports Stories: Legend of Takhti which tells the story of the extraordinary Gholamreza Takhti, the multiple gold Olympic medal-winner, who in January 1968, was found dead in a Tehran hotel room.
BBC World Service English, will also host Olympics news and updates from Paris in special editions of Sportsworld and Sport Today, presented by Lee James, with on-site reporters, Ed Harry and Ade Adedoyin. Isaac Fanin will have reports and interviews on Newsday, while Sportshour, presented by Caroline Barker, will provide the human-interest stories behind the medals.
There are also a number of Olympic related audio documentaries across BBC World Service English throughout July and August including:
The Next Paralympians (TX: Saturday 24th Aug) presented by Dan Pepper, a British ex-Paralympic swimmer who has a learning disability, tells the story of pioneering athletes who are the first to represent their country at the Paralympics in the intellectual disability classification.
In Courting Success – A Journey to Paris 2024 (TX: Thurs 29th August) we hear about the life and career of wheelchair tennis champion Kgothatso Montjane, who has powerful feelings regarding diversity, equity and inclusion in sport and was the first black South African woman to compete at Wimbledon.
The gay activists who won an Olympic-sized battle (TX: Thurs 25th July) tells the inspiring story of a small campaign group who forced a change after the legislators in Cobb County Atlanta, a venue for the volleyball competition at the 1996 Olympics, passed a resolution in 1993 stating that “lifestyles advocated by the gay community are incompatible with the standards to which this community describes”.
In India’s Wrestling School for Girls (TX: Thurs 25th July) BBC Journalist Divya Arya looks at how young girls living in In the industrial town of Haryana in Northern India, are breaking barriers by training to become the next generation of gold medal winning wrestlers – and what it takes to become an Indian wrestling heroine.
And finally, with this year’s Olympic Games in Paris seeing the introduction of breakdancing as a new sport, B-girl Raygun – Breaking into the Olympics (TX: Tues 6th August) follows Rachael Gunn, known as b-girl Raygun, the highest ranked female breaker in Australia and her nation’s biggest hope for a gold medal. What techniques can she use to prepare for the unknown? And where does sport end and art begin?
Newsletter
The BBC Sport team will also be delivering a daily newsletter called BBC Medal Moments offering readers a global picture from the greatest sporting show on earth. BBC Sport has every angle covered from the Paris Olympics – the medal haul, the athletes to watch, the stories behind the remarkable journeys many have taken to earn their place at the Games, recaps of the can’t-miss highlights from the previous day’s action – and looks ahead to what to watch out for, and is available for sign-ups now.
Features
Sections across BBC.com will also have plenty of content including:
Earth will be publishing a series on Sports and Sustainability delving into the environmental impact of the Olympic games.
Innovation will be looking into the Science of Fitness with topics ranging from Olympic sports to everyday athleticism. It will also be covering the Paris Paralympics, looking at how tech can improve accessibility to and beyond sport.
Travel will feature its twice-weekly guide, The SpeciaList, which will be providing a local take on France, Paris and beyond, for those interested in more than just the games. Whilst The World’s Table will have interviews with the French chefs running the world’s largest restaurant: the one at Olympic Village.
Culture will also cover related topics ranging from significant moments of Olympic history to the teams with the best style today.
(Source: BBC)
