2024 Olympics: schedule and main events to follow on July 27 in Paris

Let the Paris Games begin. The Olympic Games are officially underway after a memorable opening ceremony on Friday.

Saturday’s competitions will feature gymnastics, swimming, beach volleyball and tennis. Men’s basketball will also begin, although the U.S. team will not compete until Sunday.

Katie Ledecky begins her quest for an 11th Olympic gold medal in the 400m freestyle on Saturday, where she will compete against Australian rival Ariarne Titmus, the reigning gold medallist. Carlos Alcaraz and Rafael Nadal begin their doubles campaign at Roland Garros, while Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula will do the same in the women’s event.

The best events to see

• 5 am Eastern Time: Gymnastics – Men’s Classification: Subdiv. 1 Floor, Parallel Bars, Pommel Horse, Rings, Vault

• 5 am Eastern Time: Swimming: Heats of men’s/women’s 100m breaststroke, men’s/women’s 400m freestyle and men’s/women’s 4x1000m freestyle relay

• 6:00 am ET: Tennis – Women’s Singles Round 1

• 8:00 am ET: Beach volleyball: US men’s team faces Cuba

• 2:30 pm Eastern Time. Swimming: Men’s/Women’s 100m Breaststroke semi-finals, plus medal rounds for Men’s/Women’s 400m Freestyle and Men’s/Women’s 4x100m Freestyle Relay

A complete list of the July 27 schedule can be found here.

This is what awaits us on Saturday:

New technology

How high does Simone Biles fly on her triple-double tumbling pass?

Following her floor performance at the Olympic trials in Minneapolis last month, SportsCenter tried to figure it out with an Instagram post. The graphic measured the top of Biles’ head, which was 12 feet off the ground, providing enough room for 7-foot-10 NBA center Victor Wembanyama to get underneath her.

There were no measuring devices at Target Center during testing, so ESPN’s measurement served as an approximation based on a photo.

In Paris, fans will learn exactly how high Biles flies.

Omega, the Official Timekeeper of the Olympic Games, is debuting a new technology across all sports that uses motion- and position-sensing cameras and artificial intelligence to capture the biomechanical movement of athletes. It will also display precise measurements such as height, reaction time and air time.

“In tennis, we will finally be able to see whether reaction times influence the quality of returns,” says Alain Zobrist, CEO of Omega Timing.

For sports with a finish line, such as track and field, Zobrist says the upgraded photo-finish cameras will capture 40,000 photos per second and deliver immediate results.

In gymnastics, the technology will be used during men’s and women’s competitions for narrative purposes on live broadcasts and to assist head judges when there are discrepancies. While this technology was not used to create SportsCenter’s feed from the trials, that is precisely the type of content Zobrist said can be generated during competitions.

Cameras and sensors will be placed only around the floor exercise and data generated in real time (such as height and air time of skills) will be provided to television broadcast crews. More sophisticated data that takes a few seconds to generate (such as body position during a pass) will be provided to the head judges as well as to the athletes, their coaches and delegations for training purposes.

Zobrist says the technology has been tested in local and international competitions for about four years to ensure judges were comfortable with it ahead of the Paris Games. He also says that while the sensors can detect when an athlete steps out of the bounds of the track during a pass, they won’t replace humans in this task — for now.

“We continue to work strictly according to the rules of the federation and the rules require that the judges be present,” says Zobrist.

However, that could change in the future, and not just because of out-of-bounds decisions.

“We’ll see a significant evolution in gymnastics technology in the coming years,” he says. “However, it’s hard to say when we’ll be more accurate than humans at detecting differences in athletes’ performance. It will be interesting to ask myself that question again before the Olympic Games in Los Angeles (in 2028). I may have a better answer to give them then.” Alyssa Roenigk