The Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games

The first modern Olympic Games took place in Athens in 1896. While in those early days of the Olympics only amateur and gentleman athletes were allowed to participate, today Olympic athletes are highly trained professionals often dedicating decades of preparation for the chance to compete in the Olympic Games. In sharp contrast to these highly trained athletes, the world's population becomes less physically active on average, resulting in an obesity epidemic with associated metabolic syndrome and increased mortality through non-communicable diseases (e.g., Collins et al.¹).

How can athletes maximize their performance potential during the Olympic games, stay healthy in the confines of the Olympic village, and what transfer effect, if any, do the Olympic games have on general human health, physical activity, fitness, health, or well-being? These are some of the questions we put to an expert panel who accepted our invitation to contribute to this special topic on the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Nassis and colleagues, provide a practical guide of 6 recommendations that need careful consideration to ensure optimal performance of athletes during the Olympic games. These include the monitoring and evaluation of athletes’ readiness for competition, the importance of proper tapering, the optimal use of high-altitude training, considerations of competing in the heat as will likely be the case for many events in Paris 2024, the incorporation of novel technologies and optimal equipment selection, and special considerations for the preparation of team athletes.

Once at the Olympics, years of training can instantly be rendered in vain by injury or disease. Jooste and Schwellnus provide practical advice on how to reduce the risk of infections at the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. On average, 3% of athletes have an infection during summer Olympic Games, except for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics where this number was reduced to less than 1%. Because of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, special measures, such as mandatory vaccination, quarantine, mask wearing, restrictions on the number of spectators, and isolation “bubbles” for athletes, coaches, and officials were successfully introduced in Tokyo, but they came at a cost to the organizers and athletes. However, the lessons learned from the 2020 Olympics can be applied to some extent by coaches and athletes to reduce the risk for infection. Snyders and colleagues provide further advice for the preparation, treatment and care of Paralympic athletes which are known to be at greater risk for injury and disease. Paralympians often suffer from chronic pain, are on medication specific to their needs, have altered thermoregulation and thus require special attention when competing in the heat, and are frequently more susceptible to infectious diseases, all issues that can be addressed proactively to guarantee optimal performance capacity during competition.

The remaining 4 articles of this special Olympic topic deal with the possible transfer effect of elite sport, the Olympic Games, and athlete behavior to population health, physical activity, and awareness of physical activity guidelines. Tremblay and colleagues performed correlational analyses between a country's success at the Olympic Games and adherence to physical activity guidelines and found little relationship except for some host cities of Olympic Winter Games which saw a distinct increase in youth sports and athletic activity following the Olympic games. Tremblay et al. remind us that like athletes, the general population also needs appropriate physical activity combined with the right mix of rest and sufficient and restful sleep. Therefore, establishing awareness of the 24-hour movement guidelines^2,3 within the context of the Olympic Games may be one way to promote physical activity.

Bull and Simpson make practical suggestions on how sports mega-events, such as the Olympic Games, may help increase population physical activity as part of their legacy. They recognize that scientific evidence suggests that such transfer is minimal at best, but outline strategies how a physical activity legacy might be achieved as part of big sporting events. They point at Paris 2024, where legacy planning has been part of the overall organization of the Olympic Games, and propose a four-step approach, suggested by the World Health Organization aimed at increasing participation in physical activity by 15% by 2030. These steps include (a) the active promotion of activity and sport before, during and following the Olympics, (b) the investment in infrastructure for physical activity and accessibility to these facilities for all, (c) the creation of programs encouraging physical activity, and (d) the nurturing of long-lasting change through strategic investment, policy and collaboration.

Ding and Ekelund point to the difficulty of making causal inferences between physical activity and long-term health outcomes and focus on the possible overestimation of the effects of physical activity on general health. They encourage trans-disciplinary research that incorporates outcomes of physical and mental health, to explore the ever increasingly complex effects and interactions of physical activity on a great number of non-communicable diseases and optimize dose–response associations between physical activity intensity and mortality risks.⁴

One of the difficulties in assessing the amount of physical activity that is sufficient and optimal for a person is the lack of an objective measure of “physical activity” as a function of age, sex, physical ability, environment, etc. The Physical Activity Compendia in its various iterations provides a structured, objective, and acknowledged measure of physical activity through its definition of the metabolic equivalent (MET). Herrmann and colleagues, introduce the concept of MET, provide references to important updates on the Compendium specific to different populations,5, 6, 7 and finally provide values for the energy cost of walking to different destinations in Paris should you be lucky enough to attend the Paris 2024 games.

When enjoying the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, in person or on TV, let's admire the incredible achievements of these elite athletes, but at the same time, let's contribute to our own health, well-being, and “joie de vivre”, and that of our family and friends, through participation in fun and games and physical activity and exercise.

Competing interests

The author declares that he has no competing interests.