Where is the Boxing Being Held at the 2024 Paris Olympics?
Some sports hit their peak with the quadrennial global competition. The Summer Games have become the ultimate proving ground for almost all athletic disciplines and many team sports. Some sports, however, utilise the Olympics to cultivate professional stars, with one such sport being boxing.
From 26 July to 11 August 2024, athletes worldwide shall amass in Paris gunning for gold. Events are taking place all over the capital. In total, 40 venues have been picked to host events ranging from legendary stadiums like Parc des Princes to Taiarapu-Ouest in Tahiti for surfing events. Of course, what we want to know is, where is the boxing in Paris 2024?
Where will the boxing be at the Paris Olympics?
The boxing will be held at two venues in Paris during the 2024 Olympic Games. Within the Grand Paris Zone, the preliminaries and the quarter-finals for the boxing competitions will all be held in Arena Paris Nord. Called “Parc des Expositions de Villepinte” locally, the convention centre has a capacity of 6,000 and will also play host to the fencing rounds of the modern pentathlon.
Where we might see the next Usyk (who’ll now fight in May) reveal themselves will be over at the legendary Stade Roland Garros. Seating up to 34,000 spectators, Roland Garros Stadium is most famous for being the annual host of the French Open Grand Slam in tennis. As you’d assume, Stade Roland Garros will also host the tennis events of the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Luckily for spectators, both venues are close enough to at least one of Paris’ major airports. Stade Roland Garros is less than an hour away from Paris-Orly Airport by car at the most congested of times. Then, Arena Paris Nord is just one stop away on the metro from Charles de Gaulle Airport. The airports are essentially on opposite sides of the French capital.
As Paris-Orly Airport is only 13km south of the city, those intending to fly to Paris will likely want to land there – especially as there’s a connecting train line (RER B) and shuttle services that take you directly to the middle of the capital. It’s the closest to the venue for the finals and easy to get to from the city centre. That said, if you have tickets to the earlier rounds, Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport has a 30-minute train (RER B) to the centre and is 11 minutes from the convention centre.
Seeing boxing’s next huge star perform under pressure
The boxing divisions have altered slightly at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. Male boxing events have seen the light heavyweight category removed. On the female side, an extra class has been added, bringing in bantamweight. This totals seven male and six female events to follow from a Round of 32 or Round of 16 through to the Finals. All of the Finals will be taking place from 6 to 10 August.
Right now, one of the biggest names in boxing is an Olympic gold medallist. Part of a star-studded boxing class, Oleksandr Usyk won the heavyweight division at the 2012 London Games, beating Italian Clemente Russo.
He’s since gone on to dominate at light heavyweight as a professional and step up to heavyweight to claim the majority of the belts from Anthony Joshua, who won the super heavyweight gold at the same Games but now seeks to continue to rebuild with a fight against former UFC champion Francis Ngannou.
The 2012 Summer Olympics also saw superb pro pugilists Vasyl Lomachenko, Nicola Adams, Katie Taylor, and Claressa Shields take gold.
Four years later, Adams and Shields ended up on top of the podium again, Shakur Stevenson won the silver medal at bantamweight, and Julio César La Cruz got his first gold medal. These Games also saw a controversial super heavyweight final in which Joe Joyce was deemed to have lost to Frenchman Tony Yoka. The silver medallist has enjoyed his share of success in the pros: Yoka has not.
Undoubtedly, future greats of the pro game will announce themselves at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Will you be there to see them in their first major triumphs?
