The journey to Paris 2024 is enriched with new exclusive and original content, premiering on Wednesday 26 July from 20:00 on Warner Bros. Discovery platforms to celebrate the One year to go milestone.
On July 26, 2023, WBD will celebrate the countdown to the return of the Games to Europe, for the first time since London 2012, with a debut Olympic night on Warner Bros. Discovery channels in Paris, La Vie Sportive: the dedicated docuseries to the sporting hundred years of Paris since the 1924 Olympic Games.
Divided into two sixty-minute episodes and broadcast in its entirety on Wednesday 26 July from 8.30 pm, Paris, La Vie Sportive has as narrator the legendary winner of the 1998 World Cup, at Saint Denis in Paris, and of the 2000 European Championships Thierry Henry ( whose original voice will be available in the English, French and Spanish versions of the discovery+ multilingual option). Stories that explore the deep connection between sport and Paris, with the participation of French football legends Emmanuel Petit and Marcel Desailly; of the strongest runner of all time Eddy Merckx, of Mats Wilander 7 times tennis Slam champion and of Yannick Noah, last French winner of Roland-Garros.
Speaking of La Vie Sportive and the Olympic Games, Thierry Henry declares: «Every time a major event takes place in one’s own country, joy spreads among the people and the desire to practice a new sport. One hundred years ago, thanks to sport, Paris was able to rise from the rubble of the Great War: to see a light at the end of the tunnel, because the Olympic Games bring hope and resilience. Because Paris is not only elegant, but knows how to fight to defend its values».
Scott Young, SVP Content and Production at Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe: “The Olympic year is a defining moment for us. To offer our audience ever more original and exclusive products, towards the most important sporting event of 2024. Telling the best and most evocative Olympic stories before broadcasting the next Games live in full and in 20 languages in our 50 European markets”.
To preview Paris, La Vie Sportive on the evening of 26 July, Eurosport host Radzi Chinyanganya will present a special titled One year to dream, at 20:00, hosting Paris 2024 President Tony Estanguet, the 3-time Olympic champion judo player Teddy Riner, 9 times BMX world champion Matthias Dandois and Olympic foil medalist Ysaora Thibus. The evening programming on Eurosport and on discovery+ will then be punctuated, at 10.30pm, by the golden profiles of some timeless sporting legends, protagonists of the new series sponsored by Bridgestone The Olympians.
THE OLYMPIC PROGRAMMING OF WEDNESDAY 26 JULY ON EUROSPORT 1:
19:00 Tokyo 2020 Hall of Fame
20:00 Parigi 2024 One year to dream
20:30 Paris, Sporting life (Episode 1)
21:30 Paris, Sporting life (Episode 2)
22:30 The Olympians
Warner Bros. Discovery’s Road to Paris 2024 also includes the programming of many other specials and documentaries until the eve of “The Greatest Show on Earth”: the Opening Ceremony of the next Olympic Games. Among these, The Super Six, the docuseries dedicated to the dreams of six very different athletes, to conquer the gold in Paris, and Athletes to Watch, a brand new series of 25 episodes broadcast starting from January 2024.
The new one-week marketing campaign also starts from One year to go and launched on July 26 together with the new Warner Bros. Discovery logo inspired by the art nouveau of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. One year to dream is the campaign born in the heart of Paris reflected in the eyes of young people who, associated with local sports clubs, describe their passion for the Games in their hometown. Shorts directed by Eric Nung and produced by Jordan Santoulin air on all Warner Bros. Discovery linear, digital and social platforms.
Dina Asher-Smith, who won the last two Olympic bronze medals in 4x100m track and field, is Britain’s fastest woman and will be Warner Bros. Discovery’s Olympic ambassador in the run-up to Paris 2024, charting her journey to the his third Olympic Games: «My new role will be to convey the magic of racing in Paris 2024, trying to have a positive influence on the Warner Bros. Discovery audience with all my human and sporting energy».
Since its first edition in 2018, Warner Bros. Discovery has rewritten the rules of the Olympic Games both on TV and especially in streaming, involving an ever-widening audience and setting a record throughout Europe thanks to its innovative storytelling adhering to all platforms.
Warner Bros. Discovery recorded one billion minutes of streaming during the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games, with new digital subscribers exceeding those of previous Winter Games by 50%. In Tokyo 2020, more than 372 million people in Europe watched the Olympic Games on WBD’s channels and platforms together with its 45 sublicensing partners, as part of an ever-widening coverage strategy of the Olympic Games.
In Italy, the summer of Eurosport is worldwide, from the fencing world championship in Milan until 30 July, to the great event in August that returns to the Warner Bros. Discovery channels: the World Athletics Championships in Budapest on 19-27 August, the sport manifesto of the Five Circles which made 5 Italian gold medals shine in Tokyo 2020.
In August, Eurosport will also broadcast the entire cycling World Championships which from 3 to 13 August will combine road, track, mountain bike and BMX in Glasgow before the now historic and very hot exclusive appointment with the Vuelta a Spain. Cycling which in 2023 ends at the Giro di Lombardia – in addition to the decisive stages of the UCI Mountain Bike World Series and the increasingly spectacular UCI Track Champions League – and which in the Olympic year will experience another very intense spring towards the sea of Milan- Sanremo and the sacred peaks of the Giro d’Italia, passing by the Monuments of the North.
After the great emotions of the playoffs at the end of the season, Italian basketball restarts in autumn with the Super Cup and the new LBA championship on Warner Bros. Discovery channels. On leave with the Rod Laver Cup exclusively on Eurosport, great tennis is back in 2024 from Melbourne to Paris, not to miss a single exchange of the Australian Open and Roland Garros live in full on discovery+.
Finally, the Olympic Games finally return to Europe and from 26 July 2024 and will be three weeks of emotions and medals to be experienced on Discovery+: the only Paris 2024 platform in full live and on demand, for over 3800 hours of heart-pounding Five Circles .