France’s famed capital city, Paris, will be home to the 2024 Summer Olympic Games held from July 26 to Aug. 11. It will then host the Paralympic Games from Aug. 28 to Sept. 8. Known for its iconic sites such as the Eiffel Tower and the Notre Dame Cathedral, the city has captured the hearts of countless writers, artists, and musicians over the years. But there’s more to Paris than first meets the eye. Amid the city hosting the 2024 Olympics, here are 10 surprising facts about Paris. Paris has...

The Olympics is, by its very nature, horny. Tens of thousands of jacked-up athletes living in the same self-contained complex during one long, hot summer, competing with each other for hunks of gold? Please. Rumours about the “sex-mad” Games have swirled for decades, with athletes telling stories of foursomes, public sex, and a “different woman every night”. That is, until 2021, when sex was, for all intents and purposes, banned. Taking a leaf out of the Too Hot to Handle playbook (and, you know, following government guidelines), organisers of the...

Apparently, it’s not just athletic ability that British Olympians are expected to perfect any more. Once they return from the Paris Olympics, which kick off this evening, they will be under pressure to become political activists, too. Back in March, Team GB, ParalympicsGB and UK Sport – the government body responsible for investing in the Olympics and Paralympics – announced its new ‘ChangeMakers’ initiative. The project, sponsored by the National Lottery, aims to fund and train athletes returning home to ‘choose the social-impact project they wish to support’. Sportsmen and...

PARIS – Wearing face-paint, silly smiles and sillier headgear, they bubbled up out of subways into a brilliant Wednesday afternoon. They snaked across bridges and up and down stairs to stuff Stade de France, capacity 80,698, the nation’s largest venue. There they roared, chanted, booed and sang. Waved flags. Honked horns. Heaped insults. Welcome to the first official event of the Paris Olympics, which in no way, shape or form resemble their summer predecessor, the accursed Tokyo Olympics. “Night and day,” said Houston’s Kevon Williams, captain of Team USA’s rugby...