Olympics explained: How athletes get to the Olympic podium

The Daily Advertiser's Tahlia Sinclair explains the progression of athletes through groups and heats at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Transcript

00:00Winning an Olympic gold.

00:02It's something that children across the globe dream about.

00:04And 10,000 athletes are one step closer to achieving that dream this month

00:07when they arrive in Paris, France for the 2024 Olympics.

00:11Watching medals get won is one of the highlights of the Olympics.

00:13But there's a lot of sport happening before we get to that final stages.

00:17Pulls, heats and single elimination are the most common ways

00:20that athletes are eliminated from the Olympics.

00:22Very few sports at the Olympics are first-past-the-line wins.

00:26Marathon swimming and triathlon are two great examples

00:28where every athlete gets to compete for that medal.

00:30But for the most part,

00:32pulls, single elimination and heats are the way that we narrow down the field.

00:36For most athletes though, there is no second chances.

00:38That's a single elimination competition such as tennis.

00:41Fencing means if you lose, you're out.

00:44So let's talk to some experts about what this all means

00:46and how we can see Australia in medal contention.

00:48Coming into the Olympics,

00:51all the teams that qualify for the Olympics are split into groups.

00:54I believe in the basketball this year, we have three separate groups.

00:57Each pool will play all the teams once.

01:00So there's four teams in each of the pools.

01:02From there, you go through the quarterfinals,

01:05your semifinals and then obviously the grand finals.

01:08In individual sports where there's a high number of competitors,

01:10you'll often see them competing in heats before a final medal event.

01:14These heats help narrow down the competitor pool.

01:17Heat is pretty much where there's the amount of swimmers

01:21that have qualified for whatever event it is.

01:24There could be maybe 50 swimmers that have qualified for the event

01:28and obviously you have 10 lanes.

01:29So you're split up.

01:31More people qualify for their heats,

01:33like in their swim in the heats,

01:35but they probably won't make the final.