Bienvenue à Paris! The opening ceremonies have come and gone, and we’re now less than a week away from the first rounds of action on the purple track in the Stade de Paris. Spirits are high and excitement is building for the biggest athletics event of the year.

A full schedule of events with live results can be found here. You can also find a searchable list of entries and a helpful FAQ on the World Athletics website.

In the United States, track and field events will be broadcast on Peacock (subscription required) and the NBC/Universal family of TV stations. A full broadcast schedule can be found here. If you don’t live in the U.S. and want to watch, more information on international broadcasts can be found here.

We’re excited to have a full CITIUS MAG team on the ground in Paris providing daily live shows before and after the action, including interviews with competing athletes, our TORCH TALK recap show, and the return of GOOD MORNING TRACK AND FIELD. Make sure you’re subscribed to the CITIUS MAG YouTube channel for live shows, and subscribe (and share with your friends!) to the CITIUS MAG newsletter for daily newsletters in your inbox after every day of track and field competition.

Here’s everything you need to know about the men’s distance events at the Paris Olympics.

Men’s 800 meters

First round: Wednesday, August 7, 5:55 am E.T.

After a quiet couple of seasons for the men’s 800m, the best middle distance runners in the world have truly popped off this year. Three men have broken 1:42 already and an astonishing 11 men have broken 1:43, compared with 2023 where the world-leading time was 1:42.80. The runner with perhaps the most dramatic presence on the pro circuit this summer has been Algerian Djamel Sedjati. The silver medalist from 2022 hasn’t just run fast (#3 all-time, which he’s done twice already), but his racing style is nearly unprecedented on the professional level. Sedjati sits in the pack for 600+ meters before popping out front and pulling out some serious speed in the final 150 meters of each race, a “sit-and-kick” style more commonly associated with high school 800m B-heats than pro races, where front running is much more favored.

Top contenders: Sedjati’s closing finish and ability to hang at any pace have to make him the favorite – plus, he handily dispatched 2023 World champ Marco Arop in Monaco in his last pre-Olympics race. Arop is a strong runner with a good championship pedigree who can’t be counted out, but Sedjati’s biggest competition may actually come from Kenya in the form of 19-year-old Emmanuel Wanyonyi. Wanyonyi finished second and fourth in the last two World finals, picked up a Diamond League final title last September as well, and Sedjati only managed to eke out a win by 2/100ths of a second the last time they met head to head. The French will surely have high medal hopes for Gabriel Tual, the third 1:41 athlete in the competition, but he hasn’t yet shown the ability to beat Wanyonyi or Sedjati head to head.

More names to watch: One big wild card is World Indoor champ Bryce Hoppel, who hasn’t done much international racing this year but did finish second behind Sedjati in Sweden in early June. The seven-time U.S. champ’s PB of 1:42.77 from U.S. Trials is only 10th on the world list this year, but Hoppel has much more championship racing experience than some of the men in front of him on the list. Wanyonyi’s teammate Wyclife Kinyamal has twice won the Commonwealth Games, but his best World Championship finish is only eighth from 2022 – but he should be in the mix to land higher here. And the biggest wild card of all might be Hoppel’s teammate and training partner Hobbs Kessler, doubling back from the 1500m in his first Olympic Games. If the 21-year-old can once again navigate six rounds of racing successfully, who knows where his ceiling truly lies.

Men’s 1500 meters

First round: Friday, August 2, 5:05 am E.T.

Perhaps the most highly anticipated showdown of the entire week is the rematch between reigning Olympic champ Jakob Ingebrigtsen and reigning World champ Josh Kerr. With Ingebrigtsen back from a winter injury stronger than before, clocking a 3:26.73 win in Monaco, he should be well-positioned to give Kerr a run for his money after the Scotsman beat his Norwegian rival head-to-head in the Bowerman Mile at the Pre Classic in May. With 2022 World champ Jake Wightman running only the 800m and 2019 World champ Timothy Cheruiyot not quite as dominant as he once was, the conventional wisdom is that the battle for gold will again come down to Kerr vs. Ingebrigtsen. Has Ingebrigtsen learned any lessons from getting outkicked in the last two World finals? Has having his first child given him new “dad strength”? Or will someone else entirely get the better of all the former champions? The seven global 1500m championships since 2015 have produced seven different champions, so history suggests that last option is a real possibility.

Top contenders: Ingebrigtsen, Kerr, and Cheruiyot are the top three from Tokyo and have combined to win six of the nine 1500m medals on offer since 2021. With all three back healthy and running well, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them back on the podium. But two talented Americans – Yared Nuguse and Cole Hocker – will want to break onto the next level once and for all, and they’ve both shown the ability to kick off a fast pace that will certainly be needed to nab a medal. And we can’t forget that in Budapest, Narve Nordas came within 0.03 seconds of nabbing top Norwegian honors over countryman Ingebrigtsen – and still picked up the bronze medal in the process.

More names to watch: After missing the 2023 championships with a sports hernia, Australian Olli Hoare has come back steadily and recently picked up his first Diamond League win at the Emsley Carr Mile in London. Hoare, Nuguse, and Spaniard Mario Garcia Romo will be representing three different countries in Paris but all train together on the On Athletics Club, and all three have at least an outside shot at a medal. And even with Wightman absent, the Brits still have a shot at multiple medals with Kerr, George Mills, and Neil Gourley all having had strong spring seasons.

Men’s 5000 meters

First round: Wednesday, August 7, 5:10 am E.T.

Ironically, the event Jakob Ingebrigtsen cares less about is perhaps the one where he’s better favored for gold, as the two-time defending World champion. Whatever Ingebrigtsen hasn’t quite figured out about the 1500m certainly doesn’t seem to be a concern in the 5000m, where he’s historically been able to easily dispatch a bunch of sub-12:50 runners with his winning kick. Another speedy 1500m/5000m specialist, Mohamed Katir of Spain, won’t be in Paris as he’s been suspended for whereabouts failures, so Ingebrigtsen’s path to gold may be even smoother than last year. But Ethiopia’s squad includes the #2 fastest man of all time in Hagos Gebrhiwet, and Uganda is sending reigning Olympic champ/world record holder Joshua Cheptegei, World XC champ Jacob Kiplimo, and 2022 bronze medalist Oscar Chelimo, so don’t hand Jakob the gold just yet.

Top contenders: If Cheptegei is fully healthy, he’s lethal, but injuries have been an occasional concern for the Ugandan over the last several cycles. Gebrhiwet has an Olympic bronze in the 5000m from back in 2016, but in recent years he’s developed more of a reputation as a time-trialer than championship runner. One more consistent championship performer is Kenyan Jacob Krop, the silver medalist in 2022 and bronze medalist in 2023, and after two fourth place finishes at Worlds, Guatemalan Luis Grijalva will definitely want to upgrade a spot or two in Paris.

More names to watch: The American duo of Abdihamid Nur and Grant Fisher haven’t yet leveled up from nation-leading to world-beating yet, but they’ve both now gotten a decent chunk of international racing experience under their belts and could be well-positioned to make it big in Paris. On the other end of the spectrum, Fisher’s former Bowerman Track Club teammate Moh Ahmed of Canada has 5000m medals from 2019 and 2021 but hasn’t been quite back on that level in the championships since. And don’t discount Dominic Lobalu, who outkicked Fisher at the most recent Diamond League in London over 3000m and always seems to be knocking on the door of a big performance on a larger stage.

Men’s 10,000 meters

Final: Friday, August 2, 3:20 pm E.T.

The first track and field final of the Paris Olympics should be a barn-burner, as reigning Olympic champ Selemon Barega of Ethiopia takes on reigning World champ and world record holder Joshua Cheptegei. Cheptegei has won the last three World finals in a row, but in between Barega managed to hold Cheptegei to silver with a big kick in Tokyo. Either Barega or 2019 silver medalist Yomif Kejelcha will be a real threat if they’re within striking distance on the last lap, but Cheptegei’s final 400m in Budapest was sub-53 seconds so he’s no slouch in a kicker’s race either.

Top contenders: The third Ethiopian in the mix, Berihu Aregawi, did manage to finish between Kejelcha and Barega at the Ethiopian Trials, but he had to settle for fourth at Worlds last year and unless he’s developed new gears in the year since, he’ll be vulnerable. Kenya hasn’t had as much success over 10,000m as Ethiopia and Uganda in recent years, but Trials champ Daniel Mateiko and runner-up Nicholas Kipkorir will be looking to change that. And 10,000m may be Grant Fisher’s better shot at a medal, as the American finished fifth in Tokyo in 2021, fourth in Eugene in 2022, and has the fourth-fastest PB in the field at 26:33.84.

More names to watch: A kicker’s race would favor Fisher’s Team USA teammate Woody Kincaid and perhaps even Nico Young and his 1:47 800m PB, but with so many strength-based runners up front, it would be foolish of the East Africans to let Kincaid especially into the mix with 400 meters to go. Moh Ahmed has also shown flashes of greatness over 10,000m in the past, even if his hardware is concentrated in the 5000m. And Spain’s Thierry Ndikumwenayo may have qualified by cross-country ranking but he’s poised to make a big jump in performance on the track coming off a 12:48.10 5000m PB in Oslo in May.

Men’s Steeplechase

First round: Monday, August 5, 1:04 pm E.T.

The big question here is the health status of Morocco’s Soufiane El Bakkali, the Olympic champ who’s also picked up 2022 and 2023 World titles and has medaled in every global championship going back to 2017. El Bakkali has raced only once this season, defending the home turf with a win at the Rabat Diamond League, so we won’t get a true sense of his form until he toes the line in Paris. No one would be happier to take on a sub-optimal El Bakkali than Ethiopian Lamecha Girma, who, despite holding the world record in the event, has finished silver in the last four straight global finals. Girma’s also only run one steeplechase this year, but his 8:01.63 victory in Sweden came after a solid indoor season and a 12:58.96 5000m in April. If history is any indication, El Bakkali will still somehow find the closing speed needed to pull another win out of nowhere, but Girma seems to be setting himself up as well as he possibly could to finally grab gold.

Top contenders: The battle for gold and silver will likely come down to Girma vs. El Bakkali, but the fight for bronze is wide, wide open. Someone like Kiwi Geordie Beamish could make the most of his blistering kick to grab third, but with six other men entered who’ve run between 8:02 and 8:10 this year, there might be quite the crowd to navigate. Ethiopia has a decent shot at two medals with Samuel Firewu and Getnet Wale joining Girma – Firewu is newer on the scene but finished second behind Girma in Stockholm in an 8:05.78 PB.

More names to watch: The U.S. medal hopes in this event pretty much start and end with Kenneth Rooks, the two-time U.S. champ who’s only run 8:15.08 so far but has easily shown a clean pair of heels to many a domestic steeplechase field over the last two years. Rooks made the final in Budapest last year after a long NCAA season but only finished 10th, so hopefully the luxury of a pro schedule this year will allow him to peak more specifically for August than June.

Men’s Marathon:

Final: Saturday, August 10, 2:00 am E.T.