The heats of the Olympic cycling events have already begun, with the various time trials and races running almost the entire length of the 2024 Olympic games, and we'll help you find a way to watch them.
US: Peacock | NBC
UK: iPlayer | BBC (free with license fee) | Discovery Plus
AU: 9Now (free)
Watch abroad with a VPN
There are three different strands of the Olympic cycling that we're combining in this guide: track racing, road racing and mountain biking. The first is for laps of a velodrome, the second is for long-distance races along paved roads and the third is for hilly incline races.
Between these three types of cycling, there will be 18 events and therefore 18 sets of medals up for grabs, mostly focused on track cycling.
Here's everything you need to know about the Olympic cycling events including when they take place, where they'll be hosted and, most importantly, how you can watch them.
How to watch the Olympic cycling in the US
In the US, your best option for watching the Olympic cycling comes from Peacock, the NBC streaming service, which is set to stream every sport taking place.
Peacock is also set to host loads of features so Olympic fans can watch as much as possible: Live Actions will let you set prompts to jump to new activites that are starting or jump to an overview, Discovery Multiview will let you stream four sports at the same time and you can also create a viewing schedule, search by sport or athlete and keep up to date with all the medals and awards that have been issued.
Each month, Peacock costs $5.99 for its ad-enabled tier, and you can drop ads for $11.99 monthly. An annual plan costs the same as 10 months, so $59.99 for ad-enabled and $119.99 for ad-free. This is after a price change in August 2023 so it's unlikely the price will go up again before the games.
How to watch the Olympic cycling in the UK
In the UK, the BBC has broadcast rights to the 2024 Olympic Games, and it's already confirmed its coverage plans... but it might be bad news to fans of Olympic cycling since it won't let you watch specific sports on demand.
BBC Sport will have two concurrent live options:
Firstly, either BBC One or BBC Two will be broadcasting live coverage of Olympic events, with the BBC pledging over 250 hours of Olympic coverage over the event.
Secondly, iPlayer will host a live stream called Olympics Extra which will show loads of events that the main channel isn't. Since iPlayer also lets you watch live TV channels, this will be a one-stop shop for all of the BBC's coverage if you'd like to watch online.
Given that far more than two sports take place at any one time in the busiest periods of the Olympics, it means that the BBC will miss lots of events in its coverage. So if you want to watch all of the cycling from the 1/32 rounds and repechages to the marathons and climbs without the BBC's coverage cutting away, you may need to find another way to watch...
All of this is free to license fee payers.
There is another option that'll let you see the sports. Discovery Plus is set to show a lot more of the Olympic games, and while it usually costs £6.99 per month for its Standard plan, a temporary deal lets you sign up for £3.99 monthly until the end of the year.
How to watch the Olympic cycling in Australia
The official and exclusive Olympics broadcaster in Australia is the Nine Network, so you'll be able to use its various channels to watch Olympic coverage on TV.
Online, sports fans will have lots to watch, because Channel 9's free streaming service 9Now is rolling out an upgrade for the Olympics so that it'll offer an extra 40 channels full of live sports. This makes it the best way to watch the Olympic cycling races, as you can pick what to watch and won't be interrupted by other sport coverage.
How to watch the Olympic cycling everywhere else
If you're going to be away from your normal TV setup but still want to watch the Olympic cycling, you might run into some problems. Thankfully, you can solve this exact issue with a Virtual Private Network (VPN).
A VPN lets you change your IP address to that of the area of what you want to watch, meaning you can tune in to your favorite sports, shows or other content even if you're not there. Our favorite is NordVPN, which is the No. 1-rated VPN in the world right now according to our sister site, TechRadar.
How to use a VPN to watch any stream
- Download the app at NordVPN
- Choose the location of the streaming service you want to watch (UK, US, etc)
- Navigate to the streaming service and start watching!
Olympic cycling schedule
Here are when the various rounds of all three Olympic cycling tournaments begin. Times are in CEST, local to Paris. That's one hour ahead of the UK, six ahead of ET, nine ahead of PT and eight behind AEST.
Saturday, July 27
- 2:30 pm: road cycling — women's individual time trial
- 4:32 pm: road cycling — men's individual time trial
Sunday, July 28
- 2:10 pm: mountain biking — women's cross-country
Monday, July 29
- 2:10 pm: mountain biking — men's cross-country
Saturday, August 3
- 11 am: road cycling — men's road race
Sunday, August 4
- 2 pm: road cycling — women's road race
Monday, August 5
- 5 pm: track cycling — women's team sprint qualifying
- 5:27 pm: track cycling — men's team pursuit qualifying
- 6:55 pm: track cycling — women's team sprint first round
- 7:09 pm: track cycling — men's team sprint qualifying
- 7:46 pm: track cycling — women's team sprint finals
Tuesday, August 6
- 5:30 pm: track cycling — women's team pursuit qualifying
- 6:59 pm: track cycling — men's team sprint first round
- 7:14 pm: track cycling — men's team pursuit first round
- 7:55 pm: track cycling — men's team sprint finals
Wednesday, August 7
- 12:45 pm: track cycling — men's sprint qualifying
- 1:26 pm: track cycling — women's keirin first round
- 1:52 pm: track cycling — women's team pursuit first round
- 2:30 pm: track cycling — men's spring 1/32 finals
- 3:10 pm: track cycling — women's keirin repechages
- 3:30 pm: track cycling — men's spring 1/32 final repechages
- 5:30 pm: track cycling — men's sprint 1/16 finals
- 6:04 pm: track cycling — men's team pursuit finals
- 6:42 pm: track cycling — men's sprint 1/16 final repechages
- 6:57 pm: track cycling — women's team pursuit finals
- 7:38 pm: track cycling — men's sprint 1/8 finals
- 8:14 pm: track cycling — men's sprint 1/8 finals repechages
Thursday, August 8
- 5 pm: track cycling — men's omnium scratch race 1/4
- 5:18 pm: track cycling — women's keirin quarter-finals
- 5:38 pm: track cycling — men's omnium tempo race 2/4
- 6:01 pm: track cycling — men's sprint quarter-finals
- 6:15 pm: track cycling — women's keirin semi-finals
- 6:25 pm: track cycling — men's omnium elimination race 3/4
- 7:01 pm: track cycling — women's keirin finals
- 7:27 pm: track cycling — men's omnium points race 4/4
- 8:04 pm: track cycling — men's sprint final for 5th-8th place
Friday, August 9
- 2 pm: track cycling — women's sprint qualifying
- 2:41 pm: track cycling — men's sprint semi-finals
- 2:48 pm: track cycling — women's sprint 1/32 finals
- 3:38 pm: track cycling — women's sprint 1/32 finals repechages
- 6 pm: track cycling — men's sprint finals
- 6:09 pm: track cycling — women's madison final
- 7:10 pm: track cycling — women's sprint 1/16 finals
- 7:58 pm: track cycling — women's sprint 1/16 finals repechages
Saturday, August 10
- 5 pm: track cycling — women's sprint 1/8 finals
- 5:19 pm: track cycling — men's keirin first round
- 5:50 pm: track cycling — women's sprint 1/8 final repechages
- 5:59 pm: track cycling — men's madison final
- 7:07 pm: track cycling — women's sprint quarter-finals
- 7:21 pm: track cycling — men's keirin repechages
Sunday, August 11
- 11 am: track cycling — women's omnium scratch race 1/4
- 11:22 am: track cycling — women's sprint semi-finals
- 11:29 am: track cycling — men's keirin quarter-finals
- 11:57 am: track cycling — women's omnium tempo race 2/4
- 12:25 am: track cycling — women's sprint final for 5th-8th place
- 12:29 am: track cycling — men's keirin semi-finals
- 12:45 am: track cycling — women's sprint finals
- 12:53 am: track cycling — women's omnium elimination race 3/4
- 1:23 pm: track cycling — men's keirin finals
- 1:56 pm: track cycling — women's omnium points race 4/4
All you need to know about the Olympic cycling
When does the Olympic cycling begin?
The Olympic cycling begins on Saturday, July 27, when the road cycling events begin.
Olympic mountain biking will begin the next day on Sunday, July 28, but it won't be until Monday, August 5 that track cycling begins to round out the tripartite.
Which events make up the Olympic cycling competitions?
There are 18 events between the three strands of Olympic cycling, evenly split between men's and women's (although some distances are different between the genders). Here is the full list:
Track cycling
- Men's team sprint
- Men's team pursuit
- Women's team sprint
- Women's team pursuit
- Men's sprint
- Men's omnium
- Women's sprint
- Women's omnium
- Men's keirin
- Men's madison
- Women's keirin
- Women's madison
Road cycling
- Men's road race
- Women's road race
- Men's individual time trial
- Women's individual time trial
Mountain biking
- Men's cross country
- Women's cross country
What is a repechage round?
The 2024 Summer Olympics introduce a new concept into certain events: the repechage round. This is a new round added to some events which gives athletes a second change to qualify for finals rounds if they don't make it through in the first round.
Where do the Olympic cycling events take place?
The three different types of Olympic cycling take place in different venues.
The mountain bike events will be on Elancourt Hill, or Colline d'Élancourt, which is to the west of Paris. It's the highest peak in its region of France and you can see many of the peaks of Paris from its summit.
Track cycling events will all take place within the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome, or Vélodrome National, which is the home of French cycling. It's in the western outskirts of Paris.
Finally the road cycling events will take place on a street circuit that starts to the south-west of Paris and ends right in the city centre, and you can find the exact track here.
How to watch other Olympic sports
If you want specific information on other Olympic sports, here are guides we have to the other activities which will be shown as part of the Paris Olympic games:
