Medals are already being dished out in the Olympic swimming events of the 2024 Paris Olympic games, after it began on Saturday, July 27, but with 37 events in total there is a lot more of the water sport to come.
US: Peacock | NBC
UK: iPlayer | BBC (free with license fee) | Discovery Plus
AU: Stan Sports | 9Now (free)
Watch abroad with a VPN
Sports fans in Australia or the UK will be able to watch the Olympic swimming races for free on 9Now or iPlayer, which is certainly a real treat. But never fear if you're away from home during the tournament, because you can watch the Olympic games from anywhere with a VPN.
All sorts of swimming events will take place across the Olympic fortnight with men's and women's competitions of different distances for freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, relay and more kinds of stroke. They'll range from quick 100m sprints to the 10km marathon race, which will take place in Paris' Seine.
To help you figure out what's happening when with the Olympic swimming competition, this guide will help you figure out how to watch the sports, as well as more information on the various events.
In order for swimming fans to have a one-stop shop for all the information they need, this guide will also cover artistic swimming. While it's technically a different Olympic sport, and does involve different skill sets, we figured that it'd be useful to have all the information in one place.
How to watch Olympic swimming in the US
The most expansive Olympic coverage, and the way we'd recommend you watch the Olympic swimming, is on Peacock. This NBC streaming service will stream every sport taking place, so you'll be able to use it to watch the swimming and artistic swimming.
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 Olympic swimming 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 be warned, there's not much of it, and the BBC might opt to show other sports over the numerous swimming ones.
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 which will straddle the two channels.
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 as much swimming as you can 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, but it's not free. 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 Olympic swimming in Australia
Online sports fans will find the Olympic swimming easy to watch, because 9Now is set to host over 40 channels of Olympics coverage online for you to enjoy. 9Now is free to Aussie viewers so you won't need to pay anything to enjoy it.
Some of Channel Nine's TV channels are expected to show snippets of Olympic coverage as well as highlights, but if you're a big water fan who wants to watch as much swimming as possible, your most reliable bet will be to tune into 9Now.
How to watch Olympic swimming everywhere else
If you're going to be away from your normal TV setup but still want to watch Olympic swimming, 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 swimming schedule
Here you can find what's happening for each sport per day.
Generally speaking, the heats begin each day at roughly 5 am ET/2 am PT/10 am UK/7 pm AEST, with the later stages beginning about 9 hours later in the day.
Saturday, July 27
- Women's 100m butterfly heats
- Women's 400m freestyle heats
- Men's 100m breaststroke heats
- Men's 400m freestyle heats
- Women's 4x100m freestyle relay heats
- Men's 4x100m freestyle relay heats
- Women's 100m butterfly semi-final
- Men's 400m freestyle final
- Women's 400m freestyle final
- Men's 100m breaststroke semi-final
- Women's 4x100m freestyle relay final
- Men's 4x100 freestyle relay final
Sunday, July 28
- Men's 200m freestyle heats
- Men's 400m individual medley heats
- Women's 100m breaststroke heats
- Men's 100m backstroke heats
- Women's 200m freestyle heats
- Men's 400m individual medley final
- Women's 100m butterfly final
- Men's 200m freestyle semi-final
- Women's 100m breaststroke semi-final
- Men's 100m backstroke semi-final
- Men's 100m breaststroke final
- Women's 200m freestyle semi-final
Monday, July 29
- Women's 400m individual medley heats
- Women's 100m backstroke heats
- Men's 800m freestyle heats
- Women's 400m individual medley final
- Men's 200m freestyle final
- Women's 100m backstroke semi-final
- Men's 100m backstroke final
- Women's 100m breaststroke final
- Women's 200m freestyle final
Tuesday, July 30
- Men's 200m butterfly heats
- Men's 100m freestyle heats
- Women's 1,500m freestyle heats
- Women's 100m freestyle heats
- Men's 200m breastroke heats
- Men's 4x200m freestyle relay heats
- Men's 100m freestyle semi-final
- Men's 200m butterfly semi-final
- Women's 100m backstroke final
- Men's 800m freestyle final
- Women's 100m freestyle semi-final
- Men's 200m breaststroke semi-final
- Men's 4x200m freestyle relay final
Wednesday, July 31
- Women's 200m breaststroke heats
- Men's 200m backstroke heats
- Women's 200m butterfly heats
- Women's 100m freestyle final
- Men's 200m butterfly final
- Women's 200m butterfly semi-final
- Women's 1,500m freestyle final
- Men's 200m backstroke semi-final
- Women's 200m breaststroke semi-final
- Men's 200m breaststroke final
- Men's 100m freestyle final
Thursday, August 1
- Women's 200m backstroke heats
- Men's 50m freestyle heats
- Men's 200m individual medley heats
- Women's 4x200m freestyle relay heats
- Women's 200m butterfly final
- Men's 200m backstroke final
- Men's 50m freestyle semi-final
- Women's 200m breaststroke final
- Women's 200m backstroke semi-final
- Women's 4x200m freestyle relay final
Friday, August 2
- Men's 100m butterfly heats
- Women's 200m individual medley heats
- Women's 800m freestyle heats
- Mixed 4x100m medley relay heats
- Men's 50m freestyle final
- Women's 200m backstroke final
- Men's 200m individual medley final
- Men's 100m butterfly semi-finals
- Women's 200m individual medley semi-finals
Saturday, August 3
- Women's 50m freestyle heats
- Men's 1,500m freestyle heats
- Men's 4x100m medley relay heats
- Women's 4x100m medley relay heats
- Men's 100m butterfly final
- Women's 50m freestyle semi-final
- Women's 200m individual medley final
- Women's 800m freestyle final
Sunday, August 4
- Women's 50m freestyle final
- Men's 1,500m freestyle final
- Men's 4x100m medley relay final
- Women's 4x100m medley relay final
Monday, August 5
- Artistic swimming: team technical routine
Tuesday, August 6
- Artistic swimming: team free routine
Wednesday, August 7
- Artistic swimming: team acrobatic routine
Friday, August 9
- Artistic swimming: duet technical routine
Saturday, August 10
- Artistic swimming: duet free routine
All you need to know about the Olympic swimming
When does the Olympic swimming begin?
The first events of the Olympic swimming competition start right at the beginning of the Olympic games on Saturday, July 29.
That's not the case for artistic swimming though as the first round of that is on Monday, August 5.
Which events make up the Olympic swimming?
In total there are 37 Olympic swimming events and 2 artistic swimming ones.
Here's the list in full, broken down into swimming men's, swimming women's, swimming mixed and artistic swimming (in that order).
Men's swimming
- 50m freestyle
- 100m freestyle
- 200m freestyle
- 400m freestyle
- 800m freestyle
- 1,500m freestyle
- 100m backstroke
- 200m backstroke
- 100m breaststroke
- 200m breaststroke
- 100m butterfly
- 200m butterfly
- 200m individual medley
- 400m individual medley
- 4x100m freestyle relay
- 4x200m freestyle relay
- 4x100m medley relay
- 10km open water
Women's swimming
- 50m freestyle
- 100m freestyle
- 200m freestyle
- 400m freestyle
- 800m freestyle
- 1,500m freestyle
- 100m backstroke
- 200m backstroke
- 100m breaststroke
- 200m breaststroke
- 100m butterfly
- 200m butterfly
- 200m individual medley
- 400m individual medley
- 4x100m freestyle relay
- 4x200m freestyle relay
- 4x100m medley relay
- 10km open water
Mixed swimming
- 4x100m medley relay
Artistic swimming
- Duet
- Team
Where do the Olympic swimming tournaments take place
With a huge number of events, multiple venues will host various Olympic swimming competitions.
Many of the swimming events take place in Nanterre's Paris La Defense Arena, which has been hosting sports since 2017. This traditionally hasn't been a water sports arena but it's being adapted to host water sports for the Olympics.
Some long-distance swimming events will take place in Paris' River Seine, after the city conducted a massive clean-up operation to make it safe to swim in. Entering the river has been illegal in France for over a century due to its poor quality.
The two artistic swimming events take place at the Aquatics Centre in Paris, right next to the Stade de France.
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:
