The 10 Best Summer Olympic Sports, Ranked

The Summer Olympics officially began on Friday. Over the last few days, we’ve gotten a chance to watch some of the very best athletes in the world do their thing, and it’s been a reminder that few things are better than when the world comes together once every four years to celebrate the best of the best as they compete at the highest level.

In 2024, 32 sports are going to be on the bill, including an Olympic debutant in breaking. Watching a sport at the Olympics is obviously special, as you’re watching the very best athletes in that sport raise their games just a little bit more, but there are some that end up being appointment television. To celebrate that, we looked at the 10 best sports that you can watch at the Summer Olympics.

10. Rugby

Watching rugby is usually pretty cool, but watching rugby sevens at the Olympics really rocks. The games are lightning quick, the players are flying around because of how fine the margins can be, and few things are better than when a rugby player gets that little bit of daylight and takes off. An example:

Terrific stuff.

9. Basketball

I am incredibly biased, but watching the American women roll through the rest of the world always rocks. Plus, the addition of 3×3 means there’s something new and interesting, and the American edge in the sport isn’t as pronounced there — the women narrowly won gold in 2020, while the men didn’t even qualify. Add in that the rest of the world is rapidly catching up to the U.S. in the men’s competition, and basketball at the Olympics really has to be on this list.

8. Water Polo

Have you ever spoken to someone who plays (or played) water polo? Every time I have, they make it sound like the least enjoyable experience of all time. “Yeah, the opponents are basically trying to drown you, and you get punched underneath the surface of the water, and you get cut up by people, and also you’re doing an insane amount of high-intensity swimming.” Anyway, it’s very fun to watch and incredibly intense.

7. Volleyball

Both beach and indoor volleyball go in here. Indoor volleyball is obviously very cool, it’s so fast and watching how high volleyball players jump never ceases to amaze me. Beach feels like a completely different sport, as the athletes somehow overcome how hard running and jumping on sand can be to outlast another team of two people.

6. Handball

I have no idea why handball isn’t more popular, since it’s basically water polo on land mixed with basketball. It’s cool as hell, and every Olympics, I go in not knowing anything and get so compelled by how much fun the game is that I make it a point to learn as much as I can before group play ends. This is a crucial aspect of the experience of watching any sport that you don’t usually watch at the Olympics.

5. Women’s Soccer

Women’s soccer and not soccer in general is an important caveat here, because the men’s tournament has an age limit on its players (u-23s, along with three overage players, which means you get a few well-known players, but nothing like the World Cup). The women’s tournament, however, does not have this limitation, meaning everyone is bringing their big guns and you get some absolutely incredible football. There’s tension and stakes that always exist during a major soccer tournament — one of the best sporting events I’ve ever seen was a USWNT vs. Canada game at the 2012 Olympics — on top of the obvious levels of quality that come from bringing the very best players in the world.

4. Wrestling

There’s no better battle of wills at the Olympics than wrestling, whether it’s freestyle or Greco-Roman. It’s a 1-on-1 sport, it’s intense as all hell, and there’s so much variety in how you experience it based on weight classes and how wrestlers approach each opponent — some try to accrue as many points as possible, others believe their best chance to win involves getting a single takedown and then playing defense for the remainder of the match.

3. Artistic Gymnastics

In my eyes, the top-3 are all interchangeable based on the year — sometimes, there is nothing better at the Olympics than watching gymnastics, other times, the sports I put over it are better. Regardless, gymnastics rocks, as the drama that comes from one athlete setting the bar in a given event and everyone else having to try and clear it never fails to disappoint. Plus the sheer amount of variety that you get from one event to the next is really compelling, particularly when the buzz fills the arena because someone who is especially good at, like, vault is about to go.

2. Swimming

If I was going totally off of personal preference, swimming would be my No. 1 by some distance, because I was in high school when this happened, and all of us place an outsized emphasis on stuff that happened when we were in high school. But at the same time, when you get a good race in the pool, there’s just nothing better. The way that tension builds while swimmers are on the block, that final 50 meters when at least two competitors are neck-and-neck, the fact that you can get this moment no matter the stroke or the distance in a given race (non-Katie Ledecky division, of course), it’s all terrific.

1. Track and Field

The way track and field at the Olympics has led to stars becoming household names — Usain Bolt, Florence Griffith Joyner, Mo Farah, countless others — never ceases to amaze me, as everyone seems to lock in when they have the chance to witness greatness in this sport in a way that no other sport can match. There’s something about the spectacle of track and field at the very highest level that is untouchable, and when a big race is about to happen, you can feel the buzz in the arena radiating to every corner of the world. That applies to the field events, as well, because when someone has to put up a world record in the shot put or the pole vault to surpass the person sitting in first and win a gold medal, you can’t help but hold your breath. I, for one, am very excited to park myself on the couch and watch a lot of track and field this summer.