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The Olympics are always a highlight of the sporting calendar, but there’s a lot for music lovers to enjoy as well.

Music plays an integral role in sports like gymnastics and dressage, with athletes and horses marked on how well they match their movements to the chosen songs. A great deal of thought and attention goes into making the perfect selection.

Join ����ý Bitesize as we discover which songs and artists will provide the backing tracks to some incredible sport in Paris this summer.

Artistic gymnastics

When record-breaking American gymnast Simone Biles takes to the floor at Paris 2024, she will do so to the sounds of Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. As she soars and leaps for a maximum of 90 seconds, performing incredibly difficult tumbling and acrobatic moves, she will have to ensure that her movement and dance elements fit the music’s tempo and style. Biles’s routine will open with …Ready For It? by Taylor Swift and finish with Delresto (Echoes) by Travis Scott ft. Beyoncé.

Taylor Swift has already expressed her admiration online: “Watched this so many times and still unready. She’s ready for it tho”.

Meanwhile, Beyoncé sent a handwritten note of congratulations to another US gymnast who will be using her music in Paris - Jordan Chiles. When Chiles performed her floor routine at the 2024 US National Gymnastics Championships, she did so wearing leotards inspired by outfits Beyoncé wore on her recent Renaissance World Tour. The Beyoncé medley Chiles is likely to use includes the songs Energy, End of Time and Lose My Breath. Chiles has also received well-wishes from the legendary basketballer and Olympic gold medallist, Michael Jordan, who she is named after.

Their teammate, reigning Olympic floor champion Jade Carey, will try to defend her title with The White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army, a favourite tune of chanting crowds worldwide.

You might be forgiven for thinking that Christmas has come early when a fourth US gymnast, Hezly Rivera steps onto the mat. She’ll be tumbling to Carol of the Bells, by acapella group Pentatonix. Band member Scott Hoying reacted to the news on TikTok, joking that they’ll have to bring the song back to their concert setlist.

Throwing it back to the late '90s, Brazilian gymnast Jade Barbosa has chosen Britney Spears’s …Baby One More Time as her floor music, sure to be a crowd pleaser.

Austrian gymnast Charlize Moerz has turned to musical theatre for inspiration, selecting music from Sweet Charity, with choreography that imitates the signature Bob Fosse style.

However, you won’t be hearing any lyrics during the routines as all the music must be instrumental. Men’s floor routines are not performed to music.

Rhythmic gymnastics

In rhythmic gymnastics, the athletes compete four times with different apparatus, all set to music (which can contain lyrics). The four apparatus are hoop, ribbon, clubs and ball. There are two gold medals up for grabs, one for individual all-around and one for group all-around, and this is a women-only event. With four different routines to select music for, the gymnasts draw from a whole range of genres.

If you’re a musical theatre lover, you might enjoy the performances of Brazilian gymnast Bárbara Domingos. Her ribbon routine will be set to Backstage Romance from Moulin Rouge!, the full version of which is actually a medley of Bad Romance by Lady Gaga, Toxic by Britney Spears, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) by Eurythmics, Tainted Love by Soft Cell and Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes. Rather aptly, Domingos’s hoop routine uses Circle of Life from The Lion King.

Italian gymnast Milena Baldassarri has chosen to use Natasha Richardson’s 1998 award-winning performance as Sally Bowles in the musical Cabaret for her clubs routine, specifically the song Don’t Tell Mama. There is then a total change of tone for her hoop routine, which features a cover version of the rhythm and blues track Hit The Road Jack.

Other songs from musicals, stage and screen, include:

• Never Enough from The Greatest Showman (Boryana Kaleyn’s ball routine, Bulgaria)
• Paris, Tu Nous Ouvres Ton from Anastasia (Stiliana Nikolova’s ribbon routine, Bulgaria)
• Arabian Nights/Harvest Dance from Aladdin (Stiliana Nikolova’s ball routine, Bulgaria)
• Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious from Mary Poppins (Taisiia Onofriichuk’s ribbon routine, Ukraine)
• Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Taisiia Onofriichuk’s ball routine, Ukraine)
• Summertime from Porgy and Bess (Daria Atamanov’s ball routine, Israel)

Seven Nation Army makes another appearance in the ball routine of Cypriot gymnast, Vera Tugolukova, although this time it’s the Postmodern Jukebox version. Her ribbon routine uses music from Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird.

In 2021, the Italian rock band Måneskin won the Eurovision Song Contest with their song Zitti e buoni. It will now make another appearance on the world stage, thanks to the hoop routine of German gymnast Margarita Kolosov. Her other routines include music by Muse and Aerosmith.

Dressage

Often fondly described as ‘dancing horses’, dressage involves a rider guiding their horse through a roughly seven-minute long routine set to music.

Two of the top teams fighting it out for medals will be Great Britain and Germany. At London 2012, Team GB ended Germany’s dominance of the team dressage when they won gold. Aside from the Moscow 1980 Olympics (boycotted by 65 nations, including Germany), Germany had won the event at every other Olympics since 1976. They came back to win gold in both 2016 and 2020, with Great Britain securing silver and bronze respectively.

From the 2012 team, Carl Hester is back again for Paris 2024, joined by Becky Moody and Charlotte Fry, the reigning world champion. Moody and her horse Jagerbomb will perform to a medley of Tom Jones hits. Meanwhile, Germany’s horses will be performing to music by the likes of Jackson Five and Earth, Wind and Fire.

Concentrate hard and you’ll notice that German rider Isabell Werth has changed the lyrics to Barry Manilow’s Mandy to instead say Wendy, because her horse is called Wendy de Fontaine. The medley also contains versions of Fleetwood Mac’s Go Your Own Way and Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers’s Islands in the Stream. Werth has won more Olympic medals than any other equestrian athlete, with twelve medals in total (seven of them gold).

Another medallist in recent Olympics has been the United States team. Look out for rider Steffen Peters and his horse Suppenkasper, nicknamed Mopsie. At Tokyo 2020, they went viral after performing their routine to EDM, including Rune RK's Calabria and Haddaway's What Is Love. One of their biggest fans is the US rapper Snoop Dogg, who will be in Paris. He told late-night TV host Jimmy Fallon that he wants to meet the horse, "and let him know I'm a big fan. You know, the way you do when you meet your favourite person.”

This article was published in July 2024