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How to watch Swimming in the Olympics: Schedule, streaming, and more

Swimming at the 2024 Summer Olympics gets underway Saturday, and we will ultimately see 37 gold medals handed out over the next two weeks. With established legends like Katie Ledecky and Caeleb Dressel to burgeoning young talents such as Jack Alexy, Summer McIntosh and Leon Marchand, the swimming pool in Paris will be full of stars, and you won’t want to miss a moment.

In the United States,  some games will be televised on NBC, CNBC or USA Network, while all of them will stream live on Peacock. This gives us a number of different live stream options depending on what exactly you’re looking for, so here’s a rundown on how to watch every swimming event at the 2024 Olympics.

Upcoming swimming events at the 2024 Summer Olympics

  • July 30: Heats, M 200m fly, M 100m free, W 1500m free, 5:00 a.m. ET, USA, Peacock
  • July 30: Finals, W 100m back, M 800m free, M 4x200m free relay, 2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, Peacock
  • July 31: Heats, W 200m breast, Men’s 200m back, Women’s 200m fly, 5:00 a.m. ET, USA, Peacock
  • July 31: Finals, W 100m free, M 200m fly, W 1500m free, M 200m breast, M 100m free, 2:15 p.m. ET, NBC, Peacock

Watch Olympics Swimming on Peacock

Peacock TV logo on black background.
Peacock

If you want to be able to watch every race and every swimmer, then Peacock is exactly what you’re looking for. There isn’t a free trial, but it costs just $8 per month.

When it comes to swimming at the Olympics, most of races — including all medal events — will actually be televised across NBC and USA Network, so you wouldn’t miss much there if you went with cable over Peacock. However, Peacock is guaranteed to have every single race, including all of the heats, plus it has multi-view, allowing you to watch multiple sports or events at once.

It’s also beneficial to have Peacock if you want to watch other sports, as it will stream every single event live from Paris. For some of the smaller sports, in some cases it’s the only way to watch, as the coverage will be far more comprehensive than what you’ll find on TV.

Is there a free Olympics Swimming live stream?

Fubo splash screen on a TV.
Phil Nickinson / Digital Trends

As we just mentioned, cable has swimming pretty well covered at the Olympics. You’ll be able to watch most of the heats and all of the medal events on NBC and USA Network. Both of these channels are available on Fubo, YouTube TV or DirecTV Stream, all of which offer a free trial.

If you want the most coverage possible for every sport at the Olympics, then Peacock is the clear choice. But if you just want to watch swimming, or you just want to watch the medal events and biggest moments from the biggest sports, and you want to do it for free, we suggest going with one of these three live-TV streaming services.

Watch the Olympics Swimming live stream from abroad

NordVPN running on a MacBook Pro.
NordVPN

There are likely other international live-stream options for those who are outside of the United States, but if you’re set on watching the U.S. broadcasts, you can use a virtual private network (VPN) to access one of the aforementioned streaming services from abroad.

NordVPN will work for this purpose, plus it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee if you’re feeling unsure about it. You can also check out our list of the best VPN services or the best VPN deals for some other options.

Tim Keeney
Tim is a long-time sports journalist who has written about everything from the NFL to more popular sports such as chess…
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