PARIS: The outlet looks at five sites set to wow ticket-holders - and a global TV audience of billions - during the 17-day extravaganza starting on July 26: 1. Eiffel Tower The most famous of the Paris landmarks, the Eiffel Tower, will welcome beach volleyball.

The action will take place in a temporary venue near the foot of the “Iron Lady”. Next door, the Champs de Mars park at the foot of the tower will host judo and wrestling. Reviled by some Parisians when it was unveiled in 1889 for the World Fair by engineer Gustave Eiffel, the Eiffel Tower has become the capital’s symbol. Besides being one of the world’s top tourist attractions, pulling in seven million visitors a year, it is also a working telecoms tower, used for radio and TV transmissions. Winners at the Paris Games will all go home with a small part of the iron colossus. Each medal will contain an 18g crumb of original iron, removed during renovations, melted down and reforged.

2. Grand Palais Fencing and taekwondo battles will take place in the opulent setting of the Grand Palais exhibition hall, a glass-and-steel masterpiece created for the World Fair of 1900. Its distinctive feature is its glass-domed roof, the largest of its kind in Europe, which covers a cavernous exhibition space of 13,500 square metres. During World War I, the Grand Palais put its art collection in storage and converted its galleries into a military hospital where soldiers were patched up before returning to the trenches. In the 21st century, the airy nave has hosted giant installations commissioned from some of the world’s leading artists. It has also been flooded to make the biggest ice rink in the world. 3. Place de la Concorde The vast, paved square at the foot of the Champs-Elysees avenue, where heads rolled (literally) during the French Revolution, will serve as an urban sports hub. Skateboarding, 3x3 basketball, BMX freestyle and, in its first Games appearance, breakdancing, will all take place on the elegant square by the Seine.