Olympics on Discovery+: 5 things I love about the Paris 2024 coverage and 3 things I don't

The sun is shining and we have well and truly caught Olympic fever in our house. Eagle eyes are watching the medal tables, someone is claiming to be an expert in the 10m air gun shooting and a skateboard may be sitting in an Amazon basket. 

And a big part of that has been the experience with Discovery+ which has really sparked it over the first days. It started as an ember during the opening ceremony but as I have been able to gorge myself on the sporting smorgasbord live from Paris. 

After a few days using Discovery+, I wanted to do a quick review highlighting five things I love about it, and three that I don’t. Let’s get to it: 

Love: Pick any live sport you want 

Watching the Olympics on BBC or even Eurosport leaves you at the whims of fate, or at least the programming coordinators. You are only able to watch the events picked for TV or iPlayer, which admittedly is going to be the big dogs and most eye-catching ones (or ones with medal interest for Team GB). 

But what if you want to watch something a bit more esoteric or under the radar (cough surfing, cough breaking - when that starts), well that is where Discovery+ shines. You are able to watch any of the events live (or on demand) in any discipline. 

It means that you can get the full Olympic experience of randomly stumbling upon a sport and then spend the next hours utterly enchanted. And that is worth the monthly fee for this streamer alone. 

Love: Ability to rewatch events 

The Olympics truly is a cornucopia of sport, particularly sports that you may have never watched before but really, really get into during these manic few weeks. However life (and work) waits for no-one and you might not be in a position to watch your new favourite event as it happens live. 

But with Discovery+, you are able to rewatch events in full even after they have passed. In our house, we realised in horror we’d mixed up the timings and missed the final of the women’s street skateboarding (a sentence I never thought I’d type a week ago) but were able to watch every minute of the action on catch up. 

It is a complete game-changer for the Olympics, truth be told. No longer are you a hostage to fortune and can still catch those jaw-dropping moments, even if it's a few hours later. 

Love: The quality of the commentary 

Not every event does have commentary (see below for further on that) but when Discovery+ do have commentators they really are top notch. The passion from the teams on skateboarding and surfing in particular, over the first few days, have been a real standout. 

I’m not sure our house would have become so enamoured by the street skateboarding events if it wasn’t for the pure joy and excitement from the commentators. It truly is infectious and I’ve fully caught the bug (at least for this Olympic games). 

Love: Evening show is top notch 

Discovery+, like BBC, has a round up show on an evening following the action - called Bonsoir Paris. It is a really high quality production with an excellent host in Laura Woods, who is one of the best in the business. 

But the charming rooftop set and the comradery dynamic between guests really help elevate the show. I can’t wait to keep watching it and will certainly miss it once it has gone. 

Love: Ease of use

You certainly don’t have to fight with Discovery+ (minus some minor complaints you will see below) to find the Olympic content. Not only is there a full blown Paris 2024 tab, it is basically just one click down from the home page. 

The app also has a separate page with the schedule and list of events, so you can easily find say “skateboarding” (can you tell I’ve enjoyed the skateboarding) and find live events, previous sessions that can be caught up on. 

Don’t: App is quite laggy 

The Discovery+ app has left a bit to be desired when it comes to usability, in particular when it comes to lag. I have tested it across four different TVs as well as on an Amazon Fire Stick and I have experienced significant input lag on all of them. 

While it may seem like a bit of a minor complaint or even a nothing-burger, it eventually adds up and becomes increasingly annoying. I can’t count the number of times I’ve hit down to try and pick an event or hit back to exit a stream, only for nothing to seemingly happen and then press the button again causing a sudden cascading - often resulting in bouncing out of the app. 

It is frustrating and I imagine over the coming days of the Olympics it will be something I experience again and again. I have not used Discovery+ outside of the Olympics, so I don’t know if it is normally like this, or is a by-product of extra demand due to a once every four year demand, but still it is frustrating. 

Don’t: Lack of commentators on some events 

It is probably a big ask but it is noticeable when you select an event, for example I watched a badminton double’s match earlier, and it does not have any commentary. It meant I had no idea if this was a group stage game, a knock-out match, and thus left unaware of the stakes. 

But like I say, it is a big ask for every single event - especially ones like badminton with multiple matches at a time - to have commentary. Even so, it did affect my enjoyment of that particular badminton game, so it is worth pointing out. 

Don’t: You can’t set reminders for events 

Now, this is not a complaint that would have even crossed my mind until an alert popped up during one event flagging up that a gold medal was up for grabs in a different sport. Which got me wondering if you can set up reminders in the app for future events you are excited for. 

But alas, I could not find such a feature. Again, I probably wouldn’t even have thought of it, if Discovery+ itself hadn’t popped up with alerts - meaning in some form it is possible. 

However, I am not an app designer/ developer so I have no idea how tough that would be to set up. Even if the absence is noticeable after the possibility was raised. 

Fans of the Olympic Games can access all the action via the discovery+ Standard and Premium plans. The discovery+ Standard plan is now available for just £3.99 per month with a unique Olympics offer, giving new customers access at the discounted price for the rest of the year. The offer will be available via discoveryplus.com from 17 July – 11 August 2024.

Have you watched Olympics on Discovery+ so far? Let us know what you think in the comments below.