51 Facts About Olympic Games

The Olympic Games are considered the world's foremost sports competition with more than 200 teams, representing sovereign states and territories, participating.

The Olympic Games are normally held every four years, and since 1994, have alternated between the Summer and Winter Olympics every two years during the four-year period.

The IOC determines the Olympic programme, consisting of the sports to be contested at the Games.

Olympic Games have grown so much that nearly every nation is represented; colonies and overseas territories are allowed to field their own teams.

The Olympic Games provide an opportunity for the host city and country to showcase themselves to the world.

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Ancient Olympic Games were religious and athletic festivals held every four years at the sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia, Greece.

These Olympic Games featured mainly athletic but combat sports such as wrestling and the pankration, horse and chariot racing events.

The Ancient Olympic Games featured running events, a pentathlon, boxing, wrestling, pankration, and equestrian events.

The Olympic Games were held every four years, and this period, known as an Olympiad, was used by Greeks as one of their units of time measurement.

Various uses of the term "Olympic Games" to describe athletic events in the modern era have been documented since the 17th century.

The 1796 Olympic Games marked the introduction of the metric system into sport.

In 1834 and 1836, Olympic games were held in Ramlosa, and an additional in Stockholm, Sweden in 1843, all organised by Gustaf Johan Schartau and others.

Greek interest in reviving the Olympic Games began with the Greek War of Independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1821.

Olympic Games presented these ideas during the first Olympic Congress of the newly created International Olympic Committee.

The Olympic Games brought together 14 nations and 241 athletes who competed in 43 events.

The IOC intended for subsequent Olympic Games to be rotated to various host cities around the world.

The Olympic Games held at the Paris Exposition in 1900 and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St Louis in 1904 failed to attract much participation or notice.

The Games rebounded with the 1906 Intercalated Games, which were held in Athens.

These Games attracted a broad international field of participants and generated a great deal of public interest, marking the beginning of a rise in both the popularity and the size of the Olympics.

The 1906 Olympic Games were officially recognised by the IOC at the time, and no Intercalated Olympic Games have been held since.

The IOC mandated that the Winter Olympic Games be celebrated every four years in the same year as their summer counterpart.

In 2010, the Olympic Games were complemented by the Youth Games, which give athletes between the ages of 14 and 18 the chance to compete.

The Youth Olympic Games were conceived by IOC president Jacques Rogge in 2001 and approved during the 119th Congress of the IOC.

The first Summer Youth Olympic Games were held in Singapore from 14 to 26 August 2010, while the inaugural Winter Olympic Games were hosted in Innsbruck, Austria, two years later.

These Olympic Games will be shorter than the senior Olympic Games; the summer version will last twelve days, while the winter version will last nine days.

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The current version of the Olympic Games Charter allows for the establishment of new NOCs to represent nations that qualify as "an independent State recognised by the international community".

The Olympic Games Committee led by Peter Ueberroth used some of the profits to endow the LA84 Foundation to promote youth sports in Southern California, educate coaches and maintain a sports library.

Many economists are sceptical about the economic benefits of hosting the Olympic Games, emphasising that such "mega-events" often have large costs while yielding relatively few tangible benefits in the long run.

Olympic Games Movement encompasses a large number of national and international sporting organisations and federations, recognised media partners, as well as athletes, officials, judges, and every other person and institution that agrees to abide by the rules of the Olympic Games Charter.

Olympic Games cited French president Jacques Chirac as a witness; Chirac gave guarded interviews concerning his involvement but the allegation was never fully explored.

In 2020, a group of Oxford University scholars documented high costs and cost overruns for the Olympic Games and criticised the IOC for not taking enough responsibility for controlling increasing costs.

Olympic Games have been commercialised to various degrees since the inaugural 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens, when a number of companies paid for advertising, including Kodak.

The sale of broadcast rights enabled the IOC to increase the exposure of the Olympic Games, thereby generating more interest, which in turn enhanced the appeal of TV air time to the advertisers.

The argument is that the Olympic Games have become indistinguishable from any other commercialised sporting spectacle.

Olympic Games Movement uses symbols to represent the ideals embodied in the Olympic Games Charter.

Months before each Games, the Olympic Flame is lit at the Temple of Hera in Olympia in a ceremony that reflects ancient Greek rituals.

For example, wrestling is a Summer Olympic Games sport, comprising two disciplines: Greco-Roman and Freestyle.

Olympic Games sports are governed by international sports federations recognised by the IOC as the global supervisors of those sports.

Olympic Games's medals were posthumously restored by the IOC in 1983 on compassionate grounds.

Olympic Games have been used as a platform to promote political ideologies almost from its inception.

Germany was the most successful nation at the Olympic Games, which did much to support their allegations of Aryan supremacy, but notable victories by African American Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals, and Hungarian Jew Ibolya Csak, blunted the message.

Olympic Games was officially cleared of intentionally avoiding the bout, but his receipt of the prize money raised suspicion.

The only Olympic death linked to performance enhancing occurred at the 1960 Rome games.

Russia has had 44 Olympic Games medals stripped for doping violations – the most of any country, more than three times the number of the runner-up, and more than a quarter of the global total.

Brunei had taken part in only three celebrations of the Olympic Games, sending a single athlete on each occasion, but Saudi Arabia and Qatar had been competing regularly with all-male teams.

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Shortly thereafter, the Qatar Olympic Committee announced that it "hoped to send up to four female athletes in shooting and fencing" to the 2012 Summer Games.

Olympic Games noted: "For the last 15 years, many international nongovernmental organisations worldwide have been trying to lobby the IOC for better enforcement of its own laws banning gender discrimination.

Olympic Games Charter requires that an athlete be a national of the country for which they compete.

Host city for an Olympic Games had historically been chosen seven to eight years ahead of their celebration.

The other nations hosting multiple Winter Olympic Games are France with three, while Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Japan, Canada and Italy have hosted twice.

The most recent Winter Games were held in Pyeongchang in 2018, South Korea's first Winter Olympics and second Olympics overall.