Olympic Games

The ancient Olympic Games are traditionally said to have first been held in Ancient Greece in 776 BC. They were held in the city of Olympia in honor of the Greek god Zeus, and were a series of athletic competitions, with the winner of each event receiving an olive wreath. Some of the traditions of the modern games were revived from those of the ancient games: like the modern games, the ancient games were held every four years (a period of time which came to be known as an "Olympiad"), and the symbolism of peace in the modern games was inspired by ancient games, as a truce would be enacted between all the Greek city-states during the games to allow athletes to travel safely between their homes and Olympia.

Unlike the modern games, the ancient games were only open to Greek men who were free (not slaves), and anyone who wished to participate had to prove Greek ancestry. Women were not allowed to participate, and married women were not even allowed to attend as spectators, though women who owned horses or chariots could enter them in the equestrian events (albeit ridden by male jockeys), and would also be declared Olympic champions should their horse or chariot win events. Competitors were also nude (γυμνός, gimnós in Greek, from which we get "gymnasium" and "gymnastics").

For their first 50 years or so, the ancient games only had a single athletic event, the stade or stadion, a sprint of just 200 yards (180 m). Over their history, 23 different events would be held, although no more than 20 at any one Olympiad. Main events included chariot racing, wrestling, boxing, pankration ("total power", a fierce and sometimes deadly anything-goes fight, conceptually like modern mixed martial arts), stadion and other foot races, and the original pentathlon (made up of wrestling, stadion, long jump, javelin throw, and discus throw).

However, the ancient games were more than just an athletic event; they were also a religious festival and artistic display. Sculptors, poets, and other artisans would exhibit their works (a tradition which continues today in the form of the Opening Ceremonies). While victors only officially won a garland, they would be showered with riches and social honors upon returning home, and during some periods would be commemorated in poems and victory songs, some of which are still known today more than 2,500 years later.

The Olympic Games were only one of the four Panhellenic Games, the others being the Pythian Games (in Delphi), the Nemean Games (in Nemea, Corinthia), and the Isthmian Games (in Isthmia, Sicyon, also near modern Corinth). A rotating schedule ensured that at least one was held every year. However, the Olympic Games were both the oldest and the most important of the four.

The Olympic Games would continue to be held even after Greece came under Roman rule, and from the 1st century BC a few Roman competitors were allowed (including Emperor Nero, who failed to finish after being thrown from his chariot, but was declared the winner on the basis that he would have won if he finished the race!). Eventually the Olympic Games were banned by Emperor Theodosius I in AD 393 (having run for more than 1,000 years) after he declared Christianity the state religion of Rome and mandatory for all Roman subjects, as he viewed the games as a pagan tradition that undermined Christianity.

The first talks of reviving the games began in 1821, after Greece gained independence from the Ottoman Empire. A donation from Evangelos Zappas, a wealthy Greek-Romanian philanthropist, led to games being held in Athens in 1859, 1870 and 1875, with athletes coming from Greece and the Ottoman Empire. Meanwhile, a British educationalist known as William Penny Brooks would start an Olympian Class in 1850; this competition was and continues to be held every year at Much Wenlock, England. Inspired by both these events, French baron Pierre de Coubertin would go on to found the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1890. Under the auspices of the IOC, the first modern Olympic Games would be held in Athens in 1896, with the Panathenaic Stadium, which had been renovated for the games in 1870, serving as the main stadium for the games. The first games in 1896 would also be a male-only event, with women only allowed to compete starting from the 1900 edition in Paris.

For much of its history, the modern Olympics required all participants to be amateurs, or in other words to never have received any monetary compensation whatsoever for sports-related activities, a rule inspired by the ideals of the traditional English gentleman in the 19th century. However, with the start of the Cold War, the Soviet Union and its communist allies would get around this rule by nominally hiring their athletes in other occupations, but in practice allowing them to be on perpetual paid leave to train full-time. As a result, the rules on amateurism were gradually relaxed, and were eventually completely abolished in 1992, though the sports of boxing and wrestling continue to use amateur rather than professional fight rules. Another vestige of the amateurism rule can be seen in men's association football (soccer), where participants are required to be aged 23 or younger (except for three over-aged players allowed per team) — in part because FIFA does not want to "devalue" their World Cup and European Championships.

From 1912 to 1948, the Olympics actually included art competitions for architecture, literature, music, painting, and sculpture. This was part of Coubertin's vision of replicating the ancient Olympics. (As it happens, he entered in 1912 under a pseudonym and won the gold medal for literature for his poem Ode to Sport.) The art competitions were eventually removed, although you may be surprised to learn why: artists were considered to be professionals, which conflicted with the "amateurs only" rule. Instead, today's Olympics are accompanied by Cultural Olympiads, which encourage many kinds of artistic events. The lavish London 2012 Games included hundred of projects and events including the World Shakespeare Festival, while the budget-conscious Rio 2016 Games used an unpublished program of street theater and flash mobs.

A separate movement to include disabled athletes began shortly after World War II. Ludwig Guttmann, a neurologist who fled Germany for Britain in 1939, established a center for treating spinal injuries at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital in 1944. Believing in sports as a method of therapy for injured military personnel, he organized the first Stoke Mandeville Games in 1948, to coincide with the 1948 Olympics in London. In 1960, Rome hosted the first official Paralympic Games (although that name wouldn't come into use until later, with events from 1960 onward being retroactively renamed). While the Paralympics were originally open only to athletes in wheelchairs, in 1976 rules were relaxed to accommodate other disabilities. Since 1988, the Paralympic Games have been held in the same city and using the same facilities as the Olympic Games, and this was made a formal policy in 2001.

Originally formed from the words "paraplegic" and "Olympics", the name is now explained as coming from the Greek παρά (pará) as in "parallel", suggesting that the Paralympic Games are the equal of the Olympic Games. (In London 2012, the Paralympics were advertised after the Olympics with cheeky billboards that read "Thanks for the warm-up"!) Paralympic Games typically take place 2–4 weeks after the conclusion of the Olympic Games, and broadcasters who get their country's exclusive contract to show the Olympic Games are becoming required to broadcast an increasing amount of the Paralympic Games as well. Tickets to the Paralympics generally cost around half as much as the Olympics, and demand is substantially lower, making Paralympic tickets much easier to get. A few sports — namely boccia and goalball — are unique sports solely for disabled players, some like wheelchair basketball and vision-impaired judo are versions of regular sports adapted for particular disabilities, and others like athletics and swimming have only minor adaptations but are broken into categories to account for varying types and levels of disability. As a result of the additional categories, the Paralympics awards 50% more medals than the Olympics despite having only half as many sports.

The IOC (International Olympic Committee; French: CIO or Comité international olympique) is the independent organization that organizes the Olympic Games. They work with international sports federations to set the rules for the Games, and elect which city will host the Games. Beneath the IOC, National Olympic Committees (NOCs) organize their nation's participation in the Games, and work with city's committees to submit bids to host the Olympics. Since 1996, membership in the IOC has been restricted to independent countries recognised by the international community, though a grandfather clause allows dependent territories recognised before that date, such as Hong Kong (officially known as Hong Kong, China since the handover back to China on 1st July 1997), Bermuda and Puerto Rico, to continue sending teams to the Olympics. In the past there have been controversies and problems regarding countries which claim to be the "sole legal representative" of some territory, for example China (PRC) and Taiwan (ROC) which has been resolved by letting Taiwanese athletes participate under the "Chinese Taipei" designation, East and West Germany (which became moot with reunification) and North and South Korea, which have sometimes attempted to send "unified teams", while Catalonia continues to campaign for the right to send a separate team from Spain.

The Paralympic Games have a similar structure, being led by the IPC (International Paralympic Committee) and National Paralympic Committees (NPCs). Host cities, however, have mostly shifted to having a single committee to jointly organize the Olympics and Paralympics. Interestingly, the Paralympics are contested by more national teams than the Olympics, as Macau and the Faroe Islands send their own teams to the Paralympics, but are required to compete as part of China and Denmark respectively at the Olympics.

In the early years, Summer Olympics were often held over a course of several months and competitors were not clearly separate from the general population, meaning pretty much anybody could show up and participate. Similarly, venues were rarely purpose built and permanent. Several of the pre World War I games were held together with a World Exhibition and several of the Olympic traditions actually date back to "Intercalated Games" that were to be held between two regular games and always in Athens but abandoned after only one such event was held. In the late 20th and early 21st century, there was a great desire to host the games and the prestige that comes with it. Cities' interest to host the Games has declined for a number of reasons:

• Escalating costs have resulted in some cities incurring a massive debt.
• The abandoned venues are decayed, exacerbating the issue of the debt and whether it was worth it.
• Hosting the games requires infrastructure able to host more than 10,000 athletes, the media, the fans and the like.
• The venues additionally need to be relatively centralized.
• Few cities have the ability to feature such a diverse variety of sports such as sailing, golf, beach volleyball and open water swimming.

Because of this, the IOC has changed the way cities win the right to host the Olympics. The games in Brisbane in 2032 was the first example of this, with the Australian city winning the right to host without winning a vote against other cities.

The United States leads the all-time medal count in the Summer Olympics, having won over 1,000 gold medals, with the Soviet Union in a distant second clocking in at just under 400. However, third place Great Britain is the only team to have won gold at every edition of the Summer Olympics, because the Americans boycotted the 1980 games in Moscow.

Since the 1988 Summer Games, all Olympic Games have been followed immediately by the Paralympic Games for disability sports in the same city and using most if not all of the same venues. Joint hosting of the Olympics and Paralympics (both Summer and Winter) has been official policy since 2001.

Although the Games are usually said to be hosted in a particular city, in practice the football matches take place in various cities around the host country. Sailing and surfing events also often have to be held in alternative locations if the host city is not a coastal city. An extreme example of this will occur in 2024, when surfing will be hosted by the French possession of Tahiti; this will be the greatest distance ever between an Olympic venue and the host city. In rare cases, certain events may also take place outside the host country; some sailing races at the 1920 games took place in Dutch waters despite Belgium being the host, and the equestrian events at the 1956 games took place in Sweden despite Australia being the host. In addition, when China hosted in 2008, the equestrian events took place in Hong Kong, which while part of China sends its own team to the Olympics.

• Amsterdam — hosted in 1928; had hosted some sailing events at the 1920 Games.
• Antwerp — hosted in 1920, though some sailing events were held in Dutch waters.
• Athens — hosted the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, the only Intercalated Games in 1906, and again hosted the Olympic Games in 2004. Surprisingly little remains, with most of the venues of 2004 Games now abandoned and lying in disrepair. However, the main stadium of the 1896 games, the Panathinaiko Stadium, which hosted the archery events and the finish of the marathon in 2004, still stands and is a major historical landmark and tourist attraction.
• Atlanta — hosted in 1996. Most of the infrastructure still stands, but the main stadium was reconfigured for baseball immediately after the Games and has been reconfigured again for American football.
• Barcelona – hosted in 1992. Most of the Olympic infrastructure still stands.
• Beijing — hosted in 2008, which is the most expensive summer games to date, and became the first city to have hosted both the Summer and Winter Games in 2022. Equestrian events were held in Hong Kong due to concerns over equine diseases in mainland China. Most of the Olympic infrastructure still stands, and was used for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
• Berlin — planned host for the 1916 games which were cancelled due to World War I; it hosted the 1936 games, which had been awarded before Hitler took over. The Olympiastadion has since been redesigned but is still standing. Some other venues still exist in some form but are hard to see for the casual observer. The S-Bahn got upgrades for the games.
• Brisbane — scheduled to host in 2032.
• Helsinki — scheduled to host the games in 1940 (after Tokyo gave them back to the IOC due to the Pacific War); due to World War II, they were postponed until 1952. The Olympic stadium has been the most important outdoor sports venue in Helsinki ever since, but has since been extensively renovated.
• London — the first city to host three Olympics (1908, 1948, 2012), with most of the 2012 infrastructure still present. The exact marathon distance of 42,195 m (138,435 ft) was set for the 1908 games to have the final stretch before the monarch. Planned host for the 1944 games which were cancelled due to World War II, but eventually hosted 4 years later after the end of the war.
• Los Angeles — hosted 1932 and 1984 Olympics, the latter with a large Soviet-led boycott, and will host in 2028. The main stadium in 1932 and 1984, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, is still in active use and is planned to be used in 2028 as well. Some of the other 1932 infrastructure and much more of the 1984 infrastructure still stands.
• Melbourne — hosted in 1956 with the exception of equestrian events, which were held in Stockholm due to Australian quarantine laws. The main stadium, the Melbourne Cricket Ground, is still in active use; it is mostly outwardly unchanged from its Olympic configuration, although significantly modernised within.
• Mexico City — hosted the 1968 games where many records were broken due to high altitude, but several political controversies overshadowed the events. Was unable to host the Paralympics which were hosted by Tel Aviv, Israel.
• Montreal — nearly bankrupted itself with the 1976 games that cost more than expected, especially the Olympic Stadium that proved a less than inspired design and would struggle for years to find a suitable tenant.
• Moscow — hosted in 1980 with a large US-led boycott. The main stadium was renovated for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
• Munich — host of the 1972 Olympics, which was overshadowed by a terrorist attack that led to the deaths of 11 Israeli team members. Much of the Olympic infrastructure (including Olympiastadion) still exists. The U-Bahn (Germany's third) opened a year ahead of the game and was partly built for the games
• Paris — hosted 1900 and 1924 Olympics, and will host in 2024. The main stadium from 1924 in the suburb of Colombes still stands and will be used for field hockey in 2024, but has been heavily downsized from its 1924 configuration. The 1900 games were the first in which women were allowed to participate.
• Rio de Janeiro — hosted in 2016 after Brazil had already hosted the 2014 FIFA World Cup; many venues are already beyond use or were never planned to be permanent.
• Rome — hosted in 1960; the first city of one of the major Axis Powers of World War II to host after the war. The main stadium is still in use, though it was extensively renovated for the 1990 FIFA World Cup.
• Seoul — hosted in 1988 after an attempt to jointly host with sites in North Korea fell through. Most of the Olympic infrastructure still stands.
• St. Louis — hosted in 1904. The main stadium, located just outside the city limits, still exists on the campus of Washington University, but has been heavily renovated.
• Stockholm – hosted in 1912, and also hosted equestrian events in 1956.
• Sydney — hosted in 2000. Most of the Olympic infrastructure still stands in what is now Sydney Olympic Park.
• Tokyo — hosted the 2020 Summer Olympics, which were rescheduled for 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic; also hosted in 1964, with the first Shinkansen running just in time for the 1964 Games. Planned host for the 1940 games, which were eventually cancelled due to the outbreak of World War II.

First held in 1924, the Winter Olympics were originally held in the same year as Summer Olympics and often in the same country. With the increasing size of the Olympic Games and the increasing financial commitment for hosts, it was decided to split Summer and Winter Games up, and the Winter Olympics were scheduled to be in the year of the FIFA World Cup to avoid the two biggest worldwide sports events going head to head. The "side benefit" for those making money off of sports (such as the IOC) is that the cash flow is now a bit more even year over year, so that certainly didn't hurt in taking the decision.

Norway leads the all-time Winter Olympics medal table, with the United States in second place, though the United States is the only country to have won gold at every edition of the Winter Olympics. For obvious reasons tropical countries rarely compete, and none have ever won a medal, but those that do compete are often fan and media darlings due to their unlikely underdog stories. The Jamaican bobsled team is perhaps the most famous example.

Similarly to the Summer Games, each Winter Olympics since 1992 has been immediately followed by the Winter Paralympics, also in the same host city and using the same venues.

• Albertville – hosted in 1992. Most of the infrastructure still stands, though some of it has been renovated. The stadium used for the opening and closing ceremonies was intended to be temporary and was removed immediately after the Olympics, with parts of it used in that year's Summer Games in Barcelona. A monument stands on the site today.
• Beijing – hosted in 2022, which made it the first city to have hosted both the summer and winter games.
• Calgary – hosted in 1988, with almost all of the Olympic infrastructure (much of which is in surrounding areas) still present.
• Chamonix - hosted the very first Winter Olympics in 1924.
• Cortina d'Ampezzo – hosted in 1956, after having been named as the host of the 1944 Games that had been scrapped due to World War II. Scheduled to co-host in 2026 along with Milan.
• Garmisch-Partenkirchen – hosted in 1936; less overtly Nazified than that year's Summer Games in Berlin.
• Grenoble – hosted in 1968.
• Innsbruck – hosted in 1964 and 1976, the latter time on short notice after voters in Denver turned down hosting duties.
• Lake Placid – hosted in 1932 and 1980. The 1980 Games used much of the 1932 infrastructure. Most of the venues still exist; the most notable exception is that the 1980 luge track was demolished and replaced with a new track for all sliding sports (bobsled, luge, skeleton). The site of the 1980 "Miracle on Ice", in which the US men's ice hockey team made up entirely of college players defeated the heavily favored Soviets, has since been renamed after the 1980 team's head coach Herb Brooks.
• Lillehammer – hosted in 1994.
• Milan – scheduled to co-host in 2026 alongside Cortina.
• Nagano – hosted in 1998.
• Oslo – hosted in 1952.
• Pyeongchang – hosted in 2018.
• Salt Lake City – hosted in 2002, with almost all of the Olympic infrastructure (much of which is in outlying areas) still present. The area's current light rail system was started as transportation for the Games.
• Sapporo – hosted the first Winter Games in Asia in 1972. It had been named as the 1940 host, but World War II scuttled that plan. Also hosted marathon and racewalking competitions for the 2020 Summer Games to avoid extreme heat in Tokyo.
• Sarajevo – hosted in 1984. Most of the infrastructure was damaged or destroyed during the Bosnian War of the 1990s. The city's main indoor arena was built on the foundation of the 1984 indoor arena that had been destroyed in the war.
• Sochi - hosted in 2014; the most expensive games to date.
• Squaw Valley – hosted in 1960. The town wasn't even incorporated at the time the games were awarded and there was barely any infrastructure there. The traditional "handing over" of hosting duties at the end of the 1956 Winter Olympics had a member of the American NOC stand in for the not-yet-existent position of "Mayor of Squaw Valley". Only winter games without bobsled events as building the required track was deemed too expensive in light of only 9 nations expressing interest in competing.
• St. Moritz – hosted in 1928 and 1948.
• Turin – hosted in 2006.
• Vancouver – hosted in 2010. Almost all of the infrastructure, both in Vancouver and in the Whistler resort area, still stands. However, the main stadium, BC Place, which had an air-supported roof in 2010, now has a cable-supported retractable roof.

• 2008: Summer Olympics in Beijing, China
• 2010: Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada
• 2012: Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom
• 2014: Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia
• 2016: Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• 2018: Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea
• 2020: Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan (postponed to 2021)
• 2022: Winter Olympics in Beijing, China

• 2024: Summer Olympics in Paris, France
• 2026: Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina, Italy
• 2028: Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, United States
• 2032: Summer Olympics in Brisbane, Australia