The modern Olympic Games is an international sporting event that has been subdivided into Summer and Winter Games that take place every four years. Up through 1992, the Summer and Winter Games occurred in the same year. After that, the Summer and Winter Games have been separated by a two year gap. In 1994, the Winter Games were held in Lillehammer, Norway, and in 1996, the Summer Games were held in Atlanta, Georgia, thus establishing the current pattern.

The first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens in 1896. Before this though, there had been a number of athletic contests described as “Olympic” or “Olympian.” Among these was an “Olympic Games” sports festival held in the English Cotswolds in the early 17th century. These games supposedly were the origin of the modern Cotswold Games. In 1850, an “Olympian Class” began at Much Wenlock in Shropshire, England, and still continues as the Wenlock Olympian Society Annual Games. In 1866, Dr. William Penny Brookes organized a national Olympic Games that was held in London.

But it was the Greek editor and poet Panagiotis Soutsos who first suggested reviving the Olympic Games proper in his poem, “Dialogue of the Dead” in 1833. The wealthy Greek philanthropist Evangelos Zappas sponsored the revival of the first modern international Olympic Games. The first of these was held in a city square in Athens in 1859. Later, he paid for the refurbishment of the Panathinaikos Stadium, which was the site of Olympic Games in 1870 and 1875. Only two countries participated in Zappas’ Olympics, though: Greece and the Ottoman Empire. The discoveries of the ruins of ancient Olympia in the mid-nineteenth century by German archeologists further sparked interest in the Olympics.

Around this time, the French nobleman Pierre de Coubertin was searching for a way to bring the world’s nations closer together and to have young men compete in sports, rather than fight in war. In 1890, he attended the Wenlock Olympian Society’s sports festival and was thus inspired to revive the Olympic Games, which he believed would achieve both his goals. In June 1894, he presented his ideas to an international congress at the Sorbonne University in Paris. On the last day of the congress, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was established, with Demetrius Vikelas as its first president. The IOC decided to hold the first Games at the revamped Panathinaikos Stadium in Athens in 1896. 241 athletes from 14 countries participated in the 1896 Olympics, making it the largest international sporting event ever held at that time.

The IOC decided that different countries would host the Olympics. (The Greeks had wanted a monopoly on hosting duties.) Thus, the second Olympics was held in Paris. The Paris Games were also the first Olympics which allowed women to compete. Unfortunately, the Paris Games of 1900 and the St. Louis Games of 1904 were treated as part of the World’s Fair in both cities, and were thus overshadowed by the World’s Fair celebrations. Interest in the Olympics began to wane. The IOC then held the 1906 Intercalated Games (so-called because 1906 is not divisible by four) in Athens, as the first of an alternating series of Athens-held Olympics. These 1906 Games are not recognized as real Olympic Games– but they did revive interest
in the Olympics, and attracted participants from many countries. (By contrast, 80% of the athletes in the St. Louis Games had been American.) Many consider the 1906 Games to also be a celebration of the modern Olympics’ 10th anniversary. The 1906 Games also introduced the current weeklong format; earlier Olympics had stretched over months. The Intercalated Games were the first Games to have a closing ceremony.

The first few Olympics were strictly Summer Games; Winter Games were first were held in Chamonix, France in 1924. The 1896 Games had nine sports: track and field, cycling, fencing, gymnastics, weightlifting, shooting, swimming, tennis, and wrestling. Today, the Summer Olympics alone has 28 sports with 38 disciplines, while the Winter Games has seven sports with fifteen disciplines. The number of participants has grown similarly; 11,000 athletes from 202 countries at the 2004 Summer Games and 2600 athletes from 80 countries at the 2006 Winter Games.

Despite their troubled start, the Olympic Games grew rapidly. In 1900 alone, the IOC added water polo, archery, equestrian, soccer, rowing, and sailing to the program. The IOC added figure skating in 1908 and ice hockey in 1920, and then shifted these to the new Winter Olympics in 1924. The 1924 Winter Olympics included figure skating, ice hockey, biathlon, bobsled, curling, speed skating, cross country skiing, ski jumping, and Nordic combined. The IOC eventually established rules regarding a sport’s inclusion in the Olympics. A sport or discipline must be widely practiced on at least three continents and have a recognized international governing body that conforms to Olympic standards before it can be included in the Olympics.

Demonstration sports were first introduced in 1912, when Sweden decided to showcase glima, a kind of wrestling. From the beginning, demonstration sports have been just that: a demonstration of a sport popular in the host country, like Sweden’s glima or China’s wushu. But demonstration sports can also be used to gauge international interest in a sport the IOC is considering adding to the program.

The Olympic flag, with its five rings, was designed in 1914 but not used until the 1920 games in Antwerp (the 1916 Games were cancelled due to war, as were the 1940 and 1944 Games). Each ring represented an inhabited continent, with the Americas being treated as a single continent. The flag’s colors, white, red, blue, yellow, green, and black were chosen because each nation has at least one of these colors in their national flag. The rings are linked to symbolize unity between the world’s nations. The Olympic torch, which revived a tradition of the ancient Olympics, was first used in the 1928 Games at Amsterdam, but the relay was not introduced until the 1936 Games in Berlin. In the Olympic relay, the torch is lit at Olympia, the site of the Ancient Olympics, and brought to the host city by runners carrying it in relay. The torch is lit at the end of the opening ceremonies, usually by a well-known athlete from the host country. It is extinguished at the end of the closing ceremonies, after the host city for the next Olympics has been announced.