Test Your Olympic Games Knowledge

The Olympic Games: A Summary

• The Olympic Games are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a variety of competitions.
• The Olympic Games are considered the world's foremost sports competition with more than 200 teams, representing sovereign states and territories, participating.
• The Olympics 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.
• Their creation was inspired by the ancient Olympic Games (Ancient Greek: Ὀλυμπιακοί Ἀγῶνες), held in Olympia, Greece from the 8th century BC to the 4th century AD.
• The evolution of the Olympic Movement during the 20th and 21st centuries has resulted in several changes to the Olympic Games.
• The Olympic Movement consists of international sports federations (IFs), National Olympic Committees (NOCs), and organising committees for each specific Olympic Games.
• The IOC is responsible for choosing the host city for each Games, and organises and funds the Games according to the Olympic Charter.
• Over 14,000 athletes competed at the 2020 Summer Olympics and 2022 Winter Olympics combined, in 40 different sports and 448 events.
• The Ancient Olympic Games were religious and athletic festivals held every four years at the sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia, Greece.
• The first Games held under the auspices of the IOC was hosted in the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens in 1896.
• The Winter Olympics was created to feature snow and ice sports that were logistically impossible to hold during the Summer Games.
• The Paralympics have been held in every Olympic year since 1960 and, starting with the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul, the host city for the Olympics has also played host to the Paralympics.The Olympics in London: Youth Games, Cost, Impact, IOC, and Commercialisation

Youth Games:

• The Youth Games were introduced in 2010, allowing athletes aged between 14 and 18 to compete in a shorter version of the Olympic Games.
• The Summer Youth Games last twelve days and the Winter Youth Games last nine days.
• The IOC allows 3,500 athletes and 875 officials for the Summer Youth Games, and 970 athletes and 580 officials for the Winter Youth Games.
• The sports to be contested are similar to those scheduled for the senior Games, but with variations such as mixed NOC and mixed gender teams.

21st-century Games:

• The Summer Olympics have grown from 241 participants representing 14 nations in 1896 to over 11,200 competitors representing 207 nations in 2016.
• The Winter Olympics are smaller in scope and scale, with Pyeongchang hosting 2,922 athletes from 92 nations in 2018.
• The Olympic Village accommodates most athletes and officials and is self-contained with cafeterias, health clinics, and locations for religious expression.
• The IOC allows colonies and dependencies to compete at Olympic Games, such as Puerto Rico, Bermuda, and Hong Kong, which compete as separate nations despite being legally part of another country.

Cost of the Games:

• The cost of the Games has been rising, with the most expensive Summer Games being Beijing 2008 at US$40-44 billion and the most expensive Winter Games being Sochi 2014 at US$51 billion.
• Costs per athlete are on average US$599,000 for Summer Games and $1.3 million for Winter Games.
• The 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles were financially successful due to the strict control of expenses and the use of existing facilities.
• Budget overruns are common for the Games, with an average overrun of 156% in real terms since 1960.

Economic and social impact on host cities and countries:

• Hosting the Olympics has been questioned by some economists who emphasise the large costs and relatively few tangible benefits in the long run.
• Hosting the Summer Olympics has a strong positive effect on the philanthropic contributions of corporations headquartered in the host city, which benefits the local nonprofit sector.
• The Olympics have had significant negative effects on host communities, with the displacement of over two million people over two decades and the high costs of hosting, such as the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi costing over US$50 billion.

International Olympic Committee:

• The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is responsible for selecting the host city, overseeing the planning of the Olympic Games, updating and approving the Olympic sports programme, and negotiating sponsorship and broadcasting rights.

• The Olympic Movement includes national and international sporting organisations and federations, recognised media partners, athletes, officials, judges, and every other person and institution that agrees to abide by the rules of the Olympic Charter.

• The IOC has been accused of bribery and corruption, with several life members on the committee.

• The Games have been commercialised to various degrees since the inaugural 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens, with Coca-Cola first sponsoring the Summer Olympics in 1928.Overview of the Olympic Games: History, Marketing, Symbols, Ceremonies, Sports, and Amateurism

• The sale of broadcast rights has allowed the IOC to increase the exposure of the Olympic Games, generating more interest and higher fees for broadcast rights; NBC is one of the major sources of revenue for the IOC.

• Viewership increased exponentially from the 1960s until the end of the 20th century due to the advent of satellites and the introduction of colour television.

• The Olympic brand has become controversial due to its commercialization and the fact that the Games are funded by host cities and national governments, with the IOC incurring none of the cost but controlling all the rights and profits.

• Olympic symbols include the Olympic rings, the Olympic motto ("Faster, Higher, Stronger"), the Olympic creed, the Olympic flame, and the Olympic mascot.

• The opening ceremony typically starts with the entrance of the president of the International Olympic Committee and a representative of the host country followed by the hoisting of the host country's flag and a performance of its national anthem. The artistic presentations have grown in scale and complexity as successive hosts attempt to provide a ceremony that outlasts its predecessor's in terms of memorability.

• The closing ceremony of the Olympic Games takes place on a Sunday, and the flag-bearers from each participating country enter the stadium, followed by the athletes who enter together, without any national distinction. The Olympic flame is extinguished, and the next host nation briefly introduces itself with artistic displays of dance and theatre representative of its culture.

• The Olympic programme consists of 35 sports, 30 disciplines, and 408 events. There are recognised sports that have never been on an Olympic programme in any capacity, for example, squash.

• Olympic sports are governed by international sports federations recognised by the IOC, and there are recognised sports that are not included in the Olympic programme.

• The ethos of the aristocracy as exemplified in the English public school greatly influenced Pierre de Coubertin, who believed that sport formed an important part of education. The exclusion of professionals caused several controversies throughout the history of the modern Olympics.

• The Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA) felt their amateur players could no longer be competitive against the Soviet team's full-time amateur athletes, which led to a dispute in the late 1960s.Controversies Surrounding the Olympic Games

• The Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA) protested the use of amateur players in international ice hockey competitions. In 1976, the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) agreed to allow "open competition" between all players in the World Championships, but NHL players were still not allowed to play in the Olympics until 1988.

• Countries have boycotted the Olympics for various reasons. For example, in 1936, the Olympic Council of Ireland boycotted the Berlin Games because the IOC insisted its team needed to be restricted to the Irish Free State rather than representing the entire island of Ireland.

• The Cold War opponents boycotted each other's Games in 1980 and 1984. In 1980, the United States and 65 other countries boycotted the Moscow Olympics because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Soviet Union and 15 other nations boycotted the Los Angeles Olympics of 1984.

• The Olympic Games have been used as a platform to promote political ideologies. Nazi Germany wished to portray the National Socialist Party as benevolent and peace-loving when they hosted the 1936 Games, while the Soviet Union emerged as a sporting superpower in the 1956 Summer Games, taking full advantage of the publicity that came with winning at the Olympics.

• Individual athletes have also used the Olympic stage to promote their own political agenda. In the 1968 Summer Olympics, two American track and field athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, performed the Black Power salute on the victory stand, while Czechoslovakian gymnast Věra Čáslavská turned her head down and away during the playing of the Soviet national anthem in protest against the recent Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

• Doping in sports has been a major issue, and the Olympic Games have not been immune to it. Many Olympic athletes began using drugs to improve their athletic abilities in the early 20th century. The first Olympic athlete to test positive for the use of performance-enhancing drugs was Hans-Gunnar Liljenwall, a Swedish pentathlete at the 1968 Summer Olympics.

• Doping in Russian sports has a systemic nature. Russia has had 44 Olympic medals stripped for doping violations, more than a quarter of the global total. Russia was partially banned from the 2016 Summer Olympics and was banned from the 2018 Winter Olympics (while being allowed to participate as the Olympic Athletes from Russia) due to the state-sponsored doping programme.

• In December 2019, Russia was banned for four years from all major sporting events for systematic doping and lying to WADA. The ban was issued by WADA on 9 December 2019, and Russia appealed the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). The CAS, on review of Russia's appeal, ruled on December 17, 2020, to reduce the penalty that WADA had placed.

• During the Beijing Olympics in 2022, doping was again raised over a positive test for trimetazidine by the ROC's Kamila Valieva. By the end of the Beijing Olympics, a total of five athletes were reported for doping violations.