The Olympic Games is an international multi-sport event subdivided into summer and winter sporting events. The summer and winter games are each held every four years. Until 1992, they were both held in the same year. Since then, the summer games are held during the first year of an Olympiad, the winter games during the third year.The original Olympic Games were first recorded in 776 BC in Olympia, Greece, and were celebrated until AD 393. Interest in reviving the Olympic Games proper was first shown by the Greek poet and newspaper editor Panagioti Soutsos in his poem "Dialogue of the Dead" in 1833. Evangelos Zappas sponsored the first modern international Olympic Games in 1859. He paid for the refurbishment of the Panathinaiko Stadium for Games held there in 1870 and 1875. This was noted in newspapers and publications around the world including the London Review, which stated that "the Olympian Games, discontinued for centuries, have recently been revived! Here is strange news indeed ... the classical games of antiquity were revived near Athens".The International Olympic Committee was founded in 1894 on the initiative of a French nobleman, Pierre Frédy, Baron de Coubertin. The first of the IOC's Olympic Games were the 1896 Summer Olympics, held in Athens, Greece. Participation in the Olympic Games has increased to include athletes from nearly all nations worldwide. With the improvement of satellite communications and global telecasts of the events, the Olympics are consistently gaining supporters. The most recent Summer Olympics were the 2004 Games in Athens and the most recent Winter Olympics were the 2006 Games in Turin. The upcoming games in Beijing are planned to comprise 302 events in 28 sports. As of 2006, the Winter Olympics were competed in 84 events in 7 sports.
Ancient Olympics
Athletes trained in this Olympia facility in its ancient heyday.
Main article: Ancient Olympic Games
There are many myths surrounding the origin of the ancient Olympic Games. The most popular legend describes that Heracles was the creator of the Olympic Games, and built the Olympic stadium and surrounding buildings as an honor to his father Zeus, after completing his 12 labours. According to that legend he walked in a straight line for 400 strides and called this distance a "stadion" that later also became a unit of distance. This is also why a modern stadium track is 400 meters in circumference — the distance a runner travels in one lap (1 stadium = 400 m). Another myth associates the first Games with the ancient Greek concept of ἐκεχειρία (ekecheiria), Olympic truce. The date of the Games' inception based on the count of years in Olympiads is reconstructed as 776 BC, although scholars' opinions diverge between dates as early as 884 BC and as late as 704 BC.
Modern Olympics
Main articles: Summer Olympic Games and Winter Olympic Games
The United States Olympic Committee's training facilities at their headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
After the initial success, the Olympics struggled. The celebrations in Paris (1900) and St. Louis (1904) were overshadowed by the World's Fair exhibitions in which they were included. The 1906 Intercalated Games (so-called because they were the second games held within the IIIrd Olympiad) were held in Athens, as the first of an alternating series of Athens-held Olympics. Although originally the IOC recognised and supported these games, they are currently not recognised by the IOC as Olympic Games, which has given rise to the explanation that they were intended to mark the 10th anniversary of the modern Olympics. The 1906 Games again attracted a broad international field of participants—in 1904, 80% had been American—and great public interest, thereby marking the beginning of a rise in popularity and size of the Games.
From the 241 participants from 14 nations in 1896, the Games grew to nearly 11,100 competitors from 202 countries at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. The number of competitors at the Winter Olympics is much smaller than at the Summer Games; at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin Italy, 2,633 athletes from 80 countries competed in 84 events.
Youth Olympic Games
Main article: Youth Olympic Games
The Youth Olympic Games (YOG) are planned to be a "junior" version of the Games, complementing the current "senior" Games, and will feature athletes between the ages of 14 and 18. The idea for such an event was envisioned in 2001 by IOC president Jacques Rogge, and at the 119th IOC session in Guatemala City in July 2007, the IOC approved the Games.
The Youth Games versions will be shorter: the summer version will last at most twelve days; the winter version will last a maximum of nine days. The IOC will allow a maximum of 3,500 athletes and 875 officials to participate at the summer games, while 970 athletes and 580 officials are expected at the winter games. Each participating country would send at least four athletes. The sports contested at these games will be the same as those scheduled for the traditional Games, but with a limited number of disciplines and events, and including some with special appeal to youth. Education and culture are also key components for this Youth edition.
Doping
One of the main problems facing the Olympics (and international sports in general) is doping, or the use of performance enhancing drugs. In the early 20th century, many Olympic athletes began using drugs to enhance their performance. For example, the winner of the marathon at the 1904 Games, Thomas J. Hicks, was given strychnine and brandy by his coach, even during the race. As these methods became more extreme, gradually the awareness grew that this was no longer a matter of health through sports. In the mid-1960s, sports federations put a ban on doping, and the IOC followed suit in 1967.
