Interesting facts about the Olympics

 It was the Olympic Games that became the first large-scale sports event in the history of mankind. Forgotten for many centuries, they were eventually revived, becoming even richer, more complex, and even more interesting. Now for athletes around the world, participation in them is the ultimate dream.

Interesting facts about the Olympics

Facts about the Olympics

• The ancient Olympic Games were celebrated as a religious holiday from 776 BC. until 393 AD.
• Traditionally, the Olympic flame in Olympia was lit every two years using the rays of the sun and a concave mirror.
• Greece won most of the medals (a whopping 47!) In the first revived Olympic Games in 1896.
• The first Winter Olympics were held in Chamonix, France in 1924.
• Norway has won more medals in the Winter Olympics than any other country.
• The record for the number of medals won in the Summer Olympics belongs to the United States.
• The Winter Olympics have never been held in the Southern Hemisphere.
• The Olympics have never been held on two continents. These are Africa and Antarctica
• World-renowned pediatrician Benjamin Spock won the gold medal at the rowing competition in Paris in 1924.
• Prince Olaf, who became King of Norway in 1985, is the 1928 Olympic sailing champion in the 6m boat class in Amsterdam.
• Boxer Muhammad Ali almost missed the 1960 Olympics in Rome because he was afraid of airplanes. He overcame his fear and won the gold medal, which was a turning point in his sports career.
• The Olympics, which took place in Sydney (2000), can be considered the 320th in a row, considering the 293 Olympiads held in antiquity.
• Only four people in history have won medals in both the Summer and Winter Olympics.
• Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina has won more Olympic medals than anyone else in history.
• The United States Olympic Committee decided to create the American Olympic Hall of Fame in 1983 to commemorate prominent American Olympic athletes, however, plans to build the hall were put on hold due to lack of funding.
• In 1912, the Greco-Roman wrestling competition in Stockholm between Alfred Asikainen and Martin Klein lasted over 11 hours. Klein ultimately won, but he was too tired to continue and settled for silver.
• The five interconnected rings of the Olympic flag symbolize the five continents of the world united in friendship.
• At least one of the colors of the rings of the Olympic flag is present on the flag of all countries of the world without exception
• Gymnast Kerry Strug, who competed for Japan in 1976, injured his kneecap while performing in the floor exercise. The next day, he had to do ring drills to secure gold for the Japanese team. Without pain relievers, he brilliantly performed all the exercises, overcoming the pain, and thanks to him, Japan won the gold medal.
• The 1976 Montreal Olympics hit Canada's economy hard. Five billion had to be paid to the Olympic Committee fund for thirty long years! And at this Olympics, not a single Canadian athlete has won a single medal.

• The Olympic flame was first lit at the 1936 Olympics in Germany. Moreover, this Olympics was opened by Adolf Hitler.
• At the 1980 US Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, artificial snow was used for the first time on ski slopes.
• At the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, Australian rower Henry Pierce stopped a boat to allow a family of ducks to swim. Even though he delayed for a few seconds, thanks to which he was overtaken by the French athlete, he still won the gold medal in this competition.
• In 1988, at the Olympics, spectators were banned from smoking for the first time, because the stands were near the athletes.
• During the 1994 Olympics, there was a war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, the warring parties temporarily laid down their arms and declared a truce for the duration of the Olympics.
• At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, the Olympic torch marathon was the longest ever in the history of the Winter Olympics. It lasted 106 days, passed through 200 settlements, and amounted to more than 45 thousand kilometers by water, air, and land. 12 thousand torchbearers took part in the marathon.
• At the 1924 Paris Olympics, a dispute arose between the Italian and Hungarian fencing teams over the score, which was decided in a real duel.
• Because of the American boycott of the Moscow Olympics, the circulation of the Soviet magazine America, dedicated to the American Olympic team, was destroyed.
• The 2014 Sochi Olympics became the most expensive. By some estimates, it cost about $ 40 billion.
• The first Olympic Games in South America took place in 2016. They were hosted by Brazil
• From 1952 to 1972, the wrong Olympic emblem was used - colored rings mixed up. The mistake was noticed by one of the spectators at the rehearsal for the opening of the 1972 Winter Olympics in the Japanese city of Sapporo. At first, the organizers were indignant for a long time, but when they turned to the original source, it turned out that the observant eyewitness was right.
• The organizer of the first modern Olympic Games, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, wanted to see only amateur athletes in the competition, not professional athletes.
• The Games of the XV Olympiad, which began in 1952 in Helsinki, have been going on for about 70 years. It’s just that the IOC President Siegfried Edstrom at the closing ceremony, speaking with a solemn speech, was so carried away that he forgot to utter the key phrase: “I declare the Games of the XV Olympiad closed”. Therefore, the 1952 Games were not formally over.
• Equatorial Guinean athlete Eric Mussambani learned to swim just 8 months before the Sydney Olympics, training in a hotel pool.

• Jamaica's 1st official bobsleigh run at the 1988 Calgary Games was marked by technical problems with the car. To the cheering applause of the audience, the athletes carried the bob in their arms to the finish line 

• Hockey is the only sport in which all continents of the world are represented among the gold medalists.
• On January 4, 1980, US President Jimmy Carter announced a boycott of the Olympic Games in Moscow in connection with the introduction of Soviet troops into Afghanistan. As a result, the official language of the Games became French instead of English.
• 5894 journalists covered the 1992 Olympic Games in Albertville. Never before or since have there been so many media representatives in the Olympic villages.
• At the Games in Berlin in 1936, the first official basketball competition was held on a sandy court that had been turned into mud by rain.
• The Olympic Games in Sochi 2014 became not only the most expensive, but also the most massive. 2800 athletes from different countries took part in them.