The Olympics

For other Olympics pages, please refer to the Olympics Index.

General

Rings on the Olympic flag		5
Site of the original games, where the modern flame starts from		Olympia
The Olympic torch is lit from		Rays of the sun
Enters the arena first at the opening ceremony		Greece
Enters the arena last at the opening ceremony		Host nation
Country that's won most medals, and most golds, at the Winter Olympics, up to and including 2022 (according to Wikipedia, figures as provided by the IOC – counting Germany, East Germany and West Germany separately)		Norway
The only nation to have won at least one gold at every summer Olympiad		Great Britain
Longest track & field event		50 km walk
Shortest walking event		20 km
Longest individual swimming event		1500 m (400m?)
Olympic triathlon: distances	Swim	1,500 m
	Cycle	40 km
	Run	10 km

IOC Presidents

Founder of the modern Olympics: French aristocrat, educationist and historian; first secretary general of the IOC, 1894; succeeded Demetrios Vakelis of Greece to become its second president, 1896		Baron Pierre de Coubertin
Fifth President of the IOC (1952–72) – represented the USA in the pentathlon and decathlon in 1912		Avery Brundage
Sixth President of the IOC (1972–80) – an Irish–born UK peer		Lord Killanin
Seventh President of the IOC (1980–2001) – represented Brazil at swimming in 1936 and water polo in 1952		Juan–Antonio Samaranch
Eighth President of the IOC (2001–13) – Belgian surgeon		Jacques Rogge
Ninth President of the IOC (2013–) – a member of West Germany's gold–medal–winning foil (fencing) team at Montreal 1976		Thomas Bach

GBR Miscellany

Flag Bearers

The custom of athletes marching in teams behind their national flags at the opening ceremony was introduced at the 1906 Intercalated Games. Britain's first flag bearer was William Grenfell, 1st Baron Desborough, a member of the British fencing team which won a silver medal at those games. Grenfell was 50 years old, an Old Harrovian who had rowed for Oxford in the Boat Race in 1877 (the year it was tied) and 1878 (when Oxford won). The son of an MP, he married an MP's daughter and was an MP himself from 1880 to 1905. He was awarded a peerage in 1905, and he went on to be president of the British Olympic Council in time for the 1908 Games in London. He was President of Oxford University Boat Club, the Amateur Fencing Association, the MCC and the LTA.

1920

Silver medallist in the 1500m; went on to be a politician, was Commonwealth Secretary, later Minister for Fuel and Power, in Atlee's government; won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1959 for his advocacy of multilateral nuclear disarmament – the only person to win an Olympic medal and a Nobel prize

Since 1992: Summer ...

1992, 1996	One of the greatest Olympians of all time – competing at his third and fourth Olympics, where he won the third and fourth of his eventual five golds	Steve Redgrave
2000	Competing at his third Olympics, where he would win the third of his four gold medals	Matthew Pinsent
2004	The first British judoka to compete at four Olympics; silver medallist in 2000 (and bronze in 1992)	Kate Howey
2008	One of Britain's most successful swimmers of all time, but he never won an Olympic medal	Mark Foster
2012	Four–time Olympic gold medallist, who won two more golds in 2012 to make it six	Chris Hoy
2016	Olympic gold medallist in 2012 (and also in 2016)	Andy Murray

... and Winter:

1992	Winner of two gold medals in 1988, when short track speed skating was a demonstration sport, and overall world champion in 1991; but finished 5th in the 1992 Olympics, and crashed out of both events (500m and 1000m) in 1994	Wilf O'Reilly
1994, 1998, 2002	Scottish soldier, skier and biathlete, competing in his fourth, fifth and sixth Olympics (only seven athletes, from any country, have competed at six Winter Olympics)	Mike Dixon
2006	Skip (captain) of Britain's gold–medal–winning curling team in 2002	Rhona Martin
2010	Winner of Great Britain's only medal at the 2006 games (silver in the skeleton)	Shelley Rudman
2014	Short–track speed skater, competing at his third Winter Olympics	Jon Eley

Britain's medal totals at selected Olympiads

Britain's three 100m (men's) gold medallists

1924

1980

1992

History

The first modern Olympics		Athens 1896
Women competed for the first time (in tennis and golf); cricket was an Olympic sport (Great Britain won gold); the only modern summer Olympiad that didn't take place in a leap year (but see the next entry)		Paris 1900
The first and only Intercalated Games: intended to recognise Greece's key role in the history of the Olympics, by having a competition at a permanent venue in Athens, running in parallel with the internationally–organised Olympics		1906
Women competed in swimming for the first time; Britain's last football gold (beat Denmark 19–1 in the final)		Stockholm 1912
The first Winter Olympics		Chamonix 1924
First city to hold the Summer Olympics for a second time		Paris 1924
First country to hold the Winter and Summer Olympics in the same year		France 1924
Women first competed in athletics; Olympic flame introduced		Amsterdam 1928
Most northerly city to hold the (modern) Olympics		Helsinki 1952
The only city in the Southern Hemisphere to host the Summer Olympics in its first century		Melbourne 1956
The butterfly was swum as a separate event for the first time (by both men and women)		Melbourne 1956
Tony Nash and Robin Dixon won gold for Britain in the 2–man bobsleigh		Innsbruck 1964
Judo became an Olympic sport in		Tokyo 1964
Dick Fosbury first demonstrated the eponymous flop at		Mexico City 1968
Women's 1500 metres first contested at		Munich 1972
Ice dancing first included		Innsbruck 1976
Opened by the mother of one of the contestants		Montreal 1976
Nadia Comaneci awarded the first perfect 10 in gymnastics (seven in total)		Montreal 1976
The only Olympiad where the host nation didn't win gold		Montreal 1976
Women's cycling (road race) included for the first time		Los Angeles 1984
Women's marathon included for the first time (won by the USA's Joan Benoit)		Los Angeles 1984
Synchronised swimming included for the first time		Los Angeles 1984
Women's track cycling (individual sprint) included for the first time		Seoul 1988
Tennis reinstated (first time since 1924; demonstration sport in 1968 and 1984)		Seoul 1988
Britain won gold in the men's hockey		Seoul 1988
Baseball included for the first time		Barcelona 1992
Beach volleyball first appeared (exhibition sport in Barcelona 1992)		Atlanta 1996
Women's weightlifting included for the first time		Sydney 2000
Women's boxing included for the first time		London 2012

Host Cities

It was only quite recently (in a comment by someone at least as pedantic as me) that I realised that the word 'Olympiad' does not refer to the actual games, but to the four–year period in which the games are held.

Over to Wikipedia: "An Olympiad is a period of four years associated with the Olympic Games of the Ancient Greeks ... the first Olympiad began in the summer of 776 BC and lasted until the summer of 772 BC, when the second Olympiad would begin with the commencement of the next games.

"A modern Olympiad refers to a four–year period beginning on 1 January of the year the Olympic Summer Games are normally held. The first modern Olympiad began on 1 January 1896, the second on 1 January 1900, and so on (the 32nd began on 1 January 2020)".

[I have converted the dates from the American format to the British.]

So, while (for example) the 2012 London games are officially known as "the Games of the XXX (thirtieth) Olympiad", it is not correct to refer to them as "the thirtieth Olympiad".

The subject is further complicated when we bring the Winter Olympics into it – particularly as they are no longer held in the same year as the Summer games. At first sight it would appear that there were two Winter games in the XXV (twenty–fifth) Olympiad. The official line however would seem to be that the Winter games occur independently of the concept of an Olympiad. While the 1992 Summer games (in Barcelona) were the Games of the XXV Olympiad, the 1992 Winter Olympics of the same year (in Albertville) were officially known as the XVI (sixteenth) Olympic Winter Games, and those held in 1994 (in Lillehammer) were the XVII (seventeenth) Olympic Winter Games. The same principle applied in the days when the Summer and Winter games were held in the same year. For example, the very first Winter Olympics (in Chamonix) were officially known as the I Olympic Winter Games, and not the Winter Games of the VIII (eighth) Olympiad.

In fact, it seems that the term 'Olympiad' may not even have been used in 1924. According to Wikipedia, "The first poster to announce the games using this term was the one for the 1932 Summer Olympics, in Los Angeles, using the phrase: 'Call to the games of the Xth Olympiad'"

Why am I not surprised that the use in modern times of this rather overblown, not to say pompous, term originated in the United States of America?

Note also that when the games are not held (typically in wartime), the Olympiad count is still increased every four years, but the Winter Olympics count is not. So while the 1936 Summer Olympics were the Games of the XI (eleventh) Olympiad, and the Winter Olympics of the same year were the IV Olympic Winter Games, the 1948 Summer Olympics (in London) were the Games of the XIV (fourteenth) Olympiad but the Winter Olympics of that year (in St. Moritz) were the V Olympic Winter Games.

One more interesting fact shared by Wikipedia is that "Jerome, in his Latin translation of the Chronicle of Eusebius, dates the birth of Jesus Christ to year 3 of Olympiad 194, the 42nd year of the reign of the emperor Augustus, which equates to the year 2 BC."

Olympiad	Year	Host city
I	1896	Athens
II	1900	Paris
III	1904	St. Louis
IV	1908	London
V	1912	Stockholm
VI	1916	Berlin

The 1916 Olympics were cancelled because of World War I.

VII