Sports 1

The Summer Olympics of 2024 are underway.  Let’s start this tab about the Olympics.  The modern Olympics are based on the Olympics of Ancient Greece thought to have started in 776 B.C.  The first event was a footrace probably close to resembling today’s 100 m dash.  The games were held every 4 years – a unit of time called Olympiad. 

The first modern Olympic Games was held in Athens, Greece in 1896.  Prior to 1994, the Summer and Winter Olympics were held in the same year but starting in that year they have been alternating between the Summer and Winter Olympics every 2 years during the 4-year Olympiad.  World Wars I and II led to the cancellation of the 1916, 1940, and 1944 Olympics; large-scale boycotts during the Cold War limited participation in the 1980 and 1984 Olympics; and the 2020 Olympics were postponed until 2021 as a result of Covid-19.

The first Olympics that I attended was the 1996 Atlanta, USA games (thankfully I was not there when the bombing happened).  I was surprised that Atlanta was awarded the games when bigger cities like Chicago and New York never hosted an event.  Anyways, I remember that it was hot and drinking lots of water. It was nice to see all these different countries from all over the world together - especially when countries that generally do not get along but the athletes show incredible sportsmanship. 

I find it fascinating how the Olympic flag was created: the five intertwined rings represent the unity of the five inhabited continents of Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Australia/Oceania.  The colors of the rings – blue, yellow, black, green, and red – over a white field were chosen because every nation had at least one of them on its national flag.  The Olympic Mottos is Citius, Altius, Fortius which is Latin for “Faster, Higher, Stronger” (it’s interesting that Latin was chosen instead of Ancient Greek). 

In the very first modern games of 1896, there were only 14 nations and 241 athletes.  Today that number has expanded to a whopping 204 nations (Russia and Belarus are not allowed in the 2024 Olympics due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine) or entities (there are some separate teams that are not individual countries but still have their own teams) and more than 11,000 athletes representing.

Top Countries of the Olympics (combining Summer and Winter Olympics) up to the 2022 Winter Olympics based on points. Arbitrarily, I give a score of 5 points for gold, 2 points for silver, and 1 point for bronze to tabulate my personal “Hall of Fame” of the Olympic games:

1 United States of America = 2959 medals (8610 points)

2 Soviet Union* = 1204 medals (3472 points)

3 Great Britain = 950 medals (2457 points)

4 Germany = 922 medals (2447 points)

5 France = 889 medals (2238 points)

6 China = 713 medals (2084 points)

7 Italy = 759 medals (2026 points)

8 Sweden = 679 medals (1755 points)

9 Norway = 568 medals (1590 points)

10 Japan = 573 medals (1496 points)

11 Russia = 544 medals (1485 points)

12 East Germany*= 519 medals (1452 points)

13 Australia = 566 medals (1426 points)

14 Hungary = 521 medals (1409 points)

15 Canada = 551 medals (1325 points)

16 Netherlands = 469 medals (1215 points)

17 Finland = 480 medals (1214 points)

18 South Korea = 367 medals (1004 points)

19 Switzerland = 374 medals (964 points)

20 Austria = 346 medals (833 points)

*denotes countries that no longer exist.  Russia has largely taken over from the Soviet Union while East Germany has been reunified with West Germany to be Germany.

The United States (medal leader of the Summer Olympics 18 times) and the Soviet Union/Russia (medal leader of the Summer Olympics 6 times) are the top countries in the Summer Olympics.  While Norway (medal leader 9 times) and the Soviet Union/Russia (medal leader 7 times) are the leaders in the Winter Olympics.

It’s a shame that a few athletes have tarnished the reputation of some countries like Russia and China due to their doping scandals.