172 Fun Facts About Olympics

The ancient Games were a religious festival held at the sanctuary of which god?

Zeus was honoured at Olympia, where 100 oxen were sacrificed on his altar at each festival; in one telling it was his son Heracles who founded the Games.

Which Roman emperor's 393 AD decree against pagan cults is the most cited end of the ancient Games?

Theodosius I, a Christian emperor, outlawed pagan festivals, and 393 is the date usually given for the end of the Games, a religious rite by then nearly twelve centuries old.

Which city hosted the inaugural modern Olympic Games?

Athens almost could not pay for the Games: money ran short until the businessman Georgios Averoff gave 920,000 drachmas to rebuild the city's ancient stadium in marble.

According to the Olympic Charter, the five interlocking Olympic rings represent the union of what?

The five continents, with the Americas counted as one: the rings' designer first wrote only that they stood for the five parts of the world 'now won over to Olympism'.

In 2021 the IOC added which word, after an en dash, to the Olympic motto?

Together was approved in July 2021, days before the delayed Tokyo Games opened; IOC president Thomas Bach said the new word was there to mean solidarity.

The first Paralympic Games, held in 1960, were open only to athletes who used what?

Wheelchairs: every competitor in 1960 had a spinal cord injury, because the Games grew out of a hospital's rehabilitation sport; blind and amputee athletes were first admitted in 1976.

Who has won more Olympic medals than anyone else, in any sport?

Michael Phelps won 28 medals, 23 of them gold; he retired after the 2012 Games, then came back for Rio 2016 and added five more golds and a silver.

Which country leads the all-time Summer Olympics medal count?

The United States leads the all-time table; hosts China beat it for golds in 2008, but it then finished first in the medal table at four Summer Games in a row, through 2024.

Which inhabited continent has never hosted a Summer Olympic Games?

Africa has never staged an Olympic Games; the closest yet is the Youth Olympics, which the IOC awarded to Dakar in Senegal in 2018.

Which Australian city was awarded the 2032 Summer Olympics?

Brisbane won without a contest: under a new selection process the IOC named it the sole preferred candidate, then confirmed it by 72 votes to 5 in July 2021.

Which sprinter lost five Sydney 2000 medals for doping?

Marion Jones won three golds and two bronzes in Sydney; in 2007 she admitted lying to federal investigators about her drug use and handed back all five medals.

Which country hosted the first Winter Olympics, at Chamonix in 1924?

France: Chamonix billed it only as an 'International Winter Sports Week'; the IOC set up the Winter Olympics afterwards and counted Chamonix as the first.

Which American figure skater won silver at the 1994 Winter Olympics weeks after an attacker clubbed her knee?

Nancy Kerrigan was struck by a man hired by the ex-husband of her rival Tonya Harding; she recovered in time and lost the gold only narrowly to Ukraine's Oksana Baiul.

Which resort, host in 1928 and 1948, was the first to stage the Winter Olympics twice?

St. Moritz hosted in 1928 and again in 1948, its venues untouched by the war thanks to Swiss neutrality; Germany and Japan were not invited to the 1948 Games.

Where were the swimming races held at the 1896 Olympics?

The sea: the races were swum in the frigid Bay of Zea, and two of the four went to Hungary's Alfréd Hajós, who had turned to swimming at 13 after his father drowned in the Danube.

Which Norwegian town hosted the 1994 Winter Olympics, the first Winter Games held in a different year from the Summer Games?

Lillehammer is the northernmost city to have hosted an Olympics, and its organisers reworked the plans for several venues so that building them did less harm to the landscape.

In the Parade of Nations at an Olympic opening ceremony, which team enters the stadium last?

The host nation comes in last and Greece, as the birthplace of the Games, first; most other teams march between them in alphabetical order in the host's language.

Hélène de Pourtalès became the first female Olympic champion in 1900 as part of a winning crew in which sport?

Sailing: she was one of the crew of the yacht Lérina, steered by her husband, so the first woman to become Olympic champion did it in a mixed team rather than a women's event.

Which Caribbean nation sent a bobsled team to the 1988 Winter Olympics, inspiring the film 'Cool Runnings'?

Jamaica's sled crashed on its third run in 1988, yet the country has gone on to enter almost every Winter Games since, mostly with bobsledders.

Who founded the International Olympic Committee in 1894?

Pierre de Coubertin had visited the 'Olympian Games' that William Penny Brookes ran in the English town of Much Wenlock before he won over the 1894 Paris congress that created the IOC.

Which former heavyweight champion lit the Olympic cauldron at the Atlanta 1996 opening ceremony?

Muhammad Ali, by then living with Parkinson's, took the flame from swimmer Janet Evans after Evander Holyfield had carried it into the stadium; Ali had won Olympic boxing gold himself in 1960.

What sport combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting?

Biathlon grew out of Scandinavian military ski patrols; each missed target costs a penalty loop or added time, so steady shooting matters as much as fast skiing.

Where are the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) located?

Lausanne, Switzerland: the IOC's founder moved its headquarters there and is buried in the city, though at his own wish his heart was laid to rest at Olympia.

Which ancient Olympic custom, called 'ekecheiria', was announced from city to city before each Games?

The Olympic Truce let athletes and spectators travel safely to Olympia and home again; the United Nations revived the idea in 1993 and has renewed the call ever since.

The ancient Olympics' four-year cycle gave Greeks a shared way to do what?

Date events: every city kept its own calendar, so historians counted the years in Olympiads instead, a common frame of reference for them all.

Which two languages are the official languages of the International Olympic Committee?

English and French are the IOC's two official languages, which is why announcements at every Games are made in both, along with the language of the host country.

The designer of the Olympic rings said their colours, with the white behind them, reproduced what?

Every nation's flag colours: he wrote in 1913 that the five ring colours and the white behind them together took in the flag of every country, 'without exception'.

The first symbolic Olympic flame of the modern Games burned in the Marathon Tower of which 1928 host city?

Amsterdam lit a symbolic fire in a cauldron on top of its stadium's tower, the work of Dutch architect Jan Wils, and every Summer Games since has burned a flame of its own.

The first recorded Olympic champion, a cook in 776 BCE, won which event?

Footrace: Koroibos of Elis won the stadion, a dash of about 192 metres down one length of the track and the only event at the earliest Games; 'stadium' comes from the same word.

Who in March 2025 became the first woman elected president of the IOC?

Kirsty Coventry, a Zimbabwean swimmer with two Olympic golds, won a seven-candidate election in the first round of voting and became the first African as well as the first woman to lead the IOC.

Which runner won the 5,000 m, the 10,000 m and his first-ever marathon, all at the 1952 Games?

Emil Zátopek entered the marathon at the last minute, having never run one, and still won it by more than two and a half minutes, a treble that remains unique.

Which town hosted the first Winter Olympics staged outside Europe, in 1932?

Lake Placid, a village in upstate New York, drew only 17 nations because the Depression kept many teams at home; it staged the Winter Games again in 1980.

Which colour completes the five Olympic rings: blue, yellow, black, red and what?

Green is the fifth; the rings were designed before the First World War, which kept them out of an Olympic stadium until 1920.

What is the original Latin motto of the Olympic Games?

Citius, Altius, Fortius means Faster, Higher, Stronger; a Dominican priest, Henri Didon, coined it for a youth sports meeting, and his friend, the Games' founder, borrowed it.

The Paralympic Games trace their origins to organized sports for World War II veterans in which country?

Ludwig Guttmann, a refugee from Nazi Germany, staged the first Stoke Mandeville Games for paralysed veterans at a Buckinghamshire hospital in the United Kingdom on 29 July 1948, the opening day of the London Olympics.

Olympic gold medals have not been solid gold since 1912; what metal are they mostly made of?

Silver: a gold medal must be at least 92.5% silver under a thin plating of gold; Tokyo 2020 made all of its medals from metal recovered from donated phones and gadgets.

Which Canadian sprinter was stripped of the 1988 Olympic 100 m gold after failing a drug test?

Ben Johnson won in a world-record 9.79 seconds, but tested positive for the steroid stanozolol three days later, and the gold passed to his great rival Carl Lewis.

The 1900 Games were held as part of which larger event in Paris?

The 1900 Games were folded into the Exposition Universelle, a world's fair, and dragged on for five months; years later many athletes still did not know they had taken part in an Olympics.

Which Games first used the gold, silver and bronze format for first, second and third?

St. Louis 1904 brought in the three medals; these were the first Games held outside Europe, and so few foreign athletes made the journey that Americans won most of the events.

Fred Lorz crossed the line first in the 1904 Olympic marathon; why was he disqualified?

He rode in a car for part of the course after cramp stopped him running; banned for life, he was quickly let back in and won the Boston Marathon the following year.

Which Italian city gave up the 1908 Games after Vesuvius erupted, leaving London to step in?

Rome withdrew in 1906, with Italy saying it needed the money to rebuild around Vesuvius, though the funds had run short before the eruption; Rome finally hosted in 1960.

Which city was awarded the 1916 Summer Olympics, cancelled because of World War I?

Berlin was chosen in 1912 to host the 1916 Games and built the Deutsches Stadion for them; the First World War forced their cancellation, and Berlin finally hosted in 1936.

Which Asian nation made its Olympic debut with an official team in 1912?

Japan sent two athletes to Stockholm 1912 — sprinter Yahiko Mishima and marathoner Shizo Kanakuri — the first Asian team at the Games; Kanakuri dropped out and was invited back to finish his race in 1967.

Which American won both the decathlon and the pentathlon at the 1912 Games?

Jim Thorpe was stripped of both titles in 1913 for having been paid to play baseball; the IOC reinstated him in 1982, and his children were given the medals three decades after his death.

Which Belgian city hosted the 1920 Games, awarded as a tribute to the country's wartime suffering?

Antwerp was chosen for 1920 as a tribute to Belgium's suffering in World War I; Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire were not invited, and the Olympic flag and athletes' oath debuted there.

Which country's football gold at Paris 1924 was recognized by FIFA as a world championship?

Uruguay went on to host and win the first FIFA World Cup in 1930.

Which Finnish runner won the 1500 m and 5,000 m finals within two hours at Paris 1924?

Paavo Nurmi won five golds in Paris, but his Olympic career ended in 1932 when he was barred as a professional just before the Games, where he had hoped to win the marathon.

Which city did Berlin defeat to win the 1936 Games at the 1931 IOC session?

Barcelona lost the vote by 43 to 16, then planned a rival 'People's Olympiad' for July 1936, which was called off when the Spanish Civil War broke out just as it was about to begin.

Which sport made its Olympic debut at the 1936 Games with a final played outdoors in the rain, watched by its inventor?

Basketball's inventor, James Naismith, saw the United States beat Canada 19–8 on an outdoor court that the rain had turned to mud, which made dribbling all but impossible.

Which filmmaker recorded the 1936 Berlin Games in the two-part film 'Olympia'?

Leni Riefenstahl's 'Olympia' was commissioned so that the Games' propaganda would outlast the closing ceremony; Berlin 1936 was also the first Olympics shown on television, in viewing halls around the city.

Which American sprinter won four gold medals at the 1936 Games?

Jesse Owens came home to so little reward for his four golds that he raced against horses for money and worked at a petrol station.

Which American diver struck his head on the springboard at the 1988 Games and still won gold?

Greg Louganis hit the board with his head on his next-to-last qualifying dive, yet went on to win the springboard title and then the platform title too.

What nickname did the rationing-era 1948 London Olympics earn?

London 1948 became known as the Austerity Games: with rationing still in force no Olympic Village was built, so the men were lodged in military camps and the women in colleges.

Which stadium was the main venue of the 1948 London Games?

Wembley, then also called the Empire Stadium, staged the opening ceremony and the athletics as it stood, since post-war Britain built no new venues for these Games.

Which city is the northernmost ever to host a Summer Olympics?

Helsinki had been chosen for the cancelled 1940 Games after Tokyo withdrew, and finally hosted in 1952.

Which country made its Olympic debut at the 1952 Games?

The Soviet Union first competed in 1952 and finished second to the United States with 22 golds; Israel, Indonesia, Nigeria and Thailand also debuted that year.

Which sport's 1956 events were held in Stockholm rather than Melbourne?

Equestrian events could not be held in Australia, whose strict quarantine laws would have kept visiting horses in long isolation, so the riders competed in Sweden instead.

Which Games were the only Summer Olympics held in November and December?

Melbourne 1956 ran from 22 November to 8 December, late spring in the Southern Hemisphere; the tradition of athletes mingling at the closing ceremony also began there, suggested by Chinese-Australian teenager John Ian Wing.

Which Ethiopian won the 1960 Rome marathon running barefoot?

Abebe Bikila won again in Tokyo four years later, only weeks after having his appendix removed, and so became the first runner to keep the Olympic marathon title.

Which American sprinter won the 100 m, the 200 m and the sprint relay at the 1960 Games?

Wilma Rudolph had polio as a small child, wore a leg brace for years and could not walk properly until she was about 11; nine years later she was a triple Olympic champion.

Which martial art joined the Olympic programme at Tokyo 1964, the first Games held in Asia?

Judo joined the programme at Tokyo 1964 as the hosts' own sport, yet Dutchman Anton Geesink won the open class, beating home favourite Akio Kaminaga in front of his own crowd.

Live pictures of Tokyo 1964 crossed the Pacific to American viewers thanks to what technology?

An orbiting satellite, Syncom 3, the first in geostationary orbit, hung over the Pacific to beam the pictures across; four years earlier, tapes of the 1960 Games had to be flown to New York for broadcast.

Which Games were the first staged in Latin America?

Mexico City 1968 was the first Games in Latin America and in a Spanish-speaking country; its thin mountain air punished the distance runners but helped sprinters and jumpers to a string of world records.

Which American leapt a world-record 8.90 m at the 1968 Olympics?

Bob Beamon beat the old record by 55 cm with his first attempt of the final; unfamiliar with metric distances, he only grasped what he had done when told it in feet, and sank to his knees.

Which 1968 high-jump champion gave his name to a back-first technique?

Dick Fosbury's coaches first steered him back to the straddle, but his backwards, head-first flop won gold in 1968; by the next Games most Olympic high jumpers had copied it.

What was the first official Olympic mascot, created for Munich 1972?

Waldi the dachshund honoured a breed loved in Bavaria and famed for endurance, tenacity and agility; the 1972 marathon course was even laid out in the shape of the mascot.

Which American swimmer won seven golds at Munich 1972?

Mark Spitz had brashly predicted six golds at the 1968 Games and came home without a single individual title; four years later he won seven, every one in a world record.

Which country's rugby tour led African nations to boycott Montreal 1976?

New Zealand's All Blacks were on tour that July; the IOC refused to ban the country over a tour it did not control, and more than 20 mostly African teams walked out.

Which Canadian city hosted the 1976 Summer Paralympics while Montreal held the Olympics?

Toronto hosted the 1976 Paralympics, billed as the Torontolympiad; several countries pulled out in a political protest, yet these became the first Paralympics with television coverage.

The US-led boycott of Moscow 1980 protested the invasion of which country?

Afghanistan was invaded in December 1979; President Carter gave Moscow a deadline to withdraw, and when it passed more than 60 nations stayed away, while some Western athletes competed under the Olympic flag.

Which was the only Warsaw Pact country to defy Moscow's boycott of Los Angeles 1984?

Romania defied the boycott, drew an ovation at the opening ceremony second only to the hosts' and finished second in the medal table with 20 golds, while Moscow and its other allies stayed home.

Which California stadium was the main venue of the 1932 and 1984 Olympics?

Memorial Coliseum was renovated for 1984 rather than replaced; with corporate sponsors footing much of the bill, the Games ended with a surplus of more than $200 million.

Which sitting US president was first to open an Olympics in person, at Los Angeles?

Ronald Reagan opened the 1984 Games himself; Herbert Hoover had left the 1932 Games in the same city to his vice-president, as later presidents did at the Winter Games of 1960 and 1980.

Which country boycotted Seoul 1988 after demanding to co-host?

North Korea had demanded since 1985 to co-host; when no deal was reached it stayed away with allies Cuba and Ethiopia, yet a record 159 nations still came to Seoul.

Which town hosted the 1992 Winter Olympics, the last held in the same year as a Summer Games?

Albertville lent its name to the 1992 Games but staged only 18 of the 57 events itself; the rest were scattered across nine other resorts and villages in the Savoie Alps.

Which country was re-invited to the Olympics in 1992 after decades of exclusion?

South Africa, barred since 1964 because of apartheid, returned at Barcelona 1992 after the repeal of apartheid laws; Barcelona was also the first Games since 1972 unaffected by boycotts.

Which three sports made their Olympic debuts at Atlanta 1996?

Beach volleyball, mountain biking and softball all made their debuts at Atlanta 1996; nine years later the IOC voted to strike softball, along with baseball, from the programme after 2008.

Which Australian sprinter lit the flame at the Sydney Games and then won the 400 m?

Cathy Freeman lit the cauldron, then won the 400 m under enormous home expectation after her great rival, two-time champion Marie-José Pérec, abruptly left Sydney before the heats.

Which British rower won gold at five consecutive Olympics, from 1984 to 2000?

Steve Redgrave said after his fourth gold in 1996 that anyone who saw him near a boat again had his permission to shoot him; four years later he was back to win a fifth.

The Summer Olympic medal was redesigned in 2004 to correct a long-running error by replacing which building?

The Roman Colosseum had stood behind the goddess Nike on every Summer medal since 1928, a Roman arena on the prize of a Greek festival; the 2004 redesign put a Greek stadium in its place.

Which IOC president, Samaranch's successor, called the 2004 Olympics 'unforgettable, dream Games'?

Jacques Rogge, who had succeeded Samaranch in 2001, chose those words at the closing ceremony, a relief after years of warnings that the building work was running dangerously late.

Which city hosted the horse-riding events of Beijing 2008?

Hong Kong staged the horse events because its racing industry already had strict quarantine controls, something mainland cities could not yet match.

What nickname did China's National Stadium, centrepiece of the 2008 Summer Olympics, earn?

The Bird's Nest got its name from its lattice of interwoven steel; artist Ai Weiwei, who helped conceive the design, turned against the project and stayed away from the opening ceremony.

Which former Olympic champion headed London's winning bid for the 2012 Games?

Sebastian Coe, 1500 m champion in 1980 and 1984, took over the bid in 2004 and led it to victory over Paris by 54 votes to 50 at the 2005 IOC session in Singapore.

London 2012's Olympic Park was built on a former industrial site in which district?

Stratford's park was plain Olympic Park during the Games, then took Queen Elizabeth's name for her Diamond Jubilee; its stadium, beside the River Lea, became the home of West Ham United.

Which three countries entered female athletes for the first time at London 2012?

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei each sent women for the first time, the Saudis only after talks with the IOC; it meant every competing nation had now entered a female athlete at some Games.

Which American swimmer won the 800 m freestyle at London 2012 aged just 15?

Katie Ledecky led from the start and won by more than four seconds, then the youngest champion in the event's history, while home favourite and defending champion Rebecca Adlington faded to bronze.

Which two sports returned to the Olympic programme at Rio 2016 after absences of more than 90 years?

Rugby sevens and golf arrived in Rio, ending absences of 92 years for rugby and 112 for golf; many leading male golfers stayed away, citing the Zika virus.

Which group debuted at Rio 2016 alongside newcomers Kosovo and South Sudan?

The Refugee Olympic Team sent ten athletes under the Olympic flag; one of them, swimmer Yusra Mardini, had fled Syria a year earlier and swum for hours pushing a sinking dinghy towards Greece.

Which 2008 gold was Usain Bolt later stripped of?

The 4 × 100 metres relay gold was annulled in 2017 after a retest caught teammate Nesta Carter, cutting Bolt's tally from nine golds to eight; his 100 m and 200 m sweeps at three straight Games were untouched.

Which sprinter won the women's 100 m at both Beijing 2008 and London 2012?

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce had a son in 2017 and came back to win the world 100 m title in 2019, eleven years after her first Olympic gold.

Which Japanese prime minister agreed with the IOC in March 2020 to postpone the Tokyo Games by a year?

Shinzo Abe proposed the one-year delay and IOC president Thomas Bach agreed at once, the first postponement in Olympic history; Abe resigned that September, months before the Games finally opened.

Which Italian sprinter won the men's 100 m at Tokyo 2020?

Marcell Jacobs, born in El Paso, Texas, and a former long jumper, ran 9.80 to beat Fred Kerley and Andre De Grasse, the first Italian even to reach an Olympic 100 m final.

Which condition led Simone Biles to withdraw from several finals at Tokyo 2020?

The twisties left Biles unable to tell where she was in mid-air; she pulled out of the team final after her opening vault and missed four individual finals before returning to win bronze on the beam.

Which sport made its Olympic debut at Paris 2024?

Breaking, the competitive form of breakdancing, joined the programme in Paris, where Japan's Ami won the women's gold; Australia's Raygun lost every battle without scoring a point and was mocked across social media.

Where was the surfing competition of Paris 2024 held?

Tahiti's Teahupo'o reef, more than 15,000 km from Paris, was chosen for its famously powerful waves, setting a record for the distance between a medal event and its host city.

Where was the Paris 2024 Olympic opening ceremony staged, the first held outside a stadium?

Along the River Seine: instead of marching into a stadium, the teams paraded by boat through the heart of the city to the Trocadéro gardens, where the formal ceremony took place.

Which ice dance pair drew a perfect 6.0 for artistic impression from every judge at Sarajevo 1984?

Torvill and Dean skated to Ravel's Boléro, then turned professional; when the rules on professionals were relaxed they came back ten years later and won bronze.

Which German market town hosted the 1936 Winter Olympics?

Garmisch-Partenkirchen, two Bavarian villages merged in 1935 for the Games, hosted in February 1936; it was the last time one country staged both Winter and Summer Games in the same year.

Which 1952 Winter host lit its flame at the hearth of skiing pioneer Sondre Norheim?

Oslo's flame came not from Olympia but from the hearth of Norheim's birthplace in Morgedal, and was carried to the stadium by a relay of skiers, the first torch relay of any Winter Games.

Which sport missed the 1960 Winter Olympics because organisers refused to build a track?

Bobsled missed the 1960 Games, the only Winter Olympics without it: a poll showed just nine countries planned to enter, so the organisers decided a run was not worth the cost.

Walt Disney produced the opening and closing ceremonies of which Winter Games?

Squaw Valley 1960 made Walt Disney chairman of pageantry, staging its ceremonies; the resort, almost undeveloped in 1955, was built from scratch for about $80 million, and IBM computers tabulated the results.

Which American speed skater won all five men's events at Lake Placid 1980?

Eric Heiden won every distance from the 500 m sprint to the 10,000 m, then gave up skating to become a professional cyclist who rode the Tour de France, and later an orthopaedic surgeon.

The 1980 'Miracle on Ice' US hockey team consisted mostly of what?

College players made up most of the US side, which lost 10–3 to the same opponents in an exhibition days before the Games, then beat them 4–3 when it counted.

Who coached the US hockey team to the 1980 'Miracle on Ice'?

Herb Brooks had been the last player cut from the 1960 US team that went on to win gold; twenty years later he coached the side that repeated the feat, then moved on to the NHL's New York Rangers.

Who became Britain's first Olympic ski jumper at Calgary 1988, finishing last in both events?

Eddie Edwards, a plasterer nicknamed 'the Eagle', finished far behind everyone else, and the IOC answered with tougher entry standards, soon known as the Eddie the Eagle rule, that kept him out of later Games.

Which three sports were introduced at Nagano 1998?

Women's ice hockey, curling and snowboarding joined at Nagano 1998; the first snowboarding champion, Ross Rebagliati, lost his gold over a cannabis test, then got it back on appeal because the drug was not banned.

Which 15-year-old beat favourite Michelle Kwan to win figure skating gold at Nagano 1998?

Tara Lipinski edged favourite Michelle Kwan in the free skate to become the youngest champion in the event's history, then turned professional within weeks.

Which short-track skater won gold at Salt Lake 2002 after every rival in the final fell on the last corner?

Steven Bradbury was trailing well behind when all four rivals crashed on the final bend, and he glided past to win Australia's first Winter gold; 'doing a Bradbury' became Australian slang for an unlikely win.

Which resort town shared hosting duties with Vancouver in 2010?

Whistler was first developed in the 1960s by Vancouver businessmen hoping to host the 1968 Winter Olympics; that bid failed, and the resort waited four decades to stage the alpine and Nordic events of 2010.

Sochi, host of the 2014 Winter Olympics, is a summer resort on which sea?

The Black Sea gives Sochi a humid subtropical climate with palm trees on the streets; it was a summer resort with no winter sports facilities when it won the Games.

Which sport, men-only at the Winter Olympics for 90 years, first let women compete at Sochi 2014?

Ski jumping had been a men's event since the first Winter Games; in the first women's final the clear favourite, Japan's Sara Takanashi, missed the podium and Germany's Carina Vogt took the gold.

North and South Korea fielded a single unified team in which sport at PyeongChang 2018?

Women's ice hockey got the unified Korean team: twelve North Korean players joined the South's squad shortly before the Games, and though the side lost every match, the two Koreas also marched in under one flag.

Which athlete won gold in both alpine skiing and snowboarding at PyeongChang 2018?

Ester Ledecká, a snowboard champion who had never placed higher than 19th in a World Cup super-G, won that race by one hundredth of a second, then took her snowboard title a week later.

Which San Francisco-born freestyle skier won two golds for China at the 2022 Winter Olympics?

Eileen Gu switched allegiance from her birth country to China in 2019 and won the big air and halfpipe plus a slopestyle silver, the first freestyle skier with three medals at one Games.

Which US gymnast landed her final vault on an injured ankle at Atlanta 1996?

Kerri Strug hurt the ankle falling on her first vault; told by coach Béla Károlyi that the team needed one more, she landed the second, collapsed, and was later carried in his arms.

Carl Lewis won gold in which individual event at four consecutive Olympics?

Carl Lewis won the long jump at four straight Games, a run only discus thrower Al Oerter had matched in athletics; his own best leap, 8.87 m in 1991, lost to Mike Powell's world record in the same final.

In which sport did Nadia Comăneci score the first perfect 10 at the 1976 Olympics?

Nadia Comăneci, a 14-year-old Romanian gymnast, scored the first perfect 10 in Olympic gymnastics on the uneven bars at Montreal 1976; the scoreboard could only display 1.00.

Which sport made its Winter Olympic debut at Milano Cortina 2026?

Ski mountaineering, or skimo, arrived with men's and women's sprints and a mixed relay in Bormio; Oriol Cardona's win in the men's sprint gave Spain its first Winter Olympic gold since 1972.

In which five categories were Olympic art medals awarded until 1948?

Architecture, literature, music, painting and sculpture made up the 'Pentathlon of the Muses' from 1912; the IOC dropped the contests after 1948 because most entrants were professionals, at odds with the amateur rule.

Which discontinued Olympic event did a City of London Police team win in 1908?

Tug of war was an Olympic event from 1900 to 1920, and a country could enter more than one club, so three teams of British policemen shared the medals at the 1908 Games.

Eddie Eagan, a boxing champion in 1920, won a second Olympic gold in 1932 in which winter event?

Four-man bobsled gold came in Billy Fiske's sled, in a race a thaw delayed until after the closing ceremony; no one else has won titles in different sports at Summer and Winter Games.

Which country's team marches first in the Parade of Nations at every Olympics, whoever the host is?

Greece goes first to honour its role as home of the ancient Games, a custom that dates from 1928. The host nation's team always enters the stadium last.

The marathon's 26.2-mile length dates from the 1908 London Olympics, where the race began at which royal residence?

Windsor Castle to the stadium measured 26 miles, and part of a lap was added so the race ended in front of the Royal Box. The odd total became the world standard in 1921.

Which Roman emperor was declared an Olympic chariot-race winner in AD 67 despite being thrown from his chariot?

Nero never even finished the ten-horse race, yet the judges named him champion. After his death they declared that year's Games void and had to repay his bribes.

Which fictional spy escorted Queen Elizabeth II to the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony in a filmed sketch?

James Bond, played by Daniel Craig, was greeted with "Good evening, Mr Bond" by the Queen, who played herself. Stunt doubles then appeared to jump from a helicopter above the stadium.

Athletes in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Village slept on recyclable beds with frames made of which material?

Cardboard frames, built to hold up to 200 kilograms, carried the 18,000 beds supplied for the Games. Beds and mattresses were to be recycled into other products afterwards.

Which sport's Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020 crowned a 13-year-old champion, Japan's Momiji Nishiya?

Skateboarding's first women's street final also gave the runner-up spot to a 13-year-old, Brazil's Rayssa Leal. Nishiya became Japan's youngest ever gold medallist.

The first Olympic opening ceremony outside a stadium paraded athletes by boat along which river?

The Seine carried about 6,800 athletes through Paris in 2024, past crowds lining a six-kilometre stretch of its banks. The formal protocol then took place in the Trocadéro gardens.

What nickname was given to Beijing's National Stadium, the Ai Weiwei-advised centrepiece of the 2008 Summer Olympics?

The Bird's Nest got its tangle of steel beams to hide the supports of a retractable roof, which was later cut from the design. The Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron won the commission in 2003.

For most of the ancient Olympic Games' history, what did male athletes wear to compete at Olympia?

No clothing was the rule: athletes competed nude, a habit their countrymen felt set them apart from foreigners. One ancient writer credits a runner who shed his garment in 720 BC to go faster.

Which Olympic swimming stroke is the only one whose races start with the swimmers already in the water?

Backstroke swimmers start facing the wall, gripping the block or the pool edge, before launching themselves backwards. The stroke joined the Olympics in 1900 with a men's 200 metres.

Coroebus, a cook from Elis, became the first recorded Olympic champion by winning which event, the only one held?

A short foot race called the stadion, a single dash of about 190 metres, was the whole programme for the first half-century of recorded Games. Each Olympiad was then named after its winner.

Which Olympic sport uses a projectile traditionally made from 16 goose or duck feathers?

Badminton's shuttlecock leaves the racquet faster than any ball in racquet sport, though its feathers then slow it sharply. The feathers are set in a rounded cork base.

Which Korean martial art, shown as a demonstration sport at Seoul 1988, became a full Olympic medal sport in 2000?

Taekwondo featured in the Seoul opening ceremony, where hundreds of adults and children performed moves in unison. It was a demonstration sport again in 1992 before gaining full status.

Which Olympic track race sends runners over 28 barriers and seven water jumps?

Steeplechase water jumps are a barrier followed by a pit 3.66 metres long that is deepest right beside the barrier, so a longer leap means a shallower landing.

Which Olympic sport ranks athletes by adding their best snatch to their best clean and jerk?

Weightlifting gives each athlete three attempts at each lift, and anyone who misses all three at either one ends the contest with no total at all.

Which sport, played at the 1900 Olympics in a lone match between Britain and France, was voted back in for 2028?

Cricket's 1900 match had only two entrants, and the French side was mostly made up of English expatriates. Just two IOC members voted against bringing it back.

In which sport did a 1912 Olympic semi-final between Martin Klein and Alfred Asikainen last 11 hours and 40 minutes?

Wrestling's longest recorded bout left Klein so exhausted that he could not contest the final the next day, so the title went to Sweden's Claes Johansson without a fight.

Which Australian city was awarded the 2032 Summer Olympics, the third Games to be given to Australia?

Brisbane was approved in July 2021 after the IOC named it the preferred candidate. Its Games are scheduled for the local winter, as Rio's were in 2016.

Which country in 1976 became the first Summer Olympics host to finish its own Games without a single gold medal?

Canada drew another blank as host of the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary. Its first gold on home soil finally came at Vancouver 2010, from moguls skier Alexandre Bilodeau.

Under what combined name did Australia and New Zealand send a single team to the 1908 and 1912 Olympics?

Australasia won twelve medals across the two Games, mostly in swimming. One medallist was New Zealand tennis star Anthony Wilding, who also won the Davis Cup four times under the same banner.

Which boxing gold medallist of the 1960 Olympics lit the cauldron to open the 1996 Summer Games?

Muhammad Ali, his arm shaking from Parkinson's disease, took the flame from swimmer Janet Evans. During the same Games he was handed a replacement for his missing 1960 medal.

Which American sprinter, who wore a leg brace until age 12 after polio, won three golds at the 1960 Olympics?

Wilma Rudolph was the first American woman to win three track and field golds at a single Games, taking the 100 m, 200 m and sprint relay. She was the 20th of her father's 22 children.

Which American sprinter, famous for her six-inch painted nails, won three gold medals at the 1988 Seoul Olympics?

Florence Griffith Joyner also raced in a self-styled "one-legger", a running suit with one leg cut off. She left Seoul with four medals in all.

Which American sprinter wore golden spikes while winning both the 200 m and 400 m at the 1996 Olympics?

Michael Johnson ran with a stiff, upright style and very short steps that defied coaching wisdom. His 200 m time of 19.32 seconds cut more than three tenths off his own world record.

Which American gymnast landed her final vault on an injured ankle to clinch team gold at the 1996 Olympics?

Kerri Strug had to be carried to the medal ceremony by coach Béla Károlyi, after her teammates refused to walk out without her. She had a third-degree sprain and tendon damage.

Which American diver struck his head on the springboard at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and still won gold?

Greg Louganis suffered a concussion in that preliminary dive, yet went on to win both the springboard and platform titles, repeating his double of four years earlier.

Which two American sprinters raised gloved fists during the US anthem at the 1968 Olympics?

Tommie Smith and John Carlos shared one pair of gloves, because Carlos had left his own in the Olympic Village. Both were pallbearers when runner-up Peter Norman, who backed them, died in 2006.

Which swimmer won five Olympic golds in the 1920s before playing Tarzan in twelve Hollywood films?

Johnny Weissmuller was also the first man to swim the 100 metres freestyle in under a minute. A screenwriter spotted him, leading to his debut in Tarzan the Ape Man in 1932.

Which Scottish sprinter, a hero of the film Chariots of Fire, withdrew from the 100 m at Paris 1924 over Sunday heats?

Eric Liddell switched to the 400 m and won it instead. He then went back to China as a missionary teacher and died in a Japanese internment camp in 1945.

Which runner won the 5,000 m, the 10,000 m and the first marathon of his life at the 1952 Olympics?

Emil Zátopek entered the marathon at the last minute and simply shadowed the world-record holder. His wife Dana won the javelin moments after his 5,000 m victory.

In the Olympic symbol's top row of three rings, which colour sits in the middle, between blue and red?

Black sits top centre, with yellow and green on the bottom row. The rings were first shown in public in 1913 and made their Games debut in 1920.

Olympic gold medals are only gold-plated, so which metal must make up at least 92.5 percent of each one?

Silver, coated in just six grams of gold, forms the body of every winner's medal. In 2010 the metal in one was worth about $494.

Each medal at the Paris 2024 Olympics held a hexagon of scrap iron taken from which French landmark?

Eiffel Tower iron dating from the monument's original construction was set into one face of every medal, with the Games logo engraved on each piece.

Which Greek goddess has appeared on every Summer Olympic medal since a 1928 redesign made her the main figure?

Nike, the goddess of victory, held a winner's crown and a palm in the 1928 design. Sculptor Giuseppe Cassioli won a competition with it, and it shaped the medal for decades.

Instead of medals, champions at the ancient Olympic Games were crowned with a wreath cut from which sacred tree?

Olive leaves for the wreaths came from a sacred wild tree beside the temple at Olympia. Each event had only one winner, so there was nothing at all for second place.

At Olympia, what device focuses the sun's rays to light the Olympic flame before each Games' torch relay?

A parabolic mirror does the job in a ceremony at the Temple of Hera. If the day is cloudy, as it was in 2024, a flame lit at an earlier rehearsal is used instead.

Which birds, released at the Seoul 1988 opening ceremony, were burned when several perched on the cauldron's rim?

Doves, released as a symbol of peace from 1920, were so messy that experienced athletes brought newspapers to shield themselves from the droppings. Ceremonies now use a purely symbolic release.

Misha, the mascot of the Moscow 1980 Olympics and star of his own cartoon, was a cub of which animal?

Bear cub Misha wore a belt striped in the five ring colours, with a golden buckle shaped like the rings. Victor Chizhikov's drawing won a contest held in 1977.

Before the Sochi 2014 Olympics, two cosmonauts carried an unlit torch on a spacewalk outside which orbiting outpost?

ISS cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazansky made the first spacewalk with an Olympic torch in November 2013. Torches had flown in space in 1996 and 2000 without going outside.

The Phryges, mascots of the Paris 2024 Olympics, take their shape from which revolutionary symbol of French liberty?

A soft cap, typically red and called the Phrygian cap, became a symbol of liberty during the French Revolution. Organisers said they chose an ideal rather than an animal.

Which US city was awarded the 1904 Olympics before they moved to St. Louis, and went out first in voting for 2016?

Chicago won the 1904 vote unanimously, then lost the Games to a rival staging a World's Fair. In 2009 it fell on the first ballot, although President Obama flew to Copenhagen to back it.

Which US city was awarded the 1976 Winter Olympics but gave them up after its state's voters refused to fund them?

Denver became the first city ever to hand back an Olympics it had won. The 1976 Games went instead to Innsbruck in Austria, which had already hosted in 1964.

Which future US president opened the 1932 Winter Olympics while serving as governor of the host state?

Franklin D. Roosevelt opened the Games as governor of New York, then beat President Herbert Hoover in a landslide in that November's election.

Which Los Angeles stadium was the main venue of both the 1932 and the 1984 Summer Olympics?

Memorial Coliseum was completed in 1923 as a tribute to local veterans of World War I. It was named a National Historic Landmark the day before the 1984 opening ceremony.

The struggling US ski resort that surprisingly won the 1960 Winter Olympics sits near which body of water?

Lake Tahoe's Olympic resort had just one chairlift, two rope tows and a fifty-room lodge four years before the Games. It now trades as Palisades Tahoe.

Which drinks company, an Olympic sponsor since 1928, saw the 1996 Summer Games awarded to its home city of Atlanta?

Coca-Cola pushed hard to bring the Games to its hometown, then served as the only drinks supplier at the venues and built its own Olympic City attraction.

Which Hollywood film composer wrote the 'Olympic Fanfare and Theme' first played at the 1984 Los Angeles Games?

John Williams won a Grammy for the piece the following year. He went on to write themes for the Games of 1988, 1996 and 2002 as well.

Fred Lorz finished first in the 1904 St. Louis Olympic marathon but was disqualified for covering eleven miles how?

By car: his manager drove him until the vehicle broke down, and Lorz then ran on to the stadium, where he was greeted as the winner. He insisted it was a practical joke.

Which mountain range surrounds the New York village that hosted the Winter Olympics in both 1932 and 1980?

The Adirondacks village counted just 2,205 residents at the 2020 census. Its second Games produced the "Miracle on Ice", when American college players upset the Soviet team.

Which medal-ceremony fixture made its Olympic debut in 1932, when the US hosted both the Winter and Summer Games?

The winners' podium had first appeared two years earlier at the British Empire Games in Hamilton, Ontario. At Rio 2016 the steps for second and third place were built to the same height.