Olympic Sports

OLYMPIC HISTORY

1896 1900

1904 1908

1912 1st WORLD WAR

1920 1924 1928

1932 1936

2nd WORLD WAR 1948

1952 1956

1960 1964 1968

1972 1976

1980 1984 1988

1992 1996

1896-The first of the modern Olympic Games was staged in Athens, Greece, although financial difficulties almost saw it staged in Budapest, Hungary.
Initially it was intended that Paris would host the first Olympics in 1900, but Athens was chosen four years earlier, though Greece ran into financial difficulties before the Games could begin.

With Hungary preparing for its millennium celebrations, Budapest repeatedly offered to step in as a replacement but the Crown Prince Constantine of Greece set up an organising committee and the donations began to flood in.

Just over 200 men, representing 14 countries competed in a total of 43 events.

The majority of the participants were from the host nation with tennis, track and field, fencing, weightlifting, cycling, wrestling, shooting, swimming and gymnastics all contested.

Cricket and soccer tournaments were cancelled due to a lack of participating teams while rowing and sailing competitions fell victim to poor weather.

Event winners received a silver medal, a certificate and a crown of olive leaves. Runners-up were given bronze medals and a crown of laurel while third placed participants went home empty handed.

The first Olympic winner was American James Brendan Connolly who took the triple jump with a leap of 13.71 metres.

With the enthusiasm of the Greek people the Games were deemed a great success and as a result Greece expected to host the next celebration.

1900 -Female athletes competed in the Olympics for the first time in Paris in 1900, but they made up only about 20 of the total number of competitors that exceeded 1000.
Again there had been controversy prior to the Games with Greece claiming they had the right to stage all future Olympiads.

But the Olympic committee went back to its resolution of 1894 and chose Paris, which was also hosting the World’s Fair. The Greek-Turkish war did not help the case of Greece.

However while the Greek people had warmed to the Games in 1896, the French public barely took any notice due to a lack of information and organisation.

Those that did attend took their lives into their own hands as discus champion Rudolf Bauer of Hungary sent all three of his throws into the crowd.

The number of nations represented had doubled to 28 and there were now 75 events contested, but once again it was athletes from the host nation that dominated the participants.

Confusion reigned for years after as to the names and nationalities of some of the medallists.

The first medals won by Canada were not discovered for some years as the athlete in question, George Orton, had been entered by his American university and had been registered as an American.

Cricket, croquet, golf and sailing all made first appearances but many competitors were not even aware that they were competing in the olympic games.

1904-St Louis experienced the same problems in 1904 that Paris had suffered four years earlier - namely being overshadowed by a World’s Fair.
Originally awarded to Chicago, fair organisers in St Louis threatened to organise a rival sporting tournament before the IOC and US President Roosevelt voted to move the Games.

But with competitions spread over four and a half months, again public interest was limited.

Founder of the modern Olympic movement, Baron Pierre de Coubertin did not even attend the Games and travelling costs saw the number of participants and nations represented decline as many of the events included only Americans.

America duly dominated track and field but Irishman Thomas Kiely won the combined event (later to become known as the decathlon).

The major difference then was that all ten events had to be completed within one day.

US gymnast Anton Heida won five gold and one silver to be the most successful participant, but the overriding feeling in Europe was that the Games would struggle to recover from another disappointing showpiece.

1908-The 1908 Olympics were originally awarded to Rome but money that would have been spent on the Games was required elsewhere following the 1906 eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
London stepped in to take over and a new stadium was rapidly constructed in ten months at White City.

This was the first official Olympics to see athletes marched into the stadium behind their respective national flags.

With over 100 events and more than 2000 competitors the level of competition was high but controversy and national rivalry still left a bitter taste on the Games.

With the US team accusing the host nation’s judges of partiality the International Olympic Committee announced that it intended to use judges from various nations on future occasions.

However sportsmanship was evident in the final of the middleweight Greco-Roman wrestling between Sweden’s Frithiof Martensson and Mauritz Andersson.

It was delayed one day to allow Martensson to recover from a minor injury and he duly recovered to be victorious.

There were 21 sports featured in total, including ice-skating, while bicycle-polo featured as a demonstration sport.

1912-At Baron De Coubertin’s insistence, the number of events at the Stockholm Games was cut to 14 and a new event was introduced, the pentathlon.
The pentathlon consisted of horse riding, fencing, swimming, shooting and cross-country running and was dominated by the real star of the Games, America’s Jim Thorpe.

An American of Indian and Irish ancestry, Thorpe won the pentathlon and decathlon with relative ease, whilst coming a creditable fourth in the long jump and seventh in the long jump.

The King of Sweden, Gustav V described Thorpe, as the greatest athlete in the world. But Thorpe’s glory was overshadowed when it emerged that he had received payment for playing baseball in his youth.

Thorpe’s medals were therefore taken back by the IOC as a breach of the amateur rules of the Olympics, leaving Thorpe as the first athlete ever to be disqualified from the Olympics for being a professionals.

However, the IOC officially pardoned Thorpe in 1982, 29 years after his death, a fitting tribute to the man voted the greatest athlete of first half of the century.

Finland’s Hannes Kolehmainen was the other success story of the Games, taking three gold medals in the 5000, 10,000 and 12,000m cross country, beginning a Finnish dominance of the long distance events over the next 30 years.

Elsewhere, the Stockholm Games were noted for being the first to use electrical timing equipment for the first time. Women also made their debut in the swimming events, with the British 4×100 relay team winning gold.

1920 -After an enforced absence in 1916 due to World War One, the Olympics made a welcome return in 1920 in Antwerp.
Although Belgium suffered in the atrocities of war, the authorities managed to organise the necessary preparations.

Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary and Turkey were not invited because of their involvement in the war but a record number of athletes and nations participated.

The number of athletes in the track and field events was particularly limited because of the fatalities to known athletes in the war.

But Antwerp saw the birth of the famous Olympic flag of five interlocking circles, representing the unity and friendship of the human race. It also saw a repeat of the first Olympiad, when doves were released to symbolise peace between the nations .

Finland usurped the American dominance on the track thanks to Hannes Koiehmainen and the legendary Paavo Nurmi who won three medals, two gold and one silver, at the start of his illustrious Olympic career.

South America won their first gold medal in 1920 when Guilherme Paraense of Brazil won the rapid-fire pistol event, whilst Willie Lee and Lloyd Spooner of America won five and four golds respectively.

Elsewhere, American diver Aileen Riggin became the youngest gold medal winner at just 14 years and 119 days while Great Britain’s Phillip Baker won silver. Baker then went on to become an MP and the only Olympian to have ever been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1959.

1924-Amsterdam was due to hold the 1924 Games, but the considerable influence of Baron de Coubertin found the Games back in Paris again.
His theory was that this Olympiad would overshadow the poorly organised 1900 Games in the French capital. Despite de Coubertin’s efforts, Germany were still exempt from the Games, but the other four nations which were banned in 1920 were re-instated.

The 1924 Games saw a precedent set when American William DeHart Hubbard became the first individual black athlete to win a gold medal when he won the long jump.

His compatriot Robert LeGendre broke the long jump world record with a jump of 7.76m, but since he was competing only in the penthalon, he did not scoop the gold medal, but a bronze.

The Finns again were dominant in the middle distance events, with Paavo Nurmi taking five gold medals, two of which he won within an hour of each other. The Finn was honoured for his achievements in Paris when a statue of him was erected outside Helsinki stadium.

Tennis made its last appearance at the Olympics in Paris before it was awakened from its 60-year hiatus in Seoul. The IOC, who were fiercely anti-professional, had doubts whether the top players were truly amateurs.

Great Britain scored two major victories when Harold Abrahams became the first European to win a Olympic sprint medal, while Eric Liddell took the gold in the 400m in a time of 47.6 seconds.

Lidell’s time was a world record, but was not officially recognised because the runners only had to run around one bend until 1936.

In the pool, Johnny Weissmuller, later to become Tarzan, won three golds in freestyle events and a bronze in the mens waterpolo.

1928-After three unsuccessful attempts to stage the Games in Amsterdam, the Dutch finally succeeded in 1928, where the Germans made their first appearance in an Olympiad for 16 years.
Amsterdam also saw the introduction of the now synonymous Olympic flame, which was kept alight throughout the duration of the Games. But founder of the Games, Pierre de Coubertin was sadly missing through illness, missing his first Olympiad since 1908.

Women competed for the first time ever in track and field events, despite de Coubertin’s objections, but were limited to only five events.

German Lina Radke-Batschauer became only the second athlete to win a gold medal for her nation in a track and field event in the 800m. But the race was remembered for the state of her fellow competitors, some suffering completion exhaustion, forcing the IOC to decide to suspend the 800m for women until 1960.

Two familiar names again dominated their respective fields. Paavo Nurmi picked up three more medals while Johnny Weissmuller swept up in the pool, despite the Americans facing stiff competition from the Japanese.

Norway’s Prince Olav V became the first member of royalty to win a medal when he was part of the 6m yacht Norma, whilst India won their first of six consecutive hockey titles in front of 50,000 people.

Elsewhere, Ibrahim Moustafa of Egypt became the first non-European to win a Greco-Roman wrestling event, while Luigina Giavotti became the youngest ever medallist when she gained silver in gymnastics at 11 years and 302 days, an Olympic record which still stands today.

1932-The Los Angeles Games found the world suffering a crippling depression, but the IOC supplemented the economic costs for athletes by providing transportation and food benefits.
Travel costs became a controversial subject when the Olympic legend Paavo Nurmi was banned from participating in any more Olympiads after the IOC found he was in breach of the strict amateur code.

The Finn had claimed travel expenses to fund his journey to a German meet and the IOC prevented him from adding more Olympic medals to his already impressive tally of 12.

Nurmi, however, gained his revenge when he led the Olympic flame into the Helsinki Stadium in 1952.

Significant changes were made in technology during the Games, with the use for the first time of a photo finish camera and automatic timing for track events.

The Olympiad also saw the introduction of a three-level podium for the medal winners.

1936-The IOC were concerned about the Nazis’ rise to power in Germany but following the successful Winter Olympics in Germany earlier that year, Berlin was able to host the Games.
Many countries, particularly the United States, proposed boycotting the Games but the only notable absentees were Spain who withdrew due to the outbreak of civil war.

The Games were opened by Adolf Hitler and a number of teams gave the Nazi salute during the opening ceremony although Great Britain and the United States abstained.

The star of the Games was American Jesse Owens with four gold medals in the 100m, 200m, long jump and as a member of the 4×100m relay team.

However it was the powerful German team, backed fully by the government, that topped the medals table.

The host nation picked up 33 golds, with the US collecting 24 and Hungary ten.

Canoeing, basketball and outdoor 11-a-side handball all made their Olympic debuts.

Because of the Second World War these were to be the last Olympics until 1948.

1948-London - originally earmarked for the 1944 Games - staged the first Olympiad after the War.
A record number of 59 countries attended, although Japan and Germany were not invited and there were no athletes from the Soviet Union as the USSR was not affiliated to the IOC.

Costs determined that there was not an Olympic village built, and competitors were instead housed in military barracks and colleges around the capital.

With rationing also in place many teams had to bring their own food with them.

The undoubted star of the Games was Dutch athlete Fanny Blankers-Koen.

Nicknamed the ‘flying-housewife’, the mother-of-two won four gold medals, but the timetable of events prevented her from competing in the high and long jumps, despite being disciplines that she held the world record in.

Finnish gymnast Veikko Huhtanen was similarly successful with three golds, one silver and a bronze.

The United States once again topped the medal table with Sweden and France their nearest rivals.

1952-Russian athletes returned to Olympic action, in Helsinki, for the first time since 1912, but now they were representing a communist Soviet Union.
However they and other Eastern Bloc countries refused to join competitors from capitalist nations in the Olympic village. Instead they were housed in student accommodation.

The Games turned into a communist-capitalist battle with team officials considering any victory by their atheletes as a proof of superiority in their system.

Czech runner Emil Zatopek was the undoubted star of track and field with his domination of the men’s long distance events.

Scenes from the opening ceremony

Nicknamed the ‘Czech Express’, the army officer won golds in the 5,000m, 10,000m and marathon.

Fanny Blankers-Koen’s international career came to an emotional end. She struck a hurdle and fell in the 80m hurdels final and left the track in tears, never to compete again.

Gymnastics was dominated by the Soviets, and Maria Gorokhovskaya’s haul of two golds and five silvers set a record as the most medals won at one Games by a women in any sport.

1956-With the Australian government unwilling to change their animal quarantine period of six months, the horse-riding events for the Melbourne Games had to take place in Stockholm in June.
And the first ever south-of-the-equator Olympics posed problems for many athletes from Europe and America.

Acclimatisation was a problem and many competitors did not have sufficient funds to allow them to do this.

Travelling costs also saw the number of participants decrease and a number of nations also withdrew.

Vladimir Kuts took over from Emil Zatopek

Taiwan’s participation saw China pull out, the Suez crisis ruled out Egypt and Lebanon, while Liechtenstein, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland all withdrew in protest at the Soviet invasion of Hungary.

Political events even had a bearing on some competitions. A water polo match between Hungary and the USSR was abandoned because of the misconduct of some of the players.

Soviet gymnast Larissa Latynina won four gold medals, and six in total, while home favourite Betty Cuthbert won three sprint golds in track and field.

Emil Zatopek retired after finishing sixth in the marathon and Soviet Vladimir Kuts took his titles in both the 5000m and 10,000m.

1960-The Rome Games were the first to have worldwide television coverage and they got underway with an opening ceremony in front of 100,000 people inside the Olympic Stadium.
All the athletes except for the Soviet competitors had received the blessing of the Pope in St Peter’s Square.

The USA and the USSR were as competitive as ever and it was the Soviets who topped the medals table with a total of 42 golds.

American sprinter Wilma Rudolph caught the public imagination as she won three gold medals in the 100m, 200m and 4 x 100m relay. As one of 19 children she had suffered from polio.

Ethiopia’s emergence on to the long distance running scene was emphasised by Abebe Bikila winning the men’s marathon - barefooted.

Competition in the swimming events was of a particularly high standard with Olympic record broken in every event.

Great Britain’s Anita Lonsbrough prevented Australia and America from producing a clean-sweep of all 15 events.

1964-Tokyo and Asia hosted its first Games and the crowds flocked to witness the competition after an estimated $3bn was spent on stadiums and transport facilities.
South Africa no longer received an invitation, while Indonesia and North Korea were banned, but 14 nations did make their Olympic debuts as a record 93 countries took part.

Volleyball and judo were new to the Games and Dutchman Antonius Geesink caused an upset when he won the prestigious open judo event.

Ethiopian Abebe Bikila successfully defended his marathon title, this time in shoes and only six weeks after having his appendix removed.

Mary Rand becomes the first female British athlete to win gold

Mary Rand picked up Great Britain’s first ever gold in women’s athletics and her room-mate Ann Packer soon matched her achievement in the 800m.

The most successful athlete at the Games was American swimmer Don Schollander with four gold medals, while Soviet gymnast Larissa Latynina celebrated her final Olympic appearance with two more golds and six medals in total.

At three Olympics (1956 to 1964) she finished on the podium on no fewer than 18 occasions.

1968- The high altitude of Mexico City made life uncomfortable for the distance runners, but elsewhere Olympic and World records crashed.
Political issues again dominated proceedings. South Africa were again absent after the majority of black African nations threatened to boycott the Games if they were invited.

The medal ceremony of the men’s 200m saw American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise their black-gloved fists in a symbol of the black-power movement.

The team’s management banned the two athletes and they were sent home.

A total of 34 World and 38 Olympic records were set, with the most outstanding being the new mark set by American Bob Beamon in the long jump.

He beat the previous record by a massive 55cm as he leapt 8.90 m.

American high jumper Dick Fosbury won gold with his ‘flop’ style that was to revolutionise the event and replace the conventional straddle technique.

The triple jump saw the previous Olympic record beaten by seven competitors and the world mark improved upon on five occasions.

1972-A terrorist attack on the Israeli team in Munich was to shock the Olympic movement and leave 11 athletes, five terrorists and one policeman dead.
The Games were suspended the following morning as a memorial service was staged, but competition was resumed later in the day with the agreement of Israeli officials.

The Israeli team immediately returned home as did a number of individuals from the Netherlands, Norway and the Philippines, but the general feeling was that the Games should go on.

African politics continued to play a major part and the IOC were forced to ban Rhodesia - who had already sent a team of 30 athletes - for its apartheid politics.

Olga Korbut won three golds and a silver

Archery returned to the schedule, while Judo established itself as a permanent fixture and indoor handball made its debut as one of 195 disciplines.

Mark Spitz who had emerged with two gold medals as an 18-year-old in Mexico City was the star of the show.

He won four individual gold medals, all in world record times and then added three relay golds as well to become the most successful swimmer of all time.

Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut became a massive star overnight with three golds and a silver as she endeared herself to the Munich crowd.

1976-Planning errors and strikes caused construction costs to spiral and the Montreal Games got underway with building cranes still dominating the surroundings.
Security was high following the terrorist attack in Munich, but once again there were a number of nations who were absent.

A total of 24 of the 116 registered teams boycotted the Games, including 22 black African countries who refused to take part due to New Zealand’s participation, with the reason being that the Kiwis’ rugby team had played in apartheid South Africa.

Olga Korbut found herself upstaged in gymnastics by 14-year-old Romanian Nadia Comaneci.

Nadia Comaneci upstages Olga Korbut

Comaneci scored a total of seven maximum 10.00 marks on her way to three gold medals, a silver and a bronze.

On the track Lasse Viren of Finland successfully defended his 5,000 and 10,000m titles while Cuban Alberto Juantorena won both the 400m and the 800m.

The United States and East Germany dominated the swimming events with Britain’s David Wilkie one of only two competitors to break their domination.

Wilkie won the 200m breaststroke in a new world record.

1980-The 1980 Moscow Games were the first held in a country under communist rule, and were marred by a boycott in protest at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
The absences of the likes of Japan, West Germany and the United States left a question mark hanging over the future of the Olympic movement.

While many of the results may have been different if these nations had taken part, the quality of competition was still of a very high standard.

Moscow witnessed 36 world records, 39 European records and 73 Olympic bests.

Steve Ovett takes the 800m gold

The men’s 100m saw a very close finish between Great Britain’s Alan Wells and Silvio Leonard of Cuba, with Wells taking the gold.

Britain had two other Gold successes in men’s track events.

Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe clashed over both 800 and 1500 metres, with Ovett winning at Coe’s favoured 800m and Coe winning at the longer distance.

In the pool Britain’s Duncan Goodhew won the 100m breaststroke gold, repeating the 200m success of David Wilkie four years earlier.

1984-Just as the Americans had boycotted Moscow, so the Soviet Union team did not compete in Los Angeles.

1988-Politics finally took a back-seat as all leading nations except Cuba and Ethiopia came together for the Seoul Games.

1992-The 1992 Games went down as one of the best Olympiads ever, and for once not one single nation boycotted the Olympics.
South Africa were welcomed back on to the international stage while Germany competed as one nation again.

Even Afghanistan joined the opening ceremony despite not having any athletes participating in the Games.

Certainly the opening ceremony was spectacular and richly entertained a world-wide television audience estimated at two billion.

Michael Jordan and the Dream Team were unstoppable

A then record number of 64 nations won medals in Barcelona, but in Basketball the outcome was never in question as America’s Dream Team including the likes of ‘Magic’ Johnson and Michael Jordan swept aside the opposition.

China and Cuba were both heavily criticised for failing to take part in international drugs testing prior to the Games.

The most successful competitor in Barcelona was gymnast Vitali Sherbo from the Unified Team who picked up six gold medals.

Britain had reason to celebrate with Linford Christie and Sally Gunnell striking gold in the 100m and 400m hurdles respectively.

1996-Not even a terrorist bomb that went off in Centennial Park and left two people dead and more than 100 injured could overshadow the success of the Atlanta Games.
Chosen ahead of Athens to host the Games that celebrated the centenary of the modern Olympic movement, Atlanta proved to be a fitting venue.

The Olympic flame was movingly lit by Muhammad Ali, and when the competition got underway there were some outstanding performances.

America’s Michael Johnson achieved a 200m and 400m double that included a 200m world record of 19.32 seconds.

The Olympic flame was lit by Muhammad Ali

Carl Lewis picked up his ninth Olympic gold, spread over four Games by winning the long jump.

Britain’s Steve Redgrave won his fourth gold in successive Games and led to him being hailed by many as Britain’s greatest ever Olympian.

But defending 100m champion Linford Christie was disqualified after two false starts leaving Canada’s Donovan Bailey to take his crown in a new world record of 9.84 seconds.