The Amazing Facts of the Olympics: History, Records & Legends

Spirit of the Olympics: Wilma Rudolph, the Girl Who Was Told She Would Never Walk "Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit." These words are widely attributed to Wilma Rudolph , and few athletes have lived them as fully as she did. The Olympic spirit is not only about who stands on the podium. It is about courage, perseverance, dignity and the belief that effort can change a life. Wilma Rudolph's story holds all four. A Fragile Beginning Wilma was born in 1940 in Tennessee, USA, the 20th of 22 children in a poor family. She arrived prematurely and weighed only about 4.5 pounds. Illness followed her through early childhood: scarlet fever, double pneumonia and, at the age of 4, polio , which left her left leg weak and twisted. Doctors told the family she would probably never walk normally. A Mother's Perseverance Her mother refused to accept that verdict. Twice a week, she took Wilma on a bus ride of roughly 50 mi...

Why Is a Marathon 26 Miles and 385 Yards ? It is one of sport's strangest numbers: 26 miles and 385 yards , or 42.195 kilometres . Why not a tidy 26 miles, or an even 40 km? The answer lies in a royal request at the 1908 London Olympics. No fixed distance at first When the modern Olympics began in 1896, there was no standard marathon length. Races were about 40 km (roughly 25 miles), and the exact distance depended on the host city's course. Athens in 1896 was about 40 km, and Paris in 1900 was slightly longer. The 1908 London course In 1908 the organizers laid out a route from Windsor Castle to the Olympic stadium at White City. According to the popular account, the start was placed beneath the castle's nursery windows so the royal children could watch the runners set off. The finish line was placed in front of the royal box, so the royal family had a clear view. Measured out, the course came to 26 miles and 385 yards . A dramatic finish The race became fam...

Michael Phelps: 8 Gold Medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, American swimmer Michael Phelps won eight gold medals at a single Games, the most ever won by one athlete at one Olympics. Between August 10 and 17, he entered eight events and won every one. The previous record belonged to his fellow countryman Mark Spitz , who won seven golds in swimming at the 1972 Munich Games. Phelps tied that mark with his seventh win, then broke it the next day. The Eight Golds 400m individual medley: world record 4x100m freestyle relay: world record 200m freestyle: world record 200m butterfly: world record 4x200m freestyle relay: world record 200m individual medley: world record 100m butterfly: Olympic record 4x100m medley relay: world record That is seven world records and one Olympic record across eight races. The Moments That Almost Ended It Two races nearly cost him the streak. In the 4x100m freestyle relay, teammate Jason Lezak c...

Abebe Bikila: The Man Who Ran Into History Barefoot On the evening of September 10, 1960, an almost unknown Ethiopian soldier lined up for the Olympic marathon in Rome. By the time he crossed the finish line, Abebe Bikila had won in 2 hours, 15 minutes and 16.2 seconds , a world best, and he had done it barefoot . He had also become the first Black African to win an Olympic gold medal . From Shepherd Boy to Imperial Guardsman Bikila was born on August 7, 1932, in the village of Jato, near Mendida, in the Ethiopian highlands. The son of a shepherd, he grew up in a world of rugged hills, thin air and long distances covered on foot. In the early 1950s he moved to Addis Ababa and joined the Imperial Bodyguard of Emperor Haile Selassie, a respected career for a young man from the countryside. It was in the Imperial Guard that his talent was noticed. Onni Niskanen, a Swedish coach working with Ethiopian athletes, spotted Bikila's endurance and discipline and began training ...

Sad But True: The Munich Olympics Massacre, 1972 The 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich were meant to show a new, peaceful West Germany to the world. Instead, they are remembered for one of the darkest days in Olympic history. What happened In the early hours of 5 September 1972 , eight members of the Palestinian group Black September broke into the Olympic Village and entered the apartments housing the Israeli delegation. Wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg and weightlifter Yossef Romano were killed during the initial assault, and nine other Israelis were taken hostage. The attackers demanded the release of 234 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, along with two German militants held in West Germany. Israel refused to negotiate. That night, German authorities attempted a rescue at the Fürstenfeldbruck airbase. The operation failed. All nine remaining hostages were killed, along with a West German police officer, Anton Fliegerbauer , and five of the eight attackers. The eleven ...

The 1936 Berlin Olympics: The First Games Ever Broadcast on Television The 1936 Berlin Olympics , held from 1 to 16 August, were the first Olympic Games ever shown on television. They were not the first TV broadcast of any kind, since experimental transmissions began in the 1920s and Germany had launched a regular service in 1935. But Berlin was the first time the world's biggest sporting event reached an audience through a screen. A Broadcast Without Home Viewers Television sets were far too expensive and rare for ordinary households in 1936. Instead, the broadcast was shown in about 25 public viewing rooms, called Fernsehstuben , in Berlin and nearby Potsdam. Over the course of the Games, an estimated 150,000 or more people watched there, with roughly 70 hours of live coverage in total. The Technology Behind It The pictures were crude by modern standards: low resolution, small screens and a flickering image. Broadcasters used two approaches. Some cameras, built by Telef...

The Olympic Games That Never Happened The modern Olympics have been held since 1896, but not every scheduled Games took place. Five editions have been cancelled outright: three Summer Games and two Winter Games. All were lost to the World Wars. Since 1944, none has been cancelled, though one (Tokyo 2020) was postponed. The Cancelled Summer Games 1916 – Berlin, Germany (VI Olympiad): Cancelled because of the First World War. Berlin had already built a new stadium for the event. Germany was then excluded from the 1920 and 1924 Games, and Berlin did not host until 1936. 1940 – Tokyo, then Helsinki (XII Olympiad): Tokyo was awarded the Games in 1936 but gave them up in 1938 as Japan's war with China escalated. Helsinki took over, but the outbreak of the Second World War, and the Soviet invasion of Finland in late 1939, ended those plans. Helsinki eventually hosted in 1952 and Tokyo in 1964. 1944 – London, England (XIII Olympiad): Cancelled because of the...

First Perfect 10: Nadia Comaneci at the 1976 Olympics Nadia Comaneci, the gymnast who changed the sport in 1976. On July 18, 1976, at the Montreal Olympics, Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci became the first gymnast in Olympic history to be awarded a perfect score of 10.0. She was just 14 years old, and she earned it on the uneven bars. The moment was so unexpected that the scoreboard couldn't show it. It had never been built to display a 10.0, so it flashed "1.00" instead, and the crowd had to wait for the announcement to understand what they had just seen. Nadia didn't stop there. She went on to score seven perfect 10s across the Montreal Games and won three gold medals (individual all-around, uneven bars and balance beam), along with a team silver and a floor exercise bronze. Her performances reshaped how gymnastics was judged and inspired a generation of athletes. Nearly fifty years later, "the first p...

Lorna Johnstone: The Oldest Woman Ever to Compete at the Olympics Hilda Lorna Johnstone of Great Britain, the oldest woman ever to compete at the Olympic Games. Hilda Lorna Johnstone , known as Lorna Johnstone, is the oldest woman ever to compete at the Olympic Games. She rode for Great Britain in dressage at the 1972 Munich Olympics, just days after turning 70. Quick Facts Born: 4 September 1902, York, England Died: 18 May 1990, aged 87 Sport: Equestrian (dressage) Olympic Games: 1956, 1968 and 1972 Record: Oldest female Olympian, and also Britain's oldest Olympian of any gender A Long Career in the Saddle Johnstone grew up in a wealthy Yorkshire family that was heavily involved in foxhunting, so she spent her childhood around horses. She became one of Britain's top dressage riders and won the national dressage championship thirteen times. She was awarded an MBE for her services to the sport. Her Olympic Record Her three Olympic appearances were ...

No Women Allowed: How Women Were Shut Out of the First Modern Olympics There were no women at the first modern Olympic Games, held in Athens in 1896. Around 240 athletes from 14 nations competed, and every one of them was a man. Women first took part four years later, at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris. Why were women excluded? The founder of the modern Games, Pierre de Coubertin, was openly opposed to women competing. He believed the Olympics should celebrate male athleticism, and that women's role in sport was to applaud the winners. The 1896 organizers followed his lead. The woman who ran anyway Women were officially barred, but one refused to accept it. Stamata Revithi, a Greek woman, asked to run the 1896 marathon and was turned down. The day after the men's race, she ran the marathon course on her own, reportedly finishing in about five and a half hours. She was not allowed to enter the stadium, and her run was never officially recorded. 1900, Paris: the ...

Charlotte Cooper: The First Individual Olympic Champion Among Women Charlotte Cooper (1870-1966) Charlotte Cooper of Great Britain became the first woman to win an individual Olympic title when she took the tennis singles at the 1900 Paris Games . These were the second modern Olympics and the first to include women. Only about 22 women competed among nearly 1,000 athletes, in sports such as tennis and golf. A double champion. Cooper beat France's Hélène Prévost in the singles final, then added a second gold in the mixed doubles, partnering Reginald Doherty. That made her one of the earliest double champions in Olympic history. A Wimbledon great. Her Olympic success was no fluke. Cooper won the Wimbledon singles title five times (1895, 1896, 1898, 1901 and 1908). Her 1908 win came at age 37, making her the oldest woman to win the title. She achieved all of this despite significant hearing loss, which began in her twenties. A note on the medals. The 1900 Gam...

Oldest Olympian (Male): Oscar Swahn Oscar Swahn of Sweden is the oldest athlete ever to compete at the Olympic Games. A sport shooter, he took part in the 1920 Antwerp Games at the age of 72 years and 281 days , and he did not just participate: he won a silver medal in the team running deer, double shots event. That also makes him the oldest Olympic medalist in history. A remarkable career Swahn did not take up Olympic shooting until his late fifties, yet he went on to win gold medals at the 1908 London and 1912 Stockholm Games. At Stockholm he won gold at the age of 64, which made him one of the oldest Olympic champions ever. His son, Alfred Swahn, was also an Olympic shooter, and the two sometimes competed on the same Swedish teams. Why it matters More than a century later, Swahn's record still stands. It shows that in precision sports like shooting, skill and experience can outlast youth. Quick facts: • Born: 20 October 1847, Sweden • Sport: Shooting (...

Dimitrios Loundras: The Youngest Olympian in History Dimitrios Loundras was a Greek gymnast who competed at the 1896 Athens Olympics, the first modern Games. He was only 10 years and 218 days old , which makes him the youngest documented competitor and medallist in Olympic history. The Event and the Medal Loundras was born in Athens on 6 September 1885. He competed in the team parallel bars event as a member of the Ethnikos Gymnastikos Syllogos club. His team finished third and won the bronze medal . Only three teams entered, so third place was also last, but it still made him an Olympic medallist before his eleventh birthday. A Record With an Asterisk Loundras is the youngest known Olympian, but not everyone agrees he was the youngest ever. At the 1900 Paris Games, a boy whose name and age were never recorded served as coxswain for a Dutch rowing pair. He is often said to have been around seven years old, but that has never been confirmed. Because his identity is unkn...

James Connolly of the USA became the first Olympic champion of the modern era when he won the triple jump on the opening day of the 1896 Athens Olympics, the first event of the Games to be decided. His winning jump of 13.71 metres made him the first Olympic champion in more than 1,500 years. Who was James Connolly? Born in 1868 in South Boston, Massachusetts, Connolly was one of twelve children of Irish immigrant parents. He had little formal athletic training and was a Harvard student when he decided to compete. According to the usual account, Harvard refused him leave to travel to Athens, so he withdrew from the university and went anyway. What did the winners receive? There were no gold medals in 1896. The winner of each event received a silver medal, an olive branch and a diploma . The runner-up received a bronze medal and a laurel branch . Connolly also took second place in the high jump and third in the long jump, so he left Athens with three medals. After the Gam...

The Olympic Game, held for centuries in ancient Greece, were revived in the late 19th century. The man behind that revival was a French educator with a big idea. The Father of the Modern Olympics Baron Pierre de Coubertin (1863–1937) of France is known as the father of the modern Olympics. A passionate educator, he believed that sport could build character, promote international understanding, and bring young people from different nations together in friendly competition. He was also inspired by earlier efforts to revive the Games, such as the Wenlock Olympian Games in England. In June 1894, Coubertin organized a congress at the Sorbonne in Paris, where delegates voted to revive the Olympic Games and founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The Greek writer Demetrios Vikelas became its first president. Athens, 1896 The first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens, Greece, from 6 to 15 April 1896 . Greece was the natural choice, since it was the birthplace of ...