The modern Olympic Games or Olympics are leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games are considered the world's foremost sports competition with more than 200 nations participating. The Olympic Games are held every four years, with the Summer and Winter Games alternating by occurring every four years but two years apart.
The Summer Olympic Games or the Games of the Olympiad, first held in 1896, is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years. The most recent Olympics were held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) organises the Games and oversees the host city's preparations. In each Olympic event, gold medals are awarded for first place, silver medals are awarded for second place, and bronze medals are awarded for third place; this tradition began in 1904. The Winter Olympic Games were created due to the success of the Summer Olympics.
The 1936 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held in 1936 in Berlin, Nazi Germany. Berlin won the bid to host the Games over Barcelona, Spain, on 26 April 1931, at the 29th IOC Session in Barcelona. It marked the second and final time the International Olympic Committee gathered to vote in a city that was bidding to host those Games.
Mark Andrew Spitz is an American former competitive swimmer and nine-time Olympic champion. He won seven gold medals at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, all in world record time. This was an achievement that lasted for 36 years until it was surpassed by fellow American Michael Phelps, who won eight golds at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
The 2004 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad and commonly known as Athens 2004, was a premier international multi-sport event held in Athens, Greece, from 13 to 29 August 2004 with the motto Welcome Home.
The 2008 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad and commonly known as Beijing 2008, was an international multi-sport event that was held from 8 to 24 August 2008 in Beijing, China.
The 1932 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the X Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event that was held from July 30 to August 14, 1932, in Los Angeles, California, United States.
The 1932 Winter Olympics, officially known as the III Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event in the United States, held in Lake Placid, New York. The games opened on February 4 and closed on February 15. It was the first of four Winter Olympics held in the United States; Lake Placid hosted again in 1980.
Yao Ming is a Chinese basketball executive and retired professional basketball player who played for the Shanghai Sharks of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) and the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He was selected to start for the Western Conference in the NBA All-Star Game eight times, and was named to the All-NBA Team five times. At the time of his final season, he was the tallest active player in the NBA, at 2.29 m. He is the only player from outside of the United States to lead the NBA in All-Star votes.
Robert Norman Waddell, is a New Zealand rower, and yachtsman. He holds the third fastest 2000 metre indoor rowing machine time in the world, clocking a time of 5 mins 36.6 secs (5:36.6), which was the previous world record for 19 years before the time was improved by Joshua Dunkley-Smith. He also held the record for 5000 m on the rowing machine with a time of 14:58. This made him the first person to go below 15 min for this distance. He holds a black belt in judo. He played rugby union for Waikato.
Michael Duane Johnson is a retired American sprinter who won four Olympic gold medals and eight World Championships gold medals in the span of his career. He formerly held the world and Olympic records in the 200 m and 400 m, as well as the world record in the indoor 400 m. He also once held the world's best time in the 300 m. Johnson is generally considered one of the greatest and most consistent sprinters in the history of track and field.
Bernard Kipchirchir Lagat is a Kenyan-American middle and long-distance runner.
Taufik Hidayat is a retired Indonesian badminton player. He is a former world and Olympic champion in men's singles. He has also won the Indonesian Open six times.
Usain St Leo Bolt is a Jamaican retired sprinter. He is a world record holder in the 100 metres, 200 metres and 4 × 100 metres relay. His reign as Olympic Games champion in all of these events spans three Olympics. Owing to his achievements and dominance in sprint competition, he is widely considered to be the greatest sprinter of all time.
Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius is a South African former sprint runner. In 2015 he was convicted of the 2013 murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
Abhinav Bindra is an Indian businessman and retired professional shooter who is a former World and Olympic champion in the 10 metre Air Rifle event. By winning the gold in the 10 metre Air Rifle event at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, he became the first Indian to win an individual gold medal at the Olympic Games. It was also India's first gold medal since 1980, when the Men's Field Hockey Team won the gold. He is the first and only Indian to have held both the World and Olympic titles at the same time, a feat he accomplished by capturing the Gold Medal at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, after having won the gold at the 2006 ISSF World Shooting Championships. Bindra also won the Gold Medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
Thomas Robert Daley is a British diver. He specialises in the 10-metre platform event and is a double World champion in the event; he won the 2009 FINA World Championship in the individual event at the age of 15, before regaining it in 2017. He was the 2012 Olympic bronze medalist in the event.
James Andrew Byrnes is a Canadian rower and Olympic gold medalist. He was born in Toronto, Ontario and raised in Ithaca, New York. Byrnes is a 2005 graduate of Bates College in Maine, where he rowed for the Bates Rowing Team and earned a master's degree in engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 2006.
Michael Fred Phelps II is an American retired competitive swimmer and the most successful and most decorated Olympian of all time, with a total of 28 medals. Phelps also holds the all-time records for Olympic gold medals (23), Olympic gold medals in individual events (13), and Olympic medals in individual events (16). When he won eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Games, Phelps broke fellow American swimmer Mark Spitz's 1972 record of seven first-place finishes at any single Olympic Games. At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Phelps had already tied the record of eight medals of any color at a single Games by winning six gold and two bronze medals. At the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Phelps won four gold and two silver medals, and at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, he won five gold medals and one silver. This made him the most successful athlete of the Games for the fourth Olympics in a row.
