Olympics

In 1932, Lake Placid, New York hosted the Winter Olympics.

302 events with 10,768 competitors (5,992 men, 4,776 women) from 204 nations in 2012.

Part of a religious ceremony in honour of the god Zeus held at his temple at Olympia in Elis, southern Greece.

1940 summer Olympic games held in Tokyo, Japan. Cancelled due to WWII 1940 winter Olympic games held in Sapparo Japan. Cancelled due to WWII 1964 summer Olympic games held in Tokyo, Japan. 1972 winter Olympic games held in Sapparo, Japan.

1) St. Moritz, Switzerland in 1928 and 1948.

2) Lake Placid, United States in 1932 and 1980.

3) Innsbruck, Austria in 1964 and 1976.

Beijing, China - Summer, 2008

Vancouver, winter 2010

The men's ice hockey team beat Canada in 1960 and Russia in 1980. The women's ice hockey team beat Canada in 1998. Neither field hockey team has ever won a gold medal.

Barcelona, Spain hosted the Olympics in 1992.

The tribes which became the Greeks are believed to have migrated southward into the Balkan peninsula in several waves beginning in the Middle Bronze Age (roughly 2000 BC) from the current areas of Albania and Yugoslavia. Their racial origins are unknown. The people who live in present-day Greece are mainly of the Caucasian race.

The 1980 United States Hockey Team accomplished one of the greatest upsets in the history of sports. A group of college players who hadn't played together before the Olympics took on a professional team from the Soviet Union and defeated them to win the gold medal.

The winner of the men's marathon in the 2000 Summer Olympics was Gezahgne Abera of Ethiopia in a time of 2 hours, 10 minutes, 11 seconds.

According to legend, the ancient Olympic Games were founded by Heracles (the Roman Hercules), a son of Zeus. Yet the first Olympic Games for which we still have written records were held in 776 BCE (though it is generally believed that the Games had been going on for many years already). At this Olympic Games, a naked runner, Coroebus (a cook from Elis), won the sole event at the Olympics, the stade - a run of approximately 192 meters (210 yards). This made Coroebus the very first Olympic champion in history. The ancient Olympic Games grew and continued to be played every four years for nearly 1200 years. In 393 CE, the Roman emperor Theodosius I, a Christian, abolished the Games because of their pagan influences. Approximately 1500 years later, a young Frenchmen named Pierre de Coubertin began their revival. Coubertin is now known as le Rénovateur. Coubertin was a French aristocrat born on January 1, 1863. He was only seven years old when France was overrun by the Germans during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Some believe that Coubertin attributed the defeat of France not to its military skills but rather to the French soldiers' lack of vigor.* After examining the education of the German, British, and American children, Coubertin decided that it was exercise, more specifically sports, that made a well-rounded and vigorous person. Coubertin's attempt to get France interested in sports was not met with enthusiasm. Still, Coubertin persisted. In 1890, he organized and founded a sports organization, Union des Sociétés Francaises de Sports Athlétiques (USFSA). Two years later, Coubertin first pitched his idea to revive the Olympic Games. At a meeting of the Union des Sports Athlétiques in Paris on November 25, 1892, Coubertin stated, Let us export our oarsmen, our runners, our fencers into other lands. That is the true Free Trade of the future; and the day it is introduced into Europe the cause of Peace will have received a new and strong ally. It inspires me to touch upon another step I now propose and in it I shall ask that the help you have given me hitherto you will extend again, so that together we may attempt to realise [sic], upon a basis suitable to the conditions of our modern life, the splendid and beneficent task of reviving the Olympic Games.**

1992 featured both Summer and Winter games, in Barcelona, Spain and Albertville, France. Then the IOC decided to hold the winter games staggered from the Summer games, so in 1994 the winter games were held in Lillehammer, Norway. Now the winter games are held every four years, but there is some form of Olympic competition every two years.

The summer Olympics are more popular than the Winter ones only because more countries participate, especially the ones that do not have winter like the ones in Africa

They were held in Olympia because the athleticism of the games was a form of worship. So they built a temple to Zeus and a stadium at Olympia to host these games. (Note that it is on the opposite side of Greece, the southwest, from the similarly-named Mount Olympus, in NE Greece.)
As a festival to the god Zeus at his temple at Olympia in southern Greece.

The host city for the 2016 Summer Olympics Games was chosen on October 2, 2009, as Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a location which beat off competition from Madrid, Tokyo, and Chicago.
Brazil, in Rio de Janeiro

China won 11 medals (2 gold, 4 silver, 5 bronze) at the 2006 Winter Games in Turin. They won 5 medals in short track speed skating and 2 medals each in figure skating, freestyle skiing, and speed skating.

Through the 2008 Games in Beijing, India has won 20 total medals (9 gold, 4 silver, 7 bronze).

London, United Kingdom, will host the 2012 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games.

London, England

History has recorded that the Olympics began in Olympia, Greece.

The Swedish shooter Oscar Swahn was 64 when he won a gold medal in shooting during the 1912 Stockholm Games.

Hiroshi Hoketsu is a Japanese equestrian who finished 9th in the Dressage Team Grand Prix and 35th in the Dressage Individual Grand Prix at the 2008 Summer Olympics. He was 67 years old.

1900 Games in Paris.
That was the 1900 Games in Paris when women participated in golf, tennis, and croquet.

According to the olympic website, the US has 3 events it has never won a medal in----I know one of them is Handball, but do not know the other two.

Through the 2006 Winter Games, the U.S. has never won a medal in biathlon and nordic combined.

Through the 2008 Summer Games, the U.S. has never won a medal in handball, table tennis, rhythmic gymnastics, and badminton.