2024 Paris Olympic Games
The 2024 Summer Olympic Games, officially the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad, are scheduled to take place from 26 July to 11 August 2024 in France. The opening ceremony will take place on 26 July 2024 in Paris.
Olympic Games are the most important international athletic competition in the world. The Olympics bring together thousands of the world’s finest athletes to compete against one another in a variety of individual and team sports. Millions of people have attended the games, and billions of people throughout the world watch the Olympics on television.
The Olympic Games originated in ancient Greece and were held from 776 B.C. to A.D. 393. The modern games began in 1896. The organisers revived the games to encourage world peace and friendship and to promote healthy sporting competition for the youth of the world.
The Olympic Games consist of the Summer Games and the Winter Games. From 1896 to 1992, the Olympics were held every four years, except in 1916 during World War I, and in 1940 and 1944 during World War II. The Winter Games, which were established in 1924, took place the same year as the Summer Games. Beginning in 1994, the Winter and Summer Games were divided and scheduled on four-year cycles two years apart.
The Summer Games are held during the summer season of the host city, usually between July and October, and last 17 days. Athletes compete in more than 300 separate events during the Summer Games.
Olympic Symbol
The Olympic symbol, created in 1913, consists of five interlocking rings that represent the continents of Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and the Americas. The colours of the rings, from left to right, are blue, yellow, black, green, and red. The flag of every nation competing in the games has at least one of these colours. Under the rings is the Olympic motto, the Latin words Citius, Altius, Fortius. The words are translated as Swifter, Higher, Stronger.
Opening Ceremony
The most dramatic moment of the Opening Ceremony is the lighting of the Olympic cauldron (kettle). The flame symbolises the light of spirit, knowledge, and life, and it is a messenger of peace. The fire is ignited in Olympia, Greece, by using a mirror to concentrate the rays of the sun. Runners transport the flame in a torch relay from Greece to the site of the games.
HISTORY
Ancient Olympics
The first recorded Olympic contest took place in 776 B.C. at Olympia in western Greece. The first winner was Koroibos (also spelled Coroebus), a cook from Elis. The Olympic Games were held every four years. They were so important to the ancient Greeks that time was measured in Olympiads, the four-year intervals between games. The only event in the first 13 games was the stadion, a running race of 192 metres. Through the years, longer running races were added.
The modern games
In 1875, a group of German archaeologists began to excavate the ruins of the stadium and temples of Olympia, which had been destroyed by an earthquake and buried by a landslide and floods. Their discoveries inspired Baron Pierre de Coubertin, a French educator, to organise a modern international Olympics. He first proposed the idea publicly in 1892. In 1894, the first IOC was formed.
The first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens, Greece, in 1896. The Berlin games were the first to be preceded by a torch relay of the Olympic flame from Greece, and they were the first games to be shown on a form of television. But the 1936 Summer Olympics are best remembered for Hitler’s failed attempt to use them to prove his theory of racial superiority.
Cancelled or postponed
The 1916 games were cancelled because of World War I (1914-1918). The Olympics scheduled for 1940 and 1944 were cancelled because of World War II (1939-1945). The first postwar Summer Games were held in London in 1948.
The 2020 Summer Games were postponed in early 2020 as a respiratory disease called COVID-19 spread throughout the world. The IOC announced that the games, rescheduled to the summer of 2021, would still be called the 2020 Summer Olympic Games. The postponement marked the first time the Olympics had ever been rescheduled during peacetime.
Olympic stats
Table: Sites of Olympic Games
Table: 2020 Results
Table: 2020 Leading medal-winning nations
PARALYMPIC GAMES
Paralympic Games are an international sports event for male and female athletes with a variety of physical limitations. The Paralympic Games closely resemble the Olympic Games. They both are divided into summer and winter games and are held every four years. The Paralympics take place shortly after the regular Olympics conclude. The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) organises and governs the games.
LEARN MORE
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