The Olympics were born in Olympia, Greece as early as the 700-800s BC as a way to honor the gods and it continued until 393 AD when a Christian emperor, Theodosius I, banned the games. In the 1890’s, Baron Pierre de Coubertin came upon the ruins of the site of the early games and he was inspired to revive them. And so in 1896, the modern games that we know today commenced. The summer games have been held every four years since, except in 1916, 1940, and 1944 because of World War I and World War II, respectively. The winter Olympics were created in 1924 and occurred three months after the summer games until 1992 when they were staggered two years after the summer games with a four-year gap in between.  

The athletes in particular have come an extremely long way. The first competitors in these games were simply all of the freemen in Greece, no matter their social class. When the games were revived, the 280 competitors were men from 13 countries which later grew to 3,000 athletes with more than one hundred women from 44 countries. This number has increased over the years to 11,000 athletes from 205 countries in 2016. The Olympics have garnered attention for many athletes that are now recognized worldwide such as recent medal winners Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt, Simone Biles, and Katie Ledecky.

In Ancient Greece, the Olympics started as a one-day annual event that soon stretched into three, then five days and began with a few outdoor events such as running, long jump, shot put, javelin throw, pankration (mix of boxing and wrestling, similar to today’s UFC, with no rules), boxing, and equestrian events. Early on, wrestling and discus throw were added and that enabled the creation of the pentathlon. The competition has grown to include a maximum of 28 sports, divided into a various number of disciplines, and a total of 301 events in the summer while the winter games usually include 15 sports. The Sport is the overall encompassing body, that is then divided into discipline, and then down into an event, which is where the medals are awarded. To explain how it works, we will follow the example of gymnastics. Gymnastics is the overall encompassing body that is broken down into the disciplines of artistic, rhythmic, and trampoline. Using artistic gymnastics, the discipline is broken down into separate events such as Men’s team final, Women’s team final, Men’s all around, Women’s all around, and into the single apparatus finals. Sports have been limited in the summer games to 28 and if new sports are added, the same number must be taken away. Only athletics, swimming, gymnastics, cycling, fencing, skiing, skating, and ice hockey have been included in every single one their respective games. Since the number of events has grown since the birth of the Olympics, the time span runs for around two weeks.