With the Paris Summer Olympics kicking off from July 26, 2024, it is the first of its kind to have its opening ceremony kicked off outside of the stadium where the athletes hopped on the boats to parade down the Seine River enjoying the city’s landmarks. This edition of the olympics features 206 nations including AIN (Individual Neutral Athletes) and EOR (Refugee Olympic Team) with 10,714 athletes participating across 329 events in 32 sports.
History
The first olympics is said to have been held in ancient Greece in around 776 BC to celebrate Zeus, the Greek god of sky and weather. It is said to have lasted for 6 months featuring games such as wrestling, boxing, long jump, javelin, discus and chariot racing. In modern times, the first summer olympics was held in 1896 AD known as the games of the Olympiad in Athens, Greece. From 1924 AD onwards winter olympics were started to be held and since then, the winter olympics are held 2 years after the summer olympics.
The Five Rings
The five rings of the Olympics symbolise the 5 inhabited continents of the world with the Americas treated as a single entity. The colours; blue, black, red, yellow, and green are aimed towards inclusiveness as these colours are common flag colours of nations across these continents.
Medals
Until 1912 AD, the gold medals given out to the athletes were made of solid Gold. It was after this edition that the gold medals started to be made primarily of silver with gold plating. The reason for this was the high cost of handing out 1000+ solid gold medals in each edition. Talking of medals, Michaels Phelps of the USA holds the record for most Olympic medals with 32 Golds, 2 Silvers and 2 Bronze medals to his name.
With the current edition of summer olympics underway, the athletes from around the world are chasing glory for their nation and also chasing the gold (well, gold plating).