The modern Olympics have sprung from the mind of Pierre de Coubertin. Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the International Olympic Committee on June 23, 1894. Two years later in 1896 Athens held the first games in honour of the Olympic Games in classical antiquity
Since 1896, more than 4,000 Olympic champions have been crowned and nowadays more than 10 thousand athletes at a time compete to the more than 300 golden medals.
The Olympiad, a 4-year period was one of the Greek methods to measure time. The Olympic Games were used as a starting point, the first year of the Olympiad cycle. The Olympics were there to honour the God Zeus. During the games there was a truce throughout Greece so athletes from all regions could safely come to the games to compete for a wild olive leaf crown and eternal honour.
The Games in ancient times, according to tradition took place from 776 BC and till 394 AD and there was a (nude) competed in wrestling, boxing, pankatron (sort freefight combination of wrestling and boxing), chariot racing stadium (running the length of the stadium) and the pentathlon consisting of wrestling, stadium, long jump, javelin and discus.
su | mo | tu | we | th | fr | sa |
21 jul | 22 jul | 23 jul | 24 jul | 25 jul | 26 jul | 27 jul |
28 jul | 29 jul | 30 jul | 31 jul | 1 aug | 2 aug | 3 aug |
4 aug | 5 aug | 6 aug | 7 aug | 8 aug | 9 aug | 10 aug |
11 aug | 12 aug | 13 aug | 14 aug | 15 aug | 16 aug | 17 aug |
1e | United States | 40 | 44 | 42 | |
2e | China | 40 | 27 | 24 | |
3e | Japan | 20 | 12 | 13 | |
4e | Australia | 18 | 19 | 16 | |
5e | France | 16 | 26 | 22 | |
6e | Netherlands | 15 | 8 | 12 | |
7e | Great Britain | 14 | 22 | 29 | |
8e | South Korea | 13 | 9 | 10 | |
9e | Italy | 12 | 13 | 17 | |
10e | Germany | 12 | 13 | 8 |
1e | United States | 39 | 41 | 33 | |
2e | China | 38 | 32 | 18 | |
3e | Japan | 27 | 14 | 17 | |
4e | Great Britain | 22 | 21 | 22 | |
5e | Russian Federation | 20 | 28 | 23 | |
6e | Australia | 17 | 7 | 22 | |
7e | Netherlands | 10 | 12 | 14 | |
8e | France | 10 | 12 | 11 | |
9e | Germany | 10 | 11 | 16 | |
10e | Italy | 10 | 10 | 20 |