The
Summer Olympic Games or the
Games of the Olympiad are an international multi-sport event, occurring every four years, organized by the International Olympic Committee. Medals are awarded in each event, with gold medals for first place, silver for second and bronze for third, a tradition that started in 1904.
The games have expanded from a 42-event competition with fewer than 250 male athletes to a 300-event sporting tradition with over 10,000 competitors of both sexes from 205 nations.
The United States has hosted four Summer Olympics Games, more than any other nation.
The United Kingdom will have hosted three Summer Olympics Games when they return to the British capital in 2012, all of them have been (and will be in) London, making it the first city to hold the Summer Olympic Games three times.
Australia, France, Germany and Greece have all hosted the Summer Olympic Games twice.
Other countries that have hosted the summer Olympics are Belgium, Canada, Finland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, the Soviet Union and Sweden.
The People's Republic of China hosted the Summer Olympics for the first time in Beijing in 2008.
In the 2016 Summer Olympics, Rio de Janeiro will host the first Summer Games in South America.
Four cities have hosted two Summer Olympic Games: Los Angeles, London, Paris and Athens.
The first edition of de
Coubertin's games, held in Athens in 1896, attracted just
245 competitors, of whom more than 200 were Greek, and only 14 countries were represented. Nevertheless, no international events of this magnitude had been organized before.
Female athletes were not allowed to compete, though one woman, Stamata Revithi, ran the marathon course on her own, saying "if the committee doesn’t let me compete I will go after them regardless".
Four years later the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris attracted more than four times as many athletes,
including 11 women, who were allowed to officially compete for the first time, in croquet, golf, sailing, and tennis.
