The Olympic Games

The ancient Olympic Games were held at Olympia, a sanctuary of Zeus in southern Greece. By tradition they began in 776 BCE, and they took place every four years for more than a thousand years. The four-year period between Games, called an Olympiad, was used by Greeks as a way of counting time.

The Games were a religious festival as much as a sporting competition. Events included running races, wrestling, boxing, chariot races and the pentathlon. Competitors were free Greek men, and married women were generally barred from watching. A sacred truce was declared so athletes and spectators could travel safely.

Winners received a crown of olive leaves at Olympia, but they returned home as heroes and could receive rich rewards from their cities, including free meals for life. Some athletes became famous across the Greek world, such as the wrestler Milo of Croton.

The Games continued under Roman rule. They are traditionally said to have ended in 393 CE, when the Christian emperor Theodosius I banned pagan festivals, though historians debate the exact date of the last Games.

The French educator Baron Pierre de Coubertin campaigned to revive the Olympics as a way of promoting international understanding and physical education. He helped found the International Olympic Committee in 1894.

The first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens in 1896, with about 240 athletes from 14 nations, all men. Women first competed in 1900 in Paris. The Winter Olympics began in 1924 in Chamonix, France, and the Paralympic Games grew from a 1948 competition for injured Second World War veterans organised by Ludwig Guttmann in Stoke Mandeville, England.

• The five interlocking rings, designed by Coubertin, represent the union of the continents.
• The Olympic motto was faster, higher, stronger, and in 2021 the word together was added.
• The Olympic flame is lit at Olympia using the sun's rays and carried by a torch relay to the host city, a tradition introduced at the 1936 Berlin Games.
• The marathon was created for 1896, inspired by the legend of a messenger running from Marathon to Athens.
• Athletes and officials take an oath to compete fairly.

The Olympics have never been free of politics. Nazi Germany used the 1936 Berlin Games as propaganda, although the African American athlete Jesse Owens won four gold medals there. At Mexico City in 1968, the American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised gloved fists on the podium in protest against racial injustice.

At Munich in 1972, Palestinian militants took members of the Israeli team hostage, and eleven Israeli athletes and coaches were killed. The United States led a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Soviet bloc boycotted Los Angeles in 1984. Doping scandals and the high cost of hosting have also raised persistent questions.

The Summer Olympics now involve more than 10,000 athletes from over 200 national teams competing in dozens of sports, with new events such as skateboarding, surfing and breaking added in recent Games to attract younger audiences. The Tokyo 2020 Games were postponed to 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Games are among the most watched events on Earth. Supporters value them as a celebration of human achievement and international connection, while critics point to costs, displacement of residents, environmental impact and the commercialisation of the event.