The Summer Olympic Games (French: Jeux olympiques d'été) or the Games of the Olympiad, first held in 1896, is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years. The most recent Olympics were held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) organises the Games and oversees the host city's preparations. In each Olympic event, gold medals are awarded for first place, silver medals are awarded for second place, and bronze medals are awarded for third place; this tradition began in 1904. The Winter Olympic Games were created due to the success of the Summer Olympics.
The Olympics have increased in scope from a 42-event competition with fewer than 250 male competitors from 14 nations in 1896, to 306 events with 11,238 competitors (6,179 men, 5,059 women) from 206 nations in 2016.
The Summer Olympics has been hosted on five continents by a total of nineteen countries. The Games have been held four times in the United States (in 1904, 1932, 1984 and 1996); three times in the United Kingdom (in 1908, 1948 and 2012); twice each in Greece (1896, 2004), France (1900, 1924), Germany (1936, 1972) and Australia (1956, 2000); and once each in Sweden (1912), Belgium (1920), Netherlands (1928), Finland (1952), Italy (1960), Japan (1964), Mexico (1968), Canada (1976), Soviet Union (1980), South Korea (1988), Spain (1992), China (2008) and Brazil (2016).
The IOC has selected Tokyo, Japan, to host the Summer Olympics for a second time in 2020. The 2024 Summer Olympics will be held in Paris, France, for a third time, exactly one hundred years after the city's last Summer Olympics in 1924. The IOC has also selected Los Angeles, California, to host its third Summer Games in 2028.
To date, only five countries have participated in every Summer Olympic Games – Australia, France, Great Britain, Greece and Switzerland. The United States leads the all-time medal table for the Summer Olympics.
|Summer Olympic Games|
The United States has hosted the Summer Olympic Games four times: the 1904 Games were held in St. Louis, Missouri; the 1932 and 1984 Games were both held in Los Angeles, California; and the 1996 Games were held in Atlanta, Georgia. The 2028 Games in Los Angeles will mark the fifth occasion on which the Summer Games have been hosted by the U.S.
In 2012, the United Kingdom hosted its third Summer Olympic Games in the capital city, London, which became the first city ever to have hosted the Summer Olympic Games three times. The cities of Los Angeles, Paris, and Athens have each hosted two Summer Olympic Games. In 2024, France will host its third Summer Olympic Games in its capital, making Paris the second city ever to have hosted three Summer Olympics. In 2028, Los Angeles will become the third city ever to have hosted the Games three times.
Australia, France, Germany and Greece have all hosted the Summer Olympic Games twice. The IOC has selected Tokyo, Japan, to host the 2020 Summer Olympics, when it will become the first city outside the Western world to have hosted the Summer Olympics more than once, having already hosted the Games in 1964. The other countries that have hosted the Summer Olympics are Belgium, Brazil, China, Canada, Finland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Soviet Union, and Sweden; each of these countries has hosted the Summer Games on just one occasion.
Asia has hosted the Summer Olympics three times, in Tokyo, Japan (1964), Seoul, South Korea (1988), and Beijing, China (2008); Asia will host the Games for a fourth time in 2020 when Tokyo again becomes host city. Historically, the Summer Olympics has been held predominantly in English-speaking countries and European nations. Tokyo will be the first city outside these regions to have hosted the Summer Olympics twice; it will also be the largest city ever to have hosted the Games, having grown considerably since 1964.
The 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, were the first Summer Olympics to be held in South America and the first that were held during the local winter season. The only two countries in the Southern He