Honoring athletes who hail from around the world and excel at a diverse array of sports is an international pastime.
The Olympics is a renowned venue of excellence, entertainment, and of National pride.
Whether it’s the Summer or Winter Olympics — showcasing gymnastics, swimming, running, skiing or ice skating — no event garners this level of international loyal spectatorship.
So, if you’re looking for some fun facts about the Olympics, or just want to stump your friends at a lively game of trivia, you’ve definitely come to the right place.
Did you know:
Those first place medals aren’t exactly made of gold.
It’s true. Since 1912, Olympic gold medals have been made from mostly silver. They actually contain just 6 grams of gold — the very minimum required to comply with the official charter.
Two Olympians have won golds for two different countries.
Olympic athlete, Daniel Carroll, won a gold for the first time in 1908 for Australia. Then, he returned in 1920 to win the gold again for the USA.
Another athlete, Kakhi Kakhiashvili, won a gold for Spain in 1992 for weight lifting. Then, in both 1996 and in 2000, he won golds again, after becoming a citizen of Greece.
In Ancient Greece, Olympian winners were awarded a crown made from a wreath of native olive branches.
Over time, the winners received silver or bronze medals accompanied by the traditional wreath.
However, during the 1904 Missouri Summer Olympics, winners from all the sporting events were awarded gold, silver, and bronze medals to represent first, second, and third place accomplishments.
The youngest Olympian, officially on record, was just 10 years old.
In 1896, gymnast Dimitrios Loundras competed in the Athens Olympics where he helped his team win a bronze medal for the parallel bars event.
However, there is a mysterious young boy in a 1900 Olympic photo that many historians believe is a French athlete who might have been as young as seven. He was brought in as a last minute replacement for the Dutch rowing team.
Sadly, the lack of specific details about the athlete’s identity make it impossible to determine his true age.
The Olympic torch has been taken into space three times.
The last time was in 2014 when Russian cosmonauts brought the torch on an epic journey to its space station. Although it was not lit, the torch spent over an hour in outer space.
Tarzan was an Olympian
During the 1920s, Johnny Weissmuller won a total of five Olympic Gold medals for swimming.
In 1932, his fame ignited again when he took on the iconic lead role in several hit Tarzan films.
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