According to British journalist Andrew Jennings, a KGB colonel stated that the agency's officers had posed as anti-doping authorities from the IOC to undermine doping tests and that Soviet athletes were "rescued with [these] tremendous efforts". [41] On the topic of the 1980 Summer Olympics, a 1989 Australian study said "There is hardly a medal winner at the Moscow Games, certainly not a gold medal winner, who is not on one sort of drug or another: usually several kinds. The Moscow Games might as well have been called the Chemists' Games." [41] [42] The 1932 Los Angeles Games were affected by the Great Depression, which contributed to the low number of competitors.

Hosting [ edit ] Map of Summer Olympic Games locations – countries that have hosted one Summer Olympics are shaded green, while countries that have hosted two or more are shaded blue. The " Second International Olympic Games in Athens", as they were called at the time, were held in 1906. [10] The IOC does not currently recognise these games as being official Olympic Games, although many historians do and credit the 1906 games with preventing the demise of the Olympics. The 1906 Athens games were the first of an alternating series of games to be held in Athens in even non-Olympic years, but the series failed to materialise. The games were more successful than the 1900 and 1904 games, with over 850 athletes competing, and contributed positively to the success of future games.In 1984, the Soviet Union and 13 Soviet allies retaliated by boycotting the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Romania and Yugoslavia, notably are the only two countries from the Eastern Bloc that did attend the 1984 Olympics. These games were perhaps the first games of a new era to make a profit. Although a boycott led by the Soviet Union depleted the field in certain sports, 140 National Olympic Committees took part, which was a record at the time. [40] The Games were also the first time mainland China (People's Republic) participated. The IOC has never decided which events of the early Games were "Olympic" and which were not. [57] The founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin, ceded that determination to the organisers of those Games.

The 1988 Games, in Seoul, was very well planned but the games were tainted when many of the athletes, most notably men's 100 metres winner Ben Johnson, failed mandatory drug tests. Despite splendid drug-free performances by many individuals, the number of people who failed screenings for performance-enhancing chemicals overshadowed the games.There has been a total of 42 sports, spanning 55 disciplines, included in the Olympic programme at one point or another in the history of the Games. The schedule has comprised 33 sports for recent Summer Olympics ( 2020), with 32 sports planned for the next Summer Olympics ( 2024). Asia has hosted the Summer Olympics four times: in Tokyo ( 1964 and 2020), Seoul ( 1988), and Beijing ( 2008). In 2012, Great Britain hosted its third Summer Olympic Games in London, which became the first city ever to have hosted the Summer Olympic Games three times. The cities of Los Angeles, Paris, and Athens (excluding 1906) 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 in turn become the third city ever to have hosted the Games three times.

The 1896 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in Athens, Greece, from 6 to 15 April 1896. It was the first Olympic Games held in the modern era. About 100,000 people attended for the opening of the games. The athletes came from 14 nations, with most coming from Greece. Although Greece had the most athletes, the U.S. finished with the most champions. 11 Americans placed first in their events vs. the 10 from Greece. [6] Ancient Greece was the birthplace of the Olympic Games, consequently Athens was perceived to be an appropriate choice to stage the inaugural modern Games. It was unanimously chosen as the host city during a congress organised by Pierre de Coubertin in Paris, on 23June 1894. The IOC was also established during this congress. E. 1 2 3 Although the Games of 1916, 1940, and 1944 were cancelled, the Roman numerals for those Games were still applied because the official titles of the Summer Games count the Olympiads, not the Games themselves, per the Olympic Charter. [91] This contrasts with the Winter Olympics, which ignore the cancelled Winter Games of 1940 and 1944 in their numeric count. The 1992 Barcelona Games featured the admittance of players from one of the North American top leagues, the NBA, exemplified by but not limited to US basketball's " Dream Team". The 1992 games also saw the reintroduction to the Games of several smaller European states which had been annexed into the Soviet Union during World War II. At these games, gymnast Vitaly Scherbo set an inaugural medal record of five individual gold medals at a Summer Olympics, and equaled the inaugural record set by Eric Heiden at the 1980 Winter Olympics.The various Olympic Sports federations are grouped under a common umbrella association, called the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF). London was the first city to host the Summer Olympic Games three times. As of 2022 [update], Paris, Los Angeles, Athens and Tokyo have each hosted twice; Paris will host for the third time in 2024, followed by Los Angeles which will host the Games in 2028. [2] Only five countries have participated in every Summer Olympic Games: Australia, France, Great Britain, Greece, and Switzerland. Australia, France and Great Britain have won at least a medal at every edition of the Games, with Great Britain as the only one to win gold each time. The United States leads the all-time medal count at the Summer Olympics, and has topped the medal table on 18 separate occasions—followed by the USSR (six times), and France, Great Britain, Germany, China, and the ex-Soviet 'Unified Team' (once each). The 1908 London Games saw numbers rise again, as well as the first running of the marathon over its now-standard distance of 42.195 km (26 miles 385 yards). The first Olympic Marathon in 1896 (a male-only race) was raced at a distance of 40 km (24 miles 85 yards). The new marathon distance was chosen to ensure that the race finished in front of the box occupied by the British royal family. Thus the marathon had been 40km (24.9mi) for the first games in 1896, but was subsequently varied by up to 2km (1.2mi) due to local conditions such as street and stadium layout. At the six Olympic games between 1900 and 1920, the marathon was raced over six distances. The Games saw Great Britain winning 146 medals, 99 more than second-placed Americans, its best result to this day. By then the process of choosing a location for the Games had become a commercial concern; there were widespread allegations of corruption potentially affecting the IOC's decision process. Francis Olympic Field of Washington University in St. Louis during the 1904 Summer Olympics Dorando Pietri finishes the modern marathon in 1908 at the current distance.