The world’s biggest sporting extravaganza is on top
of us again. The 31st edition of the Olympics is being held on the
South American continent for the very 1st time. The Games will run
from 5th to 21st August 2016 in Brazil.
11,239 athletes from 206 National Olympic Committees, including
first time entrants Kosovo and South Sudan, are scheduled to take part. With
306 sets of medals, the games will feature 28 Olympic sports. These sporting
events will take place at 33 venues in the host city of Rio de Janeiro & at
5 venues in the cities of São Paulo (Brazil's largest city), Belo Horizonte,
Salvador, Brasília (Brazil's capital), and Manaus.
While the Indian media has extensively covered the Indian
contingent participating in Rio, this week’s GK nugget – while wishing the team
all the very best – will focus on some trivia about the Olympics as a whole.
Here’s goes:
The five Olympic rings represent the five major regions
of the world – Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania, and every
national flag in the world includes one of the five colours, which are (from
left to right) blue, yellow, black, green, and red.
Up until 1994 the Olympics were held every four years.
Since then, the winter and summer games have alternated every two years.
The African continent has never hosted an Olympics.
The first International Olympic Committee (IOC) Games took
place in Athens in 1896 and had only nine events.
The 1900 Paris Olympics were the first to allow women to
take part, and winners were awarded paintings rather than medals
The official Olympic flag was flown for the first time
during the 1920 Games in Antwerp.
London is the first city in history to hold the Olympic
Games 3 times - (1908, 1948 & 2012).
Equestrianism is the only Olympic sport in which men and
women compete against each other on equal terms.
Because of Australian quarantine rules, equestrian events
at the 1956 games in Melbourne were actually held in Stockholm, Sweden.
Gold medals are not made of pure gold. They’re actually
silver with gold plating. The last time the gold medals were made of pure gold
was 1912.
The 2016 Games will be the first to be staged entirely in
a host country’s coldest season.
NBC has teamed up with Samsung VR to provide 85 hours of
virtual reality programming including the opening and closing ceremonies, the
men’s basketball final and various track and field events to fans in the US.
The 2016 Olympics will be the first under the leadership
of new IOC President Thomas Bach, who is the
only President ever to win an Olympic gold medal (for fencing).
Golf will return to the Olympics after a 112-year
absence. The IOC decided to reinstate the sport, which previously was played in
the 1900 and 1904 Games.
During the Closing ceremony, three flags are raised; the
Greek flag to honour the Games’ birthplace, that of the current host country,
and that of the country hosting the next Games.
