The Summer Olympic Games in Paris, France for two weeks and four days, concluded Sunday, Aug. 11, and was an enormous success. There are comments in sports on page 9. Here is a bit of history, understanding, and reasons to hold the Modern Day Olympic Games. These modern games were started in 1896 and the ancient Olympic Games 1,500 years earlier in Greece served as a model. The ancient Olympic Games initially were held as an athletic endeavor in training for war.
The 19th Century throughout the world was filled with wars, smaller and mid-sized, including one of the powers, France, which in 1894 called for a meeting of interested nations to meet in Paris and decide on holding athletic competition, not as a training for war, but, rather in a spirit of competition and a world solidarity, an understanding of other cultures, a camaraderie. The results were to hold the Games every four years as in ancient times and the first games in Greece, the site in the ancient Games in the city or town of Olympia. In those first games in 1896, 241 athletes participated from 14 countries and drew 80,000 excited spectators. The athletes were amateurs only and all male. The U. S. depended on athletes from both Princeton University in New Jersey and the Boston Athletic Association. Professionals became eligible 1972.
The early athletics in 1896 were gymnastics, fencing, wrestling, shooting with rifles and pistols, sailing, rowing, three runs, 100 meters, 500 meters, 1,000 meters. The U.S. won the most Gold medals (11), host Greece won the most medals (including Silver and Bronze (47). See top medaling countries and Olympic sites back to 1920 on page 8. Paris was host in 1900 when women participated for the first time. France won the most medals. The Games were in St. Louis, Mo., USA. in 1904 at the St. Louis World Fair. The U.S. won the most Gold medals. Great Britain won the most medals in 1908 in London, and the U.S. won the most Gold medals in Stockhom, Sweden in 1912.
The 2024 Games elicited a competitive spirit, camaraderie, and togetherness among all nations the world must use as an example for each day.