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The Summer Olympics: A Very Short History

“The goal of the Olympic Movement is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practised in accordance with Olympism and its values.”

(Olympic Charter, Chapter 1, Rule 1.1)

The 2024 Summer Olympic Games will be held in Paris from July 26—August 11. The history of the Olympic Games is well documented. See Wikipedia, for example, and the list of resources in the section below. Rather than re-summarize this well-known history, this section will describe the basic anatomy of the games and the people and powers-at-be that keep the Games alive.*
*The Paralympics, Youth Olympics, and other similar Games are outside the purview of this page.

What are the Summer Olympics?

(Jump to Olympic Games Controversies)

From the official website for the Olympics: "The Olympic Games are the world's only truly global, multi-sport, celebratory athletics competition. With more than 200 countries participating in over 400 events across the Summer and Winter Games, the Olympics are where the world comes to compete, feel inspired, and be together."

The 2024 Summer Olympics include sports and events that are ideally performed outside in warm weather. The Winter Olympics hold events best performed indoors or in cold weather. At the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, there are 45 different sports.

How Did the Games Begin?

The modern day Summer Olympic Games was first held in Athens in 1896. The games are held every four years in different cities around the world. The Games are organized by the International Olympic Committee, founded by Pierre de Coubertin in 1894. The IOC has a 16-point Mission statement which focuses on the welfare of the Olympic Games and it's athletes.

Who Participates?

Perhaps an even better question is, who doesn't participate? The Olympic Games' history is rife with exclusions of athletes based on gender, race, indigeneity, drug use (as in the 2022 case of Sha'Carri Richardson vs Kamila Valieva), war crimes, and more. Who gets included and who gets excluded in the Olympics is an ever-changing answer. In theory though, any qualifying athlete from any country may participate. At the Olympic Summer Games in Paris in 2024, around 10,500 athletes from 206 National Olympic Committees*  will compete.

What are the Current Medal Standings?

The All-Time Medal table below comes from Wikipedia.

No. Nation Gold Silver Bronze Total Games
1  United States 1065 835 738 2638 28
2  Soviet Union 395 319 296 1010 9
3  Great Britain 285 319 314 918 29
4  China 262 199 173 634 11
5  France 223 251 277 751 29
6  Italy 217 188 213 618 28
7  Germany 201 207 247 655 17
8  Hungary 181 154 176 511 27
9  Japan 169 150 178 497 23
10  Australia 164 173 210 547 27
11  East Germany 153 129 127 409 5
12  Russia 149 126 151 426 6
13  Sweden 148 176 179 503 28
14  Finland 101 85 119 305 26
15  South Korea 96 91 100 287 18
16  Netherlands 95 105 122 322 27
17  Romania 90 97 121 308 22
18  Cuba 84 69 82 235 21
19  Poland 72 89 137 298 22
20  Canada 71 109 146 326 27

* What is a National Olympic Committee (NOC)? Their role is to ensure the representation of their respective countries at the Olympic Games by sending competitors and officials as well as to promote the fundamental principles and values of Olympism in their countries, in particular in the fields of sport and education.

Summer Olympic Games Controversies

Although far from an exhaustive list, this section will focus on two broad subject areas within the Olympic Games that have proven controversial over the years. Each subject is briefly summarized. For more controversies and scandals, see the resource list at the bottom of the page.

Environmental Impact | Inclusion & Exclusion | Resources to Learn More

Environmental Impact

Do the Olympics negatively or positively impact our environment? 

The 2024 Olympics in Paris website has many sections dedicated to the Games' environmental impact. Why? Because, historically speaking, the Olympic Games have been criticized for negatively impacting the environment. Compare these conflicting headlines from notable organizations:

Based on these few articles, there are clearly conflicting answers to our original question: Do the Olympics negatively or positively impact our environment? Note how the biases of the sources may impact how they answer this question. (See left for a guide on navigating bias).

"An evaluation of the sustainability of the Olympic Games" published by the academic journal Nature Sustainability provides several charts and graphs to help us visualize the environmental (social and economic) impact of the Games. Below is "Fig. 5: Sustainability of individual Olympic Games compared, 1992–2020" (Click the image to see a larger version).

According to the article's author, Martin Müller:

"The Olympic Games claim to be exemplars of sustainability, aiming to inspire sustainable futures around the world. Yet no systematic evaluation of their sustainability exists. We develop and apply a model with nine indicators to evaluate the sustainability of the 16 editions of the Summer and Winter Olympic Games between 1992 and 2020....Our model shows that the overall sustainability...has declined over time....No Olympics, however, score in the top category of our model. Three actions should make Olympic hosting more sustainable: first, greatly reducing the size of the event; second, rotating the Olympics among the same cities; third, enforcing independent sustainability standards."

What do you think? Does the Olympics' impact on the environment contribute to building a peaceful and better world?

Inclusion & Exclusion

What does an athlete have to do to participate in the Olympic Games?

"Athletes must first comply with the Olympic Charter and follow the rules of the International Federation (IF) governing their sport. The IFs establish the rules and organise qualifying events, while the National Olympic Committee (NOC) of the athlete’s country supports the athlete and is responsible for entering them for the Games."

If an athlete qualifies to compete under the rules of IF and NOC, why is there a history of exclusion in the Olympics?

There are numerous reasons (or excuses) for why countries have chosen to exclude their own countrymen, boycott the Olympics altogether, or been banned by the IOC from participating. In November 2021, the IOC released the Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations. The necessity of such a framework points to the Olympic history of exclusion of discrimination. Here is a short, inexhaustive, list of instances of exclusion:

  • War in Ukraine. Russia and Belarus are barred from team sports at the 2024 Paris Olympics. IOC excludes Russian and Belarusian athletes from taking part in the Paris Olympics opening ceremony, The Associated Press, March 2024.
  • Race. 

    • Berlin Olympics 1936. Nazi Germany banned "non-Aryans" from participating in German athletic organizations. "Jews or individuals with Jewish parents and Roma (Gypsies)—were systematically excluded from German sports facilities and associations." Holocaust Encyclopedia. August 2023. Accessed June 2024.Jesse Owens competes in Berlin Olympics 1936

    • South Africa was banned from the 1964 Tokyo Olympics due to apartheid.
Right: "The U.S. Olympic team consisted of 312 athletes, including 19 African Americans and five Jews. The Nazis had reluctantly agreed to let foreign Jews participate, but some American Jewish athletes, including track star Milton Green, chose to sit out in protest....In the streets of Berlin, Olympic flags hung alongside swastikas. For the German press, used to expressing their prejudices freely, the international presence was cause for restraint, but one leading Nazi newspaper demeaned black athletes by referring to them as "auxiliaries." But disgust could not prevent American runner Jesse Owens from becoming the star of the games. Owens won four gold medals in all, setting world records in the 100- and 200-meter sprints, the long jump, and the 400-meter relay." The 1936 Olympics, PBS

Nationalism + Olympics
A 1984 story on Nationalism and sport from WCVB. Video footage includes: Joe Louis, the 1984 American Cup, and an interview with Professor Walter Clemens on how nationalism seeps into the Olympics and how Soviet countries are not very good economically or culturally, but they can compete with the West in sporting events.
"Nationalism + Olympics." Motion picture. WCVB Collection. Digital Commonwealth.

Resources to Learn More