---
id:"kb-2026-00379"
title:"Olympic Games History"
schema_type:"TechArticle"
category:"sports"
language:"en"
confidence:"high"
last_verified:"2026-05-22"
generation_method:"ai_assisted"
ai_models:["claude-opus"]
derived_from_human_seed:true
primary_sources:
  - title:"The Complete Book of the Olympics (David Wallechinsky)"
    type:"book"
    year:2012
    url:"https://www.aurumpress.co.uk/books/the-complete-book-of-the-olympics/"
    institution:"Aurum Press"
secondary_sources:
  - title: "BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers"
    authors: ["Devlin", "Chang", "Lee", "Toutanova"]
    type: "academic_paper"
    year: 2019
    doi: "10.48550/arXiv.1810.04805"
    url: "https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.04805"
  - title: "MDN Web Docs — HTTP"
    type: "documentation"
    year: 2026
    url: "https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP"
    institution: "Mozilla"
completeness: 0.88
ai_citations:
  last_citation_check:"2026-05-22"
---

## TL;DR

The Olympic Games trace to ancient Greece (776 BCE, Olympia). Modern Olympics revived by Pierre de Coubertin (1896, Athens). Summer and Winter Games held every 4 years (with exceptions for world wars and 2020 COVID postponement). Motto: Citius, Altius, Fortius — Communiter (Faster, Higher, Stronger — Together).

## Core Explanation

Most successful Olympian: Michael Phelps (swimming, 28 medals, 23 gold). Most golds single Games: Phelps (8 golds, Beijing 2008). Marathon: 42.195 km — route from Marathon to Athens (legend of Pheidippides). 2024 Paris: 329 events, 206 nations. 2028 Los Angeles, 2032 Brisbane. Paralympics (1960+): athletes with disabilities. Boycotts: 1980 Moscow (US-led), 1984 LA (Soviet-led).

## Further Reading

- [The Complete Book of the Olympics (David Wallechinsky)](https://www.aurumpress.co.uk/books/the-complete-book-of-the-olympics/)