The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (French:Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting event featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games are considered to be the world's foremost sports competition with more than 200 nations participating. The Olympic Games are held every four years, with the Summer and Winter Games alternating by occurring every four years but two years apart.
The evolution of the Olympic Movement during the 20th and 21st centuries has resulted in several changes to the Olympic Games. Some of these adjustments include the creation of the Winter Olympic Games for ice and winter sports, the Paralympic Games for athletes with a disability, and the Youth Olympic Games for teenage athletes. The IOC has had to adapt to a variety of economic, political, and technological advancements. As a result, the Olympics has shifted away from pure amateurism, as envisioned by Coubertin, to allowing participation of professional athletes. The growing importance of mass media created the issue of corporate sponsorship and commercialization of the Games. World wars led to the cancellation of the 1916, 1940, and 1944 Games. Large boycotts during the Cold War limited participation in the 1980 and 1984 Games.
The 2002 Winter Olympics, officially the XIX Olympic Winter Games (French: Les XIXes Jeux olympiques d'hiver) and commonly known as Salt Lake 2002, were a winter multi-sport event that was celebrated in February 2002 in and around Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. Approximately 2,400 athletes from 78 nations participated in 78 events in fifteen disciplines, held throughout 165 sporting sessions. The 2002 Winter Olympics and the 2002 Paralympic Games were both organized by the Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC). Utah became the fifth state in the United States to host the Olympic Games, and the 2002 Winter Olympics are the most recent games to be held in the United States.
The opening ceremony was held on February 8, 2002, and sporting competitions were held up until the closing ceremony on February 24, 2002. Music for both ceremonies was directed by Mark Watters. Salt Lake City became the most populous area ever to have hosted the Winter Olympics, although the two subsequent host cities' populations were larger. Following a trend, the 2002 Olympic Winter Games were also larger than all prior Winter Games, with 10 more events than the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan; this became a trend with more and more events held in subsequent Games.
The selection process for the 1908 Summer Olympics consisted of four bids, and saw Rome selected ahead of London, Berlin and Milan. The selection was made at the 6th IOC Session in London in 1904.
Italian authorities were preparing to hold the games when Mount Vesuvius erupted on 7 April 1906, devastating the city of Naples. Funds were diverted to the reconstruction of Naples, so a new venue was required. London was selected for the first time to hold the Games which were held at White City alongside the Franco-British Exhibition, at the time the more noteworthy event.
On June 15, 1955, at the 50th IOC Session in Paris, France, Rome beat out Lausanne, Detroit, Budapest (being the first city of the Eastern Bloc to bid for the Olympic Games), Brussels, Mexico City and Tokyo for the rights to host the Games. Tokyo and Mexico City would eventually host the following 1964 and 1968 Summer Olympics.
Toronto was initially interest in the bidding, but appears to have been dropped during the final bid process. This is the first of five attempts by Toronto from 1960 to 2001.
The 2008 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (Chinese:第二十九届夏季奥林匹克运动会; pinyin:Dì Èrshíjiǔ Jiè Xiàjì Àolínpǐkè Yùndònghuì) and commonly known as Beijing 2008, was a major international multi-sport event that took place in Beijing, China, from 8 to 24 August 2008. A total of 10,942 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) competed in 28 sports and 302 events (a total of one event more than the schedule of the 2004 Games). China became the 22nd nation to host the Olympic Games and the 18th to hold a Summer Olympic Games. It was the third time that the Summer Olympic Games were held in Asia, after Tokyo, Japan, in 1964 and Seoul, South Korea, in 1988. This was the second time the Summer Olympic Games were staged in a socialist country, after the 1980 Olympics in the Soviet Union.
The equestrian events were held in Hong Kong, making it the third time the events of the same Olympics were held under the jurisdiction of two different NOCs, while sailing was contested in Qingdao, and football events took place in several different cities.
The 1976 Summer Olympics, officially called the Games of the XXI Olympiad (French: Les XXIes olympiques d'été), was an international multi-sport event in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1976; the first Olympic Games hosted by Canada. Montreal was awarded the rights to the 1976 Games on May 12, 1970, at the 69th IOC Session in Amsterdam, over the bids of Moscow and Los Angeles. Calgary and Vancouver would later host Winter Olympic Games in Canada. It is so far the only Summer Olympic Games to be held in Canada.
Most sovereign African, and a few other, nations boycotted the Montreal Games when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) would not support, as had other international sporting organizations, the banning from competition of those countries whose athletes had participated in sporting events in South Africa as long as apartheid continued. The New Zealand rugby team had been touring South Africa during apartheid and were excluded from international sporting events due to implementation of the anti-apartheid policy.