Understanding the United States Chapter Four Society and Culture
Section 4 Sports
5. Olympic Games
Every four years, athletes from around the world come together to compete in the Olympic Games. Do you know why this event is called the Olympics? The games were first held at Olympia in ancient Greece. The ancient Olympic Games honored the Greek god Zeus. Today, the Olympic Games are held in different cities around the world.
Pictures of Zeus
The Ancient Games
We know that the ancient
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Olympics began as far back
as 776B.C. That’s when the
Greeks began keeping
records of the winners. The
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ancient Games continued
until about A.D.392, more than 1,000 years!
Athletes came from cities throughout Greece to compete in races, boxing and wrestling matches, gymnastics, and weightlifting. They also threw spears, hurled a discus, and jumped for distance. Wealthy Greeks raced their hors. Winners were crowned with wreaths of olive or palm leaves.
The ancient Olympic Games were not just a sporting event, however. There were competitions in poetry, music, speechmaking, and other arts as well.
At the beginning and end of the Games, animals were sacrificed to Zeus. A splendid temple was built at Olympia in Zeus’s honor. When people stopped worshiping the Greek gods, the Olympic Games were canceled.
The Modern Games腊肉炒萝卜干
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The Olympic Games were brought back in 1896. The first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens, the capital of Greece. Only nine countries participated in the first Games, and all the athletes were male.
Today, some 10,000 athletes compete in the Olympic Games, and nearly half of them are female. They reprent about 200 nations.
At first, the modern Olympics included only summer sports, such as swimming, rowing,
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护照办理多少钱中考阅读理解and track and field. Figure skating was added in 1908, and ice hockey in 1920.
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The first winter Olympic Games were held in 1924. More winter sports were later added to the Winter Games, including downhill skiing, bobsledding, and ski jumping, snowboarding and freestyle skiing followed in the 1990s.
From 1924 through 1992, the Winter Games and the Summer Games took place in the same year. After 1992, the next Winter Games were moved up two years, to 1994. Winter Games and Summer Games now occur two years apart. Each of the Games takes place every four years.
Going For the Gold
After each Olympic event, medals are awarded to the competitors who finish in first, cond, and third place. First-place winners receive a gold medal. Tho who finish in cond place receive a silver medal, and tho in third place, a bronze medal.
Olympic athletes often dazzle the world. In 1912, Jim Thorpe of the United States won the gold medal for two of the most difficult contests in track and field: the pentathlon, which consists of five different events, and the decathlon, which consists of ten events. Thorpe is still the only athlete to have won the pentathlon and decathlon at the same Olympics.
In 1932, Babe Didrikson of the United States became the only Olympic athlete ever to win medals in parate running, jumping, and throwing events. Four years later, African American track star Jes Owens won four gold medals.
