Olympics Facts – 55 Interesting Facts About Olympics

Modern Olympic Facts

Struggle for gender equality still continues and by 1992 there are more than 34 countries which do not allow its female population to participate in Olympic events.

The first African to win a marathon gold medal was Ethiopian runner Abebe Bikila in the 1960 Olympics…he ran bare foot to win the gold.

The 2016 Rio Olympics was one of the worst for Russian athletes with a third of its team banned after a doping scandal.

Swedish pentathlete Hans-Gunnar Liljenwall was the first athlete to be disqualified after high levels of alcohol was found in his blood.

At present an athlete can be disqualified if his blood level alcohol was over 0.1 in sports where it would be hazardous, such as archery.

In 1900 the Dutch rowing team lacked a steersman and so filled in a local French boy. To this day his identity is unknown

The Olympic flag has five circles and it represents the five continents and all the nations.

The Olympic Games of 1912 was held in Stockholm and had an event for literature

Many winners of medals had an illustrious career in films and the glamour world. Swimmer Johnny Weismuller who won five gold medals in swimming played the role of Tarzan 12 times.

The longest wrestling match was played between Martin Klein of Russia and Alfred Asikainen of Finland and it was a Greco-Roman wrestling semifinal in 1912. The match continued for 11 hours. Klein won but was too exhausted to play the finals.