The 2008 Olympic Games were held in China at Beijing just a few weeks ago and ended with a spectacular closing ceremony. The Olympic Games fever is slowly fading away and people are talking less and less about it. USA athletes grabbed the most medals amounting to 110. Out of this figure 36 were gold, 38 silver and 36 bronze. Next in line were the Chinese athletes who won 100 medals viz 51 gold, 21 silver and 28 bronze. The Russians came in next with 23 gold, 21 silver and 28 bronze totalling 72 medals. United Kingdom had 19 gold, 13 silver and 15 bronze. Germany had 16 gold, 10 silver and 15 bronze. Well the prize winning athletes did give their respective countries pride and honour. The next venue of the Olympic Games will be at London in four years' time.
The Olympic Games originated in the year 776 B.C. and the first was held in Greece. Subsequently the games were held with an interval of 4 years. In A.D. 393, Emperor Theodosius I abolished them.
In the beginning, the Games were a one day affair with wrestling and running only. Later the duration of the Games were changed to 5 days with new items like horse and chariot racing added. Crowns of olive leaves were the prizes which attracted well trained youths from all over Greece. The games were in honour of Zeus, the Olympian God whom the ancient Greeks believed to be the creator of man. An oath was pledged by the competitors before his statue with the notion of competing in honesty and fairness.
The games were reborn again centuries later after a lapse of about 1500 years with the first being held in 1896 at Athens in Greece. The games were again held every four years until the outbreak of the two World Wars. The last games were held in 1912 at Stockholm before World War I. The subsequent games were held in 1920 at Antwerp.
A new arrangement of games called Olympic Winter Games was held in 1924 at Chamonix. The games before World War II was held at Garmiseh-Partenkirchen in 1936 and the subsequently in 1948 at St Moritz.
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