Modern Olympic Games
The Olympic Games have come a long way and the Modern Olympic Games committees have added a lot more events than the ancient Greek Olympics of the past. The Modern Olympic Games we know today reemerged in Athens, Greece in 1896 where there where hundreds of athletes that came from fourteen countries and came to the Olympics to compete in forty three different events including events in aquatics, athletics, cycling, fencing, gymnastics, shooting, tennis, weightlifting and wrestling. The Olympic games of 1896 were organized and overseen by the first International Olympic Committee who first met as an organization in Paris in the summer of 1894, members of the Royal family of Greece also played a big part and they were also there to watch all ten days of the events. The Olympic games of 1896 was set up to be a big festival type event and that is what it was, there were many parades and ceremonies honoring the athletes that came from other countries. At the time the only country that sent their own national team to the Olympics was Hungary, and all of the other competitors were just different independent athletes that were drawn to such a big sporting event.
In the Modern Olympic Games that we see every four years nowadays there are many more events as they have been added over the last century. Sports that you can see in the summer Modern Olympic Games that were not included in the 1896 revival in Athens are events such as badminton, soccer, baseball, basketball, boxing, canoeing, handball, judo, volleyball, tae kwon do, softball, triathlon, sailing and table tennis. Winning a medal in Modern Olympic Games is one of the most prestigious and coveted honors in sports. The first place winner receives the gold medal; second place receives the silver and the third place receives the bronze medal. In modern Olympic there are usually over ten thousand competitors from over two hundred different countries and it is watched worldwide over television broadcasts.