Home > Events > Olympics > Summer > Trivia

This fact filled site is full of Olympic trivia. Below are some of the highlights. For more trivia, see also Olympic Firsts and Oldest and Youngest, plus heaps more sections.

• London is the only city to host the summer Games three times: 1908, 1948 and 2012. In 2024, Paris will host the summer Olympics for the third time, and in 2028 LA will host for the 3rd time too. The Games have been held in the USA four times (1904, 1932, 1984, 1996) - but in three different cities.
• Did you know that all athletes competed in the nude at the ancient Olympics?
• In the ancient Olympics, the philosopher Plato (427-347 BC) was a double winner of the Pankration. (see more about the Ancient Olympics).
• Five countries have been represented at all Summer Olympic Games – Greece, Great Britain, France, Switzerland, and Australia, though not always as part of official teams. Switzerland is on this list even though they boycotted the 1956 Olympics - however they had competed in the equestrian events several months earlier in Stockholm. France did not send a team to the 1904 Games but a lone Frenchman did compete for the US and a mixed team. Also in 1896 Great Britain competed as part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, while Australia participated in 1908 and 1912 as part of a combined Australasia team with New Zealand. Therefore, Greece is the only nation to have participated under its own flag in all modern summer Olympic Games.
• The only Olympic event in which mother and daughter competed together was the golf tournament of 1900. The event was won by US golfer Margaret Abbott. Her mother Mary, a novelist, also competed in the event, finishing joint seventh.
• The only Olympian ever to be awarded the Nobel Prize was Philip Noel-Baker of Great Britain. He won the silver in the 1500-meter run in 1920, and was awarded the Nobel prize for Peace in 1959 for his support of multilateral nuclear disarmament.
• The 1900 Olympic Games included many now discontinued events, including the equestrian long jump. The horse long jump was won by a Belgian rider named Constant van Langhendonck with a leap of approximately 6.10 meters - 1.08m shorter than America's Alvin Kraenzlein managed to win the human version at the same Games.
• A Danish journalist who was covering the games, Edgar Aaybe, was recruited into the combined Sweden/Denmark tug of war team in 1900 to replace an ill team member, and went on to win a gold medal.
• The first black athlete to compete at the Olympics, and first black gold medalist, was Constantin Henriquez, competing in 1900 in rugby for France. (more Olympic Firsts)
• At the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, silver medals were awarded to the winners and bronze to the second place getters. (see more about Olympic Medals)
• No women competed in 1896, as de Coubertin felt that their inclusion would be "impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic, and incorrect." (see more about Women at the Olympics)
• More athletes than spectators attended the 1900 Paris Olympic Games.
• The 1904 St Louis Olympics were the only Olympics in which the distances in the throwing events were measured in yards.
• The oldest man to compete in the Summer Olympic Games was Oscar Swahn of Sweden in shooting (1908, 1912, and 1920). Oscar Swahn became the oldest gold medalist when he won gold at 64 years and 280 days old in 1912, and the oldest medalist when he won silver in 1920 aged 72 years, 281 days old. The oldest woman to compete in the Olympics was British rider Lorna Johnstone, who participated in Equestrian at the 1972 Olympic Games at 70 years old and 5 days. (see more on the oldest and youngest)
• Two Japanese pole vaulters tied for second place at the 1936 men's pole vault event, however they refused to participate in a tiebreaker. Instead, they cut their medals in half and they fused them together so they were half silver, half bronze.
• German Frank Kugler (competing for the US) the only competitor to win a medal in three different sports at the same Games, a feat he achieved at St Louis in 1904. He won four Olympics medals - in freestyle wrestling (silver), weightlifting (2 x bronze) and tug of war (bronze).
• The last series of Olympic medals to be made of solid gold were awarded at the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden.
• Hitler banned alcohol from the Olympic Village in 1936 but permission was given for the French and Italian athletes to be served wine with their meals, and after protests the Dutch and Belgian squads were allowed to have beer.
• The country of India has the lowest number of total Olympic medals per capita.
• 12-year-old Inge Sorensen from Denmark won a bronze medal in the 200-meter breaststroke in 1936, making her the youngest medalist ever in an individual event.

---

---

• Pigeon shooting was one of the sports on the program in Paris in 1900. Fortunately this shooting event was short lived. It was the only time animals were killed on purpose during an Olympic event. (see more about Discontinued Olympic Events).
• East German Christa Luding-Rothenburger is the only person to win medals at the Winter and Summer Games in the same year (1988), winning gold in speed skating at Calgary and a silver in track cycling in Seoul. (This feat is no longer possible due to the staggering of the Winter and Summer Olympic years)
• American Eddie Eagan is the only person to have won gold medals in both the Summer and Winter Games. He was a boxing champion in the 1920 Antwerp Games, and also won gold at the 1932 Lake Placid Games in the team bobsled event.
• American Frank Shorter, who won the gold medal in the marathon at the Munich Olympics, was actually born in Munich.
• At Moscow 1980 both the gold and silver medal-winning rowing teams in the coxless pairs event were identical twins - Gold went to Bernd and Jorg Landvoigt (East Germany), silver to Nikolai and Yuri Pimenov (Soviet Union). (more on Olympic Families)
• Great Britain is the only nation to have won at least one gold medal at every Summer Games.
• Three athletes have won gold medals competing for two different nations:
  • Australian Rugby player Daniel Carroll won gold representing Australia in 1908, then repeated this feat competing for USA in 1920.
  • Gymnast Svetlana Boginskaya won two gold medals for the Soviet Union and one for the Unified Team. She actually competed at the Olympic Games for three different countries, Soviet Union (1988), Unified Team (1992) and Belarus (1996).
  • Georgian weight lifter Akakide Kakhiashvili won his first gold medal at Barcelona 1992 competing with the Unified Team, and later as a citizen of Greece at Atlanta 1996 and in Sydney 2000.
• Yugoslavian Shooter Jasna Šekarić and table tennis player Ilija Lupulesku are the only athletes to compete under four different flags at the Olympic Games. They both competed for Yugoslavia at Seoul in 1988, then under the Olympic flag as Independent Olympic Participants at Barcelona 1992, then represented the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (later called Serbia and Montenegro) at Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000. In Athens 2004, Šekarić again represented Serbia and Montenegro while Lupulesku became an American citizen and competed for the USA. In 2008 and 2012 Šekarić competed for Serbia following Montenegro's independence.
• The only female competitor not to have to submit to a sex test at the 1976 Summer Olympics was Princess Anne of the UK, who was competing as a member of the UK equestrian team. As the daughter Queen Elizabeth II, such a test was seen as inappropriate. (see more about Olympic Royalty)
• US athlete Sheila Taormina competed in the Modern Pentathlon in 2008, making her the first woman to qualify for the Olympics in three different sports (swimming, triathlon and modern pentathlon).
• Only two women have won a medal in two different sports at the Summer Games, East German Roswitha Krause (swimming and handball) and UK's Rebecca Romero (rowing and cycling). A few other women have won medals in swimming and diving.
• The island nation of Kiribati was notably mispronounced by officials in all three languages - French, English and Greek - during the opening ceremony in 2004.
• The record for the longest name for an Olympic champion is by female Thai weightlifter Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarakoon, with a name comprising 31 letters. She won the gold medal in the 53 kilograms category at Beijing 2008. Her name was so long that it did not fit onto the scoreboard, which listed her as "J". (see more Olympian name trivia)
• The most common surname for an Olympic athlete is Kim (the most common Korean name), followed by Lee.
• Australian Cathy Freeman lit the cauldron at the start of the Sydney 2000 Games, and went on to win the 400m. She is the only person to light the Olympic Flame and win a gold medal at the same Games.
• Bangladesh is the most populous country to never win an Olympic medal.
• Liechtenstein is the only country to win an Olympic medal in the Winter Games but not the Summer Olympics.
• The Beijing Olympics, 2008, began at exactly 8:08:08 PM on 8/8/08 because the number 8 is considered lucky in China.
• At the 2012 London Olympics, Malaysian shooter Nur Suryani Mohd Taibi competed while 34 weeks pregnant.
• The record for the most appearances at the Olympic Games is held by Canadian show jumper Ian Millar. He made his 10th Olympic appearance in London 2012. He competed in the equestrian competition at every Olympics from 1972 to 2012 except for the 1980 Moscow Games that Canada boycotted. His only medal was a silver in 2008 in the Team jumping event. He was still competing in 2016 and was ready to compete in Rio however his horse fell ill in the lead up to the Games.
• The 2021 Tokyo Olympics were severely impacted by the world-wide coronavirus pandemic. Firstly it was delayed by a year, then international spectators were banned.
• San Marino took home their first-ever Olympic medal at the 2020 Tokyo Games. Tiny San Marino with a population of fewer than 35,000 became the least populous nation to ever take home an Olympic medal.
• Since the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, the International Olympic Committee amended the motto to include the word 'Together. The motto now reads: "Faster, Higher, Stronger - Together".
• The surfing event for the 2024 Olympics will be held 15,000km away from Paris in French Tahiti. It is the record furthest an event is from the host city.
• The 2028 Olympic in LA is scheduled to start on July 14, the earliest start in the year since Paris staged the Games in 1924, when they opened on July 5.

Much Much More Trivia

The above selection of trivia is just a sample of what you can find on this site. All of the Olympic Trivia has been sorted into the categories below. Visit these links to discover all you need to know about the fun facts and figures of the Olympic Games.

• Year / Host City
• Sport
• Country
• Traditions
• Women's participation
• Modern history
• Ancient history
• Olympic Firsts
• Olympic Records
• Olympic Flame Trivia
• Olympic Medals Trivia
• Oldest and Youngest Medal Winners
• Oldest competitors per sport
• Youngest competitors per sport
• Medals per Country Size
• Name Trivia
• Bidding Cities Trivia

---

---

Related Pages

• Olympic Games Quiz Night questions
• Trivia from previous Olympics: Tokyo 2021, Paris 2024,
• Tokyo Olympics Fun Facts
• Oldest Surviving Olympians.
• Related Olympians
• Olympic Quotes
• Books about the History of the Olympic Games
• Winter Olympics Trivia
• Athlete Deaths at the Olympics
• More Sports Trivia