Olympic Games: an international sports competition, held every four years at a different site, in which athletes from different nations compete against each other in a variety of sports. There are two types of Olympics, the Summer Olympics and the Winter Olympics.The modern Olympic Games began in Athens, Greece, in 1896, two years after French educator and thinker Pierre de Coubertin proposed that the Olympic Games of ancient Greece be revived to promote a more peaceful world. The program for the 1896 Games, including only summer events (the Winter Olympics were not established until 1924), included about 300 athletes from fewer than 15 countries competing in 43 events in nine different sports. In contrast, the program 100 years later for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, included more than 10,000 athletes from more than 190 countries competing in 271 events in 29 different sports. The web site http://www.olympic.org/uk/index_uk.asp offers background information on the olympic movement.
