Table of Contents Chapter 1 The Summer Games 4 Chapter 2 Athletics Gymnastics and Aquatics 16 Chapter 3 Cycling Tennis and Shooting Sports 28 Chapter 4 Combat Sports and Water Sports 40 Glossary 46 For More Information 47 Index 48
The Summer Games The opening ceremony is a big colorful celebration 4
The Olympic Games that you can watch on TV now are a lot di(cid:31) erent than the Olympics from the past Nowadays there’s a huge opening ceremony in a giant stadium Thousands of athletes from more than 200 countries compete in hundreds of events The closing ceremony might feature (cid:30) reworks and lasers plus live music and dancing 5
But it hasn’t always been like this In fact the Olympics began so long ago that it’s di(cid:29) cult to know exactly why and how they started in the (cid:30) rst place Most experts believe that the (cid:30) rst Games happened in 776 BC in an area of Greece called Olympia The games honored Zeus the king of gods This was the beginning of what is now called the ancient Olympic Games These (cid:30) rst Olympics were a celebration in honor of Zeus the king of the gods in the ancient Greek religion The games were held every four years a period of time called an Olympiad Back then hundreds of athletes competed in sports such as horse and chariot racing running wrestling and boxing Thanks to something called the Olympic Truce the athletes were able to travel safely to and from the Games This was important because often their countries were at war with each other 6
