It might be noted that the Summer Olympic events are not among the most-watched sporting events in the world in terms of television viewership. The FIFA World Cup keeps more number of people glued to their television sets than the Olympic does. But this fact takes nothing away from the sheer prestige and longstanding heritage of the Olympics. Summer Olympic was formally introduced by Baron de Coubertin and Pierre Fredi in 1894. The first edition was held in the historic Greek city of Athens in 1896.
Tracing the expansion of the Summer Olympic Games from its earlier days is quite an enthralling task. The initial years saw a meager participation of round about 300 participants from just 13 nations. A total number of 42 sporting events were included in the first edition of Olympic Games. It gradually grew into a mammoth sporting event encompassing almost all the nations. Today we see more than 10000 participants romping up the Olympic stage. Organizers of the 2008 Summer Olympics to be held in Beijing are expecting a whopping number of 10500 contestants to participate in the scheduled 302 events.
In Summer Olympic Games, the participants are screened by a National Olympic Committee (NOC). This regulating body is under the aegis of respective nations from which the contestants hail. The inaugural ceremony is something worth observing as the participants march along with their respective national flags, in tune with national anthems.
The United States of America enjoys the distinction of being the only country to have hosted more number of Summer Olympic events than any other nation. They have hosted this prestigious sporting event for four times. The United Kingdom have hosted thrice, just one short of the United States. France, Australia, Greece and Germany have organized this esteemed event twice each. The nations that have hosted the Summer Olympics once so far are Mexico, Russia, Sweden, Finland, Japan, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and South Korea. Japan is scheduled to host this major sporting event in 2008. There are only four cities in the world to have attained a unique feat of hosting the Summer edition of Olympic Games twice. They are Athens (Greece), London (The United Kingdom), Los Angels (The United States of America) and Paris (France).
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