Summer Olympic sports

The Summer Olympic Games is a sixteen-day series of competitive events in which thousands of athletes from all over the world compete. Since it was formally introduced in the late nineteenth century, the Summer Olympics became a major international event, involving more than three hundred events in some twenty-six different sports. Occurring every four years, the Summer Olympics comprises sports such as gymnastics, track and field, and aquatics.

Like its winter counterpart, the Summer Olympic Games is not simply a sporting event. It casts an international spotlight on the city in which it takes place. The city will frequently undergo a dramatic transformation during the period leading up to the Games, as existing structures are renovated, and new facilities are constructed to accommodate the athletes and the events. In many cases, the city itself (even those areas not directly utilized by the Games’ participants) is also changed to meet the demands of the major influx of visitors, press, and political representatives. Community leaders typically see the new and/or renovated sports complexes, housing units, transportation systems, infrastructural improvements, and other Olympics-related construction projects as long-term boons for the cities that host the Games. For the 2024 Summer Olympic games in Paris, the city invested approximately $8 billion in improvements. This included cleanup efforts for the Seine River to serve as a venue for swimming events such as the triathlon. 

For this reason, the process by which cities are selected to host the Summer Games is highly intensive and politically charged. The Summer Olympics also provides a unique stage on which the world’s greatest athletes, regardless of the economic and political stature of their respective countries, may compete on equal footing. To be sure, there are often overarching political, social, and economic issues that frequently manifest during these events—whether these issues center on the host nations or the athletes themselves. In some ways, therefore, the Summer Olympics stage presents an opportunity for renewed activism, either by external parties or by the athletes themselves. 

Origins and History

The Summer Olympic Games owes its history to the Olympic Games in ancient Greece. Those games were first introduced in the eighth century BCE, when Greeks began performing sporting events on the plains of Olympia in the western Peloponnese. The games were presented as homage to the gods, in particular, Zeus. Ancient Greeks continued the practice until the fourth century CE, when Emperor Theodosius, a Christian, banned the Games because of their connection to the pagan practice of worshipping Zeus. 

Starting in the mid-nineteenth century, there were moves to revive the ancient games, with local Olympic-style events held in Athens, Greece, as well as in England. In the late nineteenth century, the Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin launched a campaign to reintroduce the Olympics to the world. Coubertin, who had participated in a number of amateur sports during his life, felt that amateur athletics was sport in its purest form. In the 1890s, he began promoting amateur athletics all over the world. In 1894, Coubertin attended the first Olympic Congress, held in Paris, and he successfully generated global interest in reviving the ancient Greek Olympics, as well as oversaw the founding of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as the Games’ governing body. Two years later, with the help of Greek philanthropists such as Evangelos Zappas, Konstantinos Zappas, and George Averoff, Coubertin’s dream became a reality, when the first IOC-sponsored Olympics were held in Athens. To be sure, the Games did not generate much initial interest from the media. However, the performance of the athletes during those Olympics soon gained international attention. 

Subsequent Games, such as the relatively small-scale events held in Paris (1900) and St. Louis, Missouri (1904), proved to be disappointments to Coubertin, who had hoped that the event would rapidly grow in popularity. This trend changed, however, when London hosted the event in 1908. Despite being marred by rain, the 1908 Summer Olympics was well-organized and -managed, making the event more palatable to international athletes. When Stockholm, Sweden, hosted the 1912 Games, every continent was represented for the first time. Although the world would go through a major series of upheavals during the first half of the twentieth century, most notably the two world wars (which caused the cancellation of the 1916, 1940, and 1944 Games) and the Great Depression, the Olympics continued to grow in popularity. 

Because of the size to which the Summer Olympics had grown by the 1930s, the Games would become the stage for a number of notable public incidents. For example, despite Nazi Germany’s best efforts to demonstrate its theories of German racial superiority, the 1936 Summer Games in Berlin saw the dominance of African American Jesse Owens in several track events. In 1972, the Olympics returned to Germany, but the Munich Games were marred by a Palestinian terrorist attack on Israeli athletes; despite the tragedy, IOC president Avery Brundage famously declared that “the games must go on.” In 1980, the United States led a multinational boycott of the Moscow Summer Olympics in protest of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan; four years later, the Soviet Union and a number of its Communist allies boycotted the Los Angeles Games in retaliation. Despite these and other setbacks, the Summer Olympics continues to present opportunities for global recognition for athletes and host cities alike. 

In 2020, the Summer Olympics that was planned for that year in Tokyo, Japan, was postponed because of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Taking many precautions, including banning public spectators, the Olympics eventually took place between July and August 2021. 

The 2024 games resumed on schedule in Paris in July of that year. Much of the commentary before the Paris Games focused on the runaway costs for a city to host the event.  In addition, previous games, such as in 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics in Russia and the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, were branded as propaganda platforms for autocratic regimes. Allegations of doping had dogged Chinese athletes, particularly its swimmers, as well as reports of laxity by international enforcement agencies. The 2024 Paris Games had taken on the specter as a litmus test on the future of the Olympics. Nonetheless, by most accounts the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad were a resounding success. French organizers crafted the Games with many innovations. The consensus was that the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles would be challenged to match Paris. 

Sports

The modern Summer Olympic Games encompasses more than two dozen distinct sports. The IOC organizes the Games into three levels: sports, disciplines, and events. As delineated in the Olympic Charter, sports are athletic competitions that are governed by international federations, such as the International Gymnastic Federation. Some sports are in turn broken into disciplines, such as, under the sport of gymnastics, artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, and trampoline. Finally, the IOC recognizes various events within each discipline; for example, there are fourteen artistic gymnastic events, such as men’s and women’s floor exercises, men’s horizontal bar, and women’s balance beam. Bronze, silver, and gold medals are awarded for each event. 

The Summer Olympics is traditionally much larger than its winter counterpart. Sports and events have been added and subtracted over the course of Summer Olympics history, but those changes were made to ensure that the Games stay within the preferred size of the Olympics schedule. 

Within this framework, the Summer Olympics as presented in London in 2012 involved twenty-six distinct sports. Twenty-eight sports were played at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games. Athletes competed in thirty-three sports at the 2020 Games in Tokyo and thirty-two in 2024 in Paris. The sports that frequently compete at the Summer Olympics include: 

Aquatics: The Olympic sport of aquatics covers races and other competitive events based in a pool. The disciplines associated with aquatics are diving, swimming, synchronized swimming, and water polo. 

Archery: The sport of archery covers four events: men’s and women’s individual and team events, all shooting at targets from a distance of 70 meters. The archery events are governed by the World Archery Federation (formerly FITA). 

Athletics (Track and Field): The sport of athletics covers forty-seven men’s and women’s track-and-field events. These events include individual and relay running races; discus, javelin, and hammer throw; shot put; long, triple, and high jump; pole vault; and the decathlon and heptathlon. 

Badminton: There are five events included in badminton: men’s and women’s individual and doubles, and mixed doubles, all sanctioned by the Badminton World Federation. 

Basketball: Governed by the International Basketball Federation, the men’s and women’s basketball competitions are played indoors and feature both amateur and professional basketball players (a change made prior to the 1992 Summer Games in Barcelona; before this, National Basketball Association players were not eligible to participate). 

Boxing: Olympic boxing is governed by the International Boxing Association. It features ten weight classes for men (light flyweight through superheavyweight) and three weight classes for women (flyweight, light weight, and middleweight). 

Canoe: Olympic canoe features two disciplines: slalom and sprint. There are three men’s events in the slalom category: men’s single canoe, men’s double canoe, and men’s single kayak, while there is just the women’s single kayak. There are eight single and doubles men’s sprint events, in either 200-meter or 1000-meter distances. There are four women’s single and double events in the sprint category, 200 or 500 meters in length. 

Cycling: Cycling encompasses road races, track races, BMX courses, and mountain-biking events. Each cycling event is governed by the International Cycling Union and is applicable for both men and women. 

Equestrian: The equestrian sports include the disciplines of dressage, eventing, and jumping; each has two events, individual and team. In dressage (also known as “horse ballet”) competitors work with a horse on a series of coordinated movements. Eventing, nicknamed the “equestrian triathlon,” involves a combination of dressage, cross-country, and jumping. 

Fencing: There are three types of sword used in Olympic fencing: foil (light thrusting), épée (heavy thrusting), and sabre (light cutting and thrusting). The Summer Games feature individual and team events for both male and female competitors. 

Football: Known in North America as “soccer,” Olympic football entails qualifying teams playing in both men’s and women’s tournaments. 

Golf: Golf has appeared at the Olympics only twice, in 1900 and 1904, but has been reinstated after more than a century and will be featured at the Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016, with men’s and women’s individual events. 

Gymnastics: Men’s and women’s gymnastics are divided into three disciplines: artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, and trampoline. The first involves such events as the balance beam (women), pommel horse (men), parallel bars (men), and floor exercises (men and women). Rhythmic gymnastics are floor exercises involving the handling of objects such as ribbons, clubs, or hoops and have only two events, women’s individual and team. Trampolining also has only two events, individual men and individual women. 

Handball: Governed by the International Handball Federation, Olympic handball events are available for both men and women and are played on an indoor, 40-meter court with goals on either end. Not a common sport in North America, handball bears resemblance to basketball and soccer. 

Hockey: Men’s and women’s Summer Olympic hockey is also known as “field hockey” and is played on a grass or turf field. 

Judo: Like boxing, Olympic judo events are broken into weight classes. For both men and women, there are seven classes ranging from extra lightweight to heavyweight. 

Modern Pentathlon: The Olympic men’s and women’s individual modern pentathlon features five events: épée fencing, a 200-meter freestyle swim, a 3,000-meter cross-country run, show jumping, and a pistol shooting competition. This event was devised by Coubertin to showcase the skills of the nineteenth-century cavalry soldier. 

Rowing: Summer Olympic rowing events range from single, two-, four- and eight-person sculls (boats), including events with and without coxswains (individuals responsible for navigation and steering). 

Rugby: Men’s and women’s seven-person rugby will appear for the first time at the 2016 Games. The more typical version of the game, rugby union (featuring fifteen players per team), was featured in four Summer Games up until 1924. 

Sailing: Olympic sailing utilizes boats of varying sizes for individual and team competitions. These boat classes include windsurfers, keelboats, dinghies, and skiffs. 

Shooting: Olympic men’s and women’s shooting involves pistols and rifles, used in skeet and trapshooting in standing and prone (lying-down) positions. 

Table Tennis: Olympic table tennis (also known as “ping-pong”) is available for both male and female individuals and teams. 

Tae Kwon Do: The Olympic martial art of tae kwon do is broken into four weight classes for both men and women and was first introduced in 2000. 

Tennis: Olympic tennis is broken into men’s and women’s individual and doubles events, including a mixed-doubles competition. The sport appeared in the Olympics up until 1924 and was reinstated in 1988. Professional as well as amateur athletes are allowed to compete. 

Triathlon: The Olympic men’s and women’s triathlons are three-stage events: a 1,500-meter swim, 40-kilometer cycle ride, and a 10-kilometer run. The event was added to the program in 2000. 

Volleyball: There are two Olympic volleyball disciplines, volleyball and beach volleyball. Traditional volleyball is played on an indoor court between two teams of six, whereas beach volleyball is played on sand between two teams of two. Volleyball was introduced in 1964 and beach volleyball in 1996. 

Weightlifting: Olympic weightlifting is divided into eight men’s weight classes and seven women’s weight classes. 

Wrestling: There are two disciplines in Olympic wrestling. The first is Greco-Roman wrestling (men’s only), which is broken into weight classes. The second is freestyle wrestling, which features men’s and women’s events in different weight classes. The major difference between the two types of wrestling is that Greco-Roman wrestling forbids any hold below the waist. 

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