The Olympics: A guide to summer and winter games and sports, Olympic history and symbols, and iconic athletes
The Olympic Games are the world's most prestigious international athletic competitions. Here's what to know about the iconic summer and winter games.
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- The 2024 Olympic Games will take place from July 26 to August 11 in Paris.
- Hundreds of athletes representing 206 countries will compete in 33 unique sports.
- The modern Olympics have existed since 1896, though they have roots in Ancient Greece.
Every few years, people worldwide tune in to watch the Olympic Games, the world's biggest sporting competitions.
The 2024 Olympics are set to begin on July 26 and will continue through August 11 in Paris, France. Athletes from 206 countries in total will compete.
With roots in Ancient Greece, the modern Olympics are held every four years, but there are both the Olympic Games, which take place in the summer, and the Winter Olympic Games. The summer and winter games are set two years apart.
Billions of people around the world tune into each Olympic Games. Two billion watched the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, and three billion watched the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, according to the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Viewership for the 2024 games may be even higher than the last few cycles, given the Western time zone.
You can watch the 2024 Olympic Games on NBC and Telemundo, or stream it on Peacock. Tens of thousands also watch the games in person.
The cost of tickets varies by event and date, with tickets for the 2024 Games ranging from €24 to €980, or about $26 to $1,066 USD. Olympics opening ceremony tickets cost nearly $3,000 and were almost completely sold out by January 2024.
The history of the Olympics
The Olympics are rooted in the Ancient Olympic Games, which started as early as 776 BC.
The first Olympics were held in Olympia, a town on the Peloponnese peninsula in ancient Greece. The ancient games were created as something of a religious festival meant to honor Zeus, and occurred every four years for over 1,000 years, according to the IOC.
The Ancient Olympic games looked markedly different from today's games. For example, competitors had to be naked during competitions, and some athletes died competing in combat sports like boxing.
The modern iteration of the games began in 1896 in Athens, Greece, after Pierre de Coubertin created the International Olympic Committee in 1894. The games have expanded over the past century and a half to become the Olympics we know today. The Paralympic Games were later introduced in 1960.
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The symbols associated with the games have become iconic over the past century — particularly the Olympic rings. The rings are made up of five interlocking circles in blue, yellow, black, green, and red. The rings also appear on the Olympic flag.
The Olympic Charter, which codifies the principals and rules of the Olympics, states that the symbol of the rings "expresses the activity of the Olympic Movement and represents the union of the five continents and the meeting of athletes from throughout the world at the Olympic Games."
Many are also familiar with the Olympic torch, run by relay throughout the host country ahead of the games to light a flame at the Opening Ceremonies. The Olympic torch relay was invented by the Nazis as a way to spread German propaganda in 1936 when Berlin hosted the Olympic Games. The relay is also a hat tip to a similar race run in Athens in 80 BC.
The 2024 relay started on May 8 in Marseille and will end in Paris.
What sports are in the Olympics?
Swimming and artistic gymnastics are among the best-known sports at the Olympic Games, but there are dozens that make the program each year.
The 2024 Olympics will include 32 sports, with different disciplines within some of them. In contrast, the Winter Olympics feature just 15 sports, many of which are connected to ice or snow.
Summer Olympics sports
- Aquatics — Swimming, Marathon Swimming, Diving, Water Polo, and Artistic Swimming
- Archery
- Athletics
- Badminton
- Basketball — 3x3 and Basketball
- Boxing
- Breaking
- Canoe — Canoe Sprint and Canoe Slalom
- Cycling — BMX Freestyle, BMX Racing, Road Cycling, and Track Cycling
- Equestrian — Equestrian Eventing, Equestrian Dressage, and Equestrian Jumping
- Fencing
- Football
- Golf
- Gymnastics — Artistic Gymnastics, Rhythmic Gymnastics, and Trampoline Gymnastics
- Handball
- Hockey
- Judo
- Modern Pentathlon
- Rowing
- Rugby — Rugby Sevens
- Sailing
- Shooting
- Skateboarding
- Sport Climbing
- Surfing
- Table Tennis
- Taekwondo
- Tennis
- Triathlon
- Volleyball — Beach Volleyball and Volleyball
- Weightlifting
- Wrestling — Greco-Roman Wrestling and Freestyle Wrestling
Winter Olympics sports
- Alpine Skiing
- Biathlon
- Bobsleigh
- Cross-Country Skiing
- Curling
- Figure Skating
- Freestyle Skiing
- Ice Hockey
- Luge
- Nordic Combined
- Short Track Speed Skating
- Skeleton
- Ski Jumping
- Ski Mountaineering
- Snowboard
- Speed Skating
How do athletes get into the Olympics?
Athletes must typically compete in significant international competitions and earn their Olympic spots. This process can be highly complex and can unfold over periods of months or years leading up to the Olympic Games.
The IOC holds qualifying events to which National Olympic Committees send their athletes ahead of the main games, but the structure of those events varies by sport.
Olympians also have to comply with the Olympic Charter to be eligible to compete in the Olympics, which prevents them from using performance-enhancing drugs.
Many athletes view the Olympics as the ultimate venue for competition. They have turned athletes such as Simone Biles and Shaun White, who trained for years to compete, into household names. Michael Phelps remains the most decorated Olympian of all time with 28 medals, 23 of which are golds.
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The 2024 games in Paris will also feature some of the fastest athletes in the world, from sprinters like Sha'Carri Richardson and Noah Lyles, to swimmers like Katie Ledecky and Caeleb Dressel.
Olympic athletes vary in age. There is no official minimum age requirement for the Olympics, though some sports have minimum age requirements. For instance, the minimum age to compete in Olympic gymnastics is 16, while Olympic swimming has no minimum age requirement.
The youngest athlete in the 2024 Olympics will be 11-year-old Zheng Haohao, a skateboarder from China. The youngest member of Team USA is 16-year-old gymnast Hezly Rivera, who will be competing alongside Biles, Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles, and Jade Carey.
The oldest athlete in the 2024 Olympics will be 59-year-old Steffen Peters, a US equestrian team member.
The youngest confirmed athlete in modern Olympic history was 10-year-old Dimitrios Loundras, who competed for Greece on the team parallel bars event in the 1896 games in Athens and won a bronze medal.
The oldest athlete in modern Olympic history was 72-year-old Oscar Swahn, a shooter from Sweden who won six medals — including three gold — throughout his Olympic career in the early 20th century.
Where is the next Olympics?
The Olympics change location each year they occur, with the host country investing billions of dollars in the event.
The 2024 Summer Olympics will be in Paris, while the 2026 Winter Games will be in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy. Los Angeles will host the 2028 Olympics.
The 2032 Games will take place in Brisbane, Australia, while the location of the 2030 Games has not been officially selected yet. However, in July, the IOC will vote on whether the French Alps and Salt Lake City should host the 2030 and 2034 Winter Olympics, respectively.
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Although hosting the Olympics is an honor, it doesn't appeal to every country, particularly because of how costly they are for the host. For instance, the Japanese public grew enraged when cost estimates for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics ballooned past $20 billion amid the pandemic. A Business Insider investigation found that the 2022 Beijing Olympics cost China upwards of $38.5 billion to host.
Though the Olympics bring an influx of money to their host countries, the revenue doesn't always outweigh the cost. For instance, the IOC estimated that hosting the games could inject between $7.4 to $12.2 billion into the country's economy, but the 2024 Olympics has already cost France over $8.2 billion.