The Olympics have been around for nearly 3000 years, going back to Ancient Greek times. They are multi-sport events held every leap year for the entire nation. The goal of the Olympics is to add to the building of a more peaceful society. They do this by educating youth through sports and teamwork. The Olympics have popularized athletes like Michael Phelps, who has received more medals or awards than any professional swimmer in the world, or Serena Williams, who has changed women’s tennis for the better and has won more Grand Slam singles titles than any other professional player in the tennis open era.
This year’s summer Olympics are being held in Paris, France from July 26th to August 11th. Specifically, they will be hosted in Eiffel Tower Stadium and Champ de Mars. Paris last hosted the Olympics in 1924, and before that in 1900. They are one of the two cities that have ever hosted the games 3 times, the other being London. Last year’s games were held in Tokyo, Japan, a significant difference from Paris. While the majority of the sports will be held in France, some sports are unable to. All water-related sports will be held in Tahiti which is a French colony but is located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean between South America and Australia.
The Olympics hold a variety of sports every year, going from extremely common ones like basketball to ones some have never heard of like futsal(which is like soccer but indoors). While the Olympic games most known to the common viewer are sports like tennis and swimming, since they arguably have the most famous and successful players, they offer all kinds of sports. They have all common sports played in schools, like wrestling, volleyball, softball, baseball, and football. They have a lot of water and ice-related sports, including alpine skiing, bobsleigh, cross-country skiing, ice hockey, figure skating, sailing, ski jumping, snowboarding, ski mountaineering, speed skating, surfing, diving, and more. There are some uncommon ones 3 that stand out being skeleton, luge, and Nordic combined, which after research are shown to all be other forms of bobsleigh and skiing sports.
The Olympics have led many athletes to success in their careers, but there have only been a few that are known among most. Michael Phelps, who is considered to be the most famous Olympian, is a former competitive swimmer and has a total of 28 medals, 13 of them being gold as she holds the title of most gold medals ever held by an Olympian. Simon Biles is a current competitive gymnast. She is 26 years old and has been doing gymnastics since she was only 6 years old. She is considered one of the greatest gymnasts of all time and holds 7 Olympic medals. Besides being a gymnast, she also is an advocate for women’s sports, “I hope young women take away that it’s OK to not be OK”(Biles). Usain Bolt is a former competitive sprinter and holds the world records for the 100 meters, 200 meters, and the 4 x 100 meters relay. He won Athletics at the 2016 Summer Olympics and then retired the year after. Many participants in the Olympics have ended up successful athletes and it’s doubtful to believe that none will come out of this year.
