Little known facts about the Olympic Games

Some of us may be fans of the English Premier League while others may be the regular followers of the NFL. Some like to watch Indy 500 while others enjoy the annual Tour de France event. But when it comes to the Olympic Games, we all love them and we all want our countries to do better in the international multi-sport event.  

Below we have listed some little known facts about the Olympics. 

1- Gold medals are not made of pure gold

The popular belief is that the gold medals given to the winning athletes are made up of pure gold. However, that is not the truth. The Olympic gold medals are actually composed of a great quantity of silver while a minimum of 6 grams of gold is also used to fulfill the requirement mentioned in the Olympic Charter. With gold selling at an exorbitant price, the cost would have been too much if all the medals were to be made of pure gold. 

2- The Olympic torch relay tradition

You might be surprised to know that the Olympics Torch Relay is actually not an ancient tradition, rather it first began in the 1936 Summer Olympics. Carl Diem, the German sports administrator, came up with this idea of the relay as he wanted to use it as a propaganda tool for demonstrating the supposed superiority of the Aryan race. The torch relay passed through several countries and they all came under Nazi rule within 10 years. 

3- Three Olympics have been canceled

Since the start of the modern Olympic Games in 1896, the international multi-sport event has been canceled three times. Germany was supposed to host the 1916 Games and they had even constructed a great stadium for the event. However, war broke out in 1914 and so many countries around the world got involved in the war that the Olympics got canceled. While both the 1940 and 1944 Games were canceled because of the outbreak of World War II. 

4- Baron Pierre de Coubertin

Baron Pierre de Coubertin is known as the father of the modern Olympic Games. He came up with the idea of the five-ringed symbol. He selected the colors of blue, green, yellow, black, and red because all the national flags of the world contained one of these colors. 

5- Ancient Olympic athletes competed in the nude

In ancient Greece, the Olympic athletes would compete in the nude. All these athletes were men who would run, wrestle, and fight naked. In fact, even the word gymnasium came from gymos, which in the Greek language means naked.