Olympic Games

The ancient Olympics
Nobody knows exactly when the Olympics began, but the historians think that the first Games were held in 776 BC (before Christ) and that the man who won was Coroebus of Ellis, a cook.
The ancient Olympic Games were in a town called Olympia, because it was considered a sacred city and the Olympics were sacred as well because they were in honor of Zeus, the king of the gods.
In the first games, in 776 BC, the athletes came from all over parts of the Greece to Olympia, to compete in only one event, a running race which was called the “stade”.
The games in Greece were very popular, and soon, after the first Olympics, there were more and more new events, for example wrestling, horse race, etc.
The athletes were only men, and they competed naked.

The modern Olympics
In 1887, Pierre de Coubertin decided to restart the Olympics, and in April of 1896, in Athens, the Modern Games began. They were held in Athens because Pierre de Coubertin wished the first modern Olympics were in Greece, and he chose Athens because it is the capital of Greece.
In the first modern Olympic games thirteen nation competed with 300 competitors in nine different sports, number that was increased with the passing of the years.
Pierre the Coubertin was also the designer of the Olympic flag, which have five rings representing the five continents that competed in the games: red for America, blue for Europe, yellow for Asia, green for Australia and black for Africa.
Also the modern Olympics were every four years, but now there are winter games and summer games too, that alternate every two years.
In 2006 the winter Olympics were in Turin.

Torino 2006
In 2006 the Winter Olympic games were held in Italy, in Turin, from the 10th to the 26th of February.
80 nation competed with 2508 athletes, in fifteen different sports. All the countries were interested, because the spectators came from all over parts of the word to see the Games, and to see Turin and his surroundings as well.
The nation who won more medals was Germany, and the second one was the USA.
The mascot of the olympics in Torino were Gliz and Neve, two funny puppets who represented ice and the snow, the main elements of the winter Olympics.