August 8, 2008 kicks off this year's much anticipated Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.10,708 of the best athletes will have traveled from far and wide to compete and prove that they are indeed the world's greatest. It all starts with the Opening Ceremony where the torch will be passed and eventually ignite the power that is the Olympic Games and all of the excitement can be viewed live on NBC.At this year's Olympics there are 38 different sports being played including badminton, judo and beach volleyball, totaling in 302 events. Some of the countries who participate in this historic event are Italy, Nigeria, Iceland, and of course, the United States of America.
History of the Games.
According to legend, the Olympic Games were founded by Heracles, a son of the Roman god Zeus. However, the first written records of the Olympics are from 776 BCE, though it is believed the games had been going on for years already. At this time there was only one event, the stade, a run of about 210 yards. Coroebus was the champion of the stade that year, and therefore, history's first ever Olympic champion.
These ancient Olympic Games grew and continued to be played every four years for nearly 1200 years. In 393 CE, the Roman emperor Theodosius I, a Christian, abolished the Games, however, because of their pagan influences. The Games became alive once again 1500 years later with the help of Frenchman, Pierre de Coubertin. Coubertin believed that it was exercise, more specifically sports, that made a well-rounded and vital person. In 1890, Coubertin organized and founded a sports organization, Union des Societes Francaises de Sports Athletiques (USFSA). In 1984, he pitched his idea to revive the Olympic Games to a room full of delegates that voted unanimously in the Games' favor. The delegates also decided to have Coubertin construct an international committee to organize the Games. This committee became known as the International Olympic Committee (IOC; Comite Internationale Olympique) and Demetrious Vikelas from Greece was chosen as its first president. Athens was selected for the revival of the Olympic Games and the rest is history, with the first modern Olympic Games taking place in the first week of April 1986.