Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that can help answer the question.
Query: When were the first Olympic Games?
Artistic expression was a major part of the games. Sculptors, poets, painters and other artisans would come to the games to display their works in what became an artistic competition. Sculptors created works like Myron's Diskobolos or Discus Thrower. Their aim was to highlight natural human movement and the shape of muscles and the body. Poets would be commissioned to write poems in praise of the Olympic victors. Such victory songs or epinicians, were passed on from generation to generation and many of them have lasted far longer than any other honor made for the same purpose.[32] Pierre de Coubertin, one of the founders of the modern Olympic Games, wanted to fully imitate the ancient Olympics in every way. Included in his vision was an artistic competition modeled on the ancient Olympics and held every four years, during the celebration of the Olympic Games.[33] His desire came to fruition at the Olympics held in Athens in 1896.[34]
The ancient Olympic Games were originally a festival, or celebration of and for Zeus; later, events such as a footrace, a javelin contest, and wrestling matches were added. The Olympic Games (Ancient Greek: Ὀλύμπια, Olympia,[1][2][3][4][5][6] "the Olympics"; also Ὀλυμπιάς, Olympias,[7][4][5][6] "the Olympiad") were a series of athletic competitions among representatives of city-states and one of the Panhellenic Games of ancient Greece. They were held in honor of Zeus, and the Greeks gave them a mythological origin. The first Olympics is traditionally dated to 776 BC.[8] They continued to be celebrated when Greece came under Roman rule, until the emperor Theodosius I suppressed them in AD393 as part of the campaign to impose Christianity as the State religion of Rome. The games were held every four years, or olympiad, which became a unit of time in historical chronologies.
The IOC organises the modern Olympic Games and Youth Olympic Games, held in summer and winter, every four years. The first Summer Olympics organised by the IOC was held in Athens, Greece, in 1896; the first Winter Olympics was in Chamonix, France, in 1924. Until 1992, both Summer and Winter Olympics were held in the same year. After that year, however, the IOC shifted the Winter Olympics to the even years between Summer Games, to help space the planning of the two events from one another, and improve the financial balance of the IOC, which receives greater income on Olympic years. The first Summer Youth Olympics were in Singapore in 2010 and the first Winter Youth Olympics were held in Innsbruck in 2012.
When the first post-war Olympic Games were held in war-ravaged Belgium, art contests were again on the programme, although they were little more than a sideshow. This was different for the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris. The contests were taken seriously for the first time, and 193 artists submitted works. This figure included three Soviet artists, even though the Soviet Union officially did not take part in the Olympic Games, which they considered to be a "bourgeois" festival.
The 1980 Games were the first Olympic Games to be staged in Eastern Europe, and remain the only Summer Olympics held there, as well as the first Olympic Games to be held in a Slavic language-speaking country. They were also the first Olympic Games to be held in a socialist country, and the only Summer Games to be held in such a country until 2008 in Beijing, China. These were the final Olympic Games under the IOC Presidency of Michael Morris, 3rd Baron Killanin.
The 1994 Winter Olympics, held in Lillehammer, Norway, were the first Winter Games to be held separately from the Summer Games. This change resulted from the decision reached in the 91st IOC Session (1986) to separate the Summer and Winter Games and place them in alternating even-numbered years. Lillehammer is the northernmost city to ever host the Winter Games and it was the second time the Games were held in Norway, after the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo. After the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, the Czech Republic and Slovakia made their Olympic debuts. The women's figure skating competition drew media attention when American skater Nancy Kerrigan was injured on 6 January 1994, in an assault planned by the ex-husband of opponent Tonya Harding. Both skaters competed in the Games, but the gold medal was controversially won by Oksana Baiul who became Ukraine's first Olympic champion, while Kerrigan won the silver medal. Johann Olav Koss of Norway won three gold medals, coming first in all of the distance speed skating events. 13-year-old Kim Yoon-Mi became the youngest-ever Olympic gold medallist when South Korea won the women's 3,000 meter speed skating relay. Russia won the most events, with eleven gold medals, while Norway achieved 26 podium finishes, collecting the most medals overall on home ground. Juan Antonio Samaranch described Lillehammer as "the best Olympic Winter Games ever" in his closing ceremony speech.
After not being able to host the Games in 1944, Cortina d'Ampezzo was selected to organise the 1956 Winter Olympics. At the opening ceremonies the final torch bearer, Guido Caroli, entered the Olympic Stadium on ice skates. As he skated around the stadium his skate caught on a cable and he fell, nearly extinguishing the flame. He was able to recover and light the cauldron. These were the first Winter Games to be televised, and the first Olympics ever broadcast to an international audience, though no television rights were sold until the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. The Cortina Games were used to test the feasibility of televising large sporting events. The Soviet Union made its Olympic debut and had an immediate impact, winning more medals than any other nation. Soviet immediate success might be explained by the advent of the state-sponsored "full-time amateur athlete". The USSR entered teams of athletes who were all nominally students, soldiers, or working in a profession, but many of whom were in reality paid by the state to train full-time. Chiharu Igaya won the first Winter Olympics medal for Japan and the continent of Asia when he placed second in the slalom.
The 2005 Special Olympics Winter World Games were hosted at Nagano in Japan and were the first Special Olympics World Games held in Asia. Nagano became the first city in the world to host the Olympics, Paralympics and Special Olympics World Games.
An oath for the officials was first discussed in the 1950s. It was not, however, until 1970 that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted to included an oath of the officials as well as athletes at the Olympic Games. The first oath for the officials was taken by Fumio Asaki at the 1972 Winter Olympic Games. When the Youth Olympics were created the IOC decided to have an oath for coaches as they realised that young athletes look to them in particularly. This was introduced into the adult games for the 2012 edition. 
The 1928 Games were the first true "Winter Olympics" held on its own as they were not in conjunction with a "Summer Olympics". The preceding 1924 Games were retroactively renamed the inaugural Winter Olympics, though they had been in fact part of the 1924 Summer Olympics. All preceding Winter Events of the Olympic Games were the winter sports part of the schedule of the Summer Games, and not held as a separate Winter Games. These games also replaced the now redundant Nordic Games, that were held quadrennially since early in the century.
The first 11 games took place always one year preceding the Summer Olympic Games. However, from 1993 on, they were held the year following the Olympic games. This transition meant that the only time the Mediterranean Games were not held four years after the previous Games was in 1993, when Languedoc-Roussillon in France hosted the Games just two years after Athens.
Judo was first included in the Summer Olympic Games at the 1964 Games in Tokyo, Japan. After not being included in 1968, judo has been an Olympic sport in each Olympiad since then. Only male judoka participated until the 1988 Summer Olympics, when women participated as a demonstration sport. Women judoka were first awarded medals at the 1992 Summer Olympics.
After a twelve-year hiatus caused by the outbreak of World War II; these were the first Summer Olympics held since the 1936 Games in Berlin. The 1940 Olympic Games had been scheduled for Tokyo, and then for Helsinki; the 1944 Olympic Games had been provisionally planned for London. This was the second occasion that London had hosted the Olympic Games, having previously hosted them in 1908, forty years earlier. The Olympics would again return to London 64 years later in 2012, making London the first city to have hosted the games three times, and the only such city until Paris and Los Angeles host their third games in 2024 and 2028, respectively. The 1948 Olympic Games were the first of two summer Olympic Games held under the IOC presidency of Sigfrid Edström.
St. Moritz was selected to host the first post-war Games in 1948. Switzerland's neutrality had protected the town during World War II, and most of the venues were in place from the 1928 Games, which made St. Moritz a logical choice. It became the first city to host a Winter Olympics twice. Twenty-eight countries competed in Switzerland, but athletes from Germany and Japan were not invited. Controversy erupted when two hockey teams from the United States arrived, both claiming to be the legitimate U.S. Olympic hockey representative. The Olympic flag presented at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp was stolen, as was its replacement. There was unprecedented parity at these Games, during which 10 countries won gold medals—more than any Games to that point.
In August 2009, the Royal Mail commissioned artists and illustrators to create 30 stamps which were released in batches of 10 during 2009 to 2011. The choice of 30 stamps for the issue symbolises the fact that the Games take place during the 30th Olympiad. Each stamp featured an Olympic or Paralympic sport and in addition carried the London 2012 logo. The Royal Mail had initially proposed that photographs be included as well but this was abandoned as the photos would have to be of dead people as the only living person allowed to feature on stamps in the United Kingdom is the Queen. Stamps with an Olympic theme go back to the very first games in Athens in 1890 when the organisers commissioned the sale of stamps in order to balance the books and construct the last four venues. When London first held the Games in 1908 no stamps were commissioned. That occasion and 1912 are the only times when stamps were not issued. When London last held the Games in 1948, just four stamps were issued. On 22 July 2011, the last of the 30 stamps were released.
Wiggins competed at her first Olympic Games when she was 17 years old (in year 12) and finished 19th in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. She won bronze in the 10m synchronised platform event at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, becoming the first Australian to win an Olympic medal in diving since Dick Eve in 1924. She and Rebecca Gilmore were also the first Australian female Olympic diving medalists in the 2000 Games.
The Special Olympics World Games is a major event put on by the Special Olympics. The World Games alternate between summer and winter games, in two-year cycles, recurring every fourth year. The first games were held on July 20, 1968 in Chicago, Illinois, with about 1000 athletes from the U.S. and Canada. International participation expanded in subsequent games. In 2003, the first summer games held outside the United States were in Dublin, Ireland with 7000 athletes from 150 countries. The most recent World Summer Games were held in Los Angeles, California (The largest event in LA since the 1984 Olympic Games), from July 25, 2015 to August 2, 2015. This was the first time that the Special Olympics were part of ESPN daily coverage. The next World Summer Games will be held in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates in March 2019. These will be the first Special Olympics World Games to be held in the Middle East.
The Sydney Games was at the time the best performance by Great Britain in the Summer Olympic Games since 1920, with British competitors winning a total of 28 medals, 11 of which were gold. This represented a vast improvement in performance over the previous Summer Olympics in 1996, in which Great Britain won only one gold medal and 15 in total, and was the first of five consecutive Summer Olympics in which Great Britain would not only dramatically increase its overall performance and expectations but also see them dramatically increase its overall Summer Olympics medal tally and were also the first Summer Olympic Games where British competitors benefited from £58.9m of National Lottery funding when it was introduced in 1997.
The inaugural Winter Olympics were held in Chamonix, France, from 25 January to 4 February 1924. A total of 258 athletes from 16 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) competed in 16 events across 9 disciplines. Women also took part in these Games, although the only events they were allowed to compete in were the figure skating ladies' singles and pairs. When the Games were held, they were not recognized as the Winter Olympics but rather as a winter sports week festival. It was not until 1926 that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) officially recognized them as the first Winter Olympics.
North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) first participated at the Olympic Games in 1964, appearing only in the Winter Olympic Games that year. Eight years later in 1972, the nation first participated at the Summer Olympic Games. Since then, the nation has appeared in every Summer Games, except when North Korea joined the Soviet-led boycott of the 1984 Summer Olympics, and when they boycotted the 1988 Games in Seoul, South Korea.
Before 1924, when the first Winter Olympic Games were celebrated, sports held on ice, like figure skating and ice hockey, were held at the Summer Olympics.[28] These two sports made their debuts at the 1908 and the 1920 Summer Olympics, respectively, but were permanently integrated in the Winter Olympics program as of the first edition. The International Winter Sports Week, later dubbed the IOlympic Winter Games and retroactively recognized as such by the IOC, consisted of nine sports. The number of sports contested at the Winter Olympics has since been decreased to seven, comprising a total of fifteen disciplines.[29]
US team manager Matthew Halpin was the first to carry the flag at the 1906 Intercalated Games, though that event is no longer considered by the International Olympic Committee to be part of Olympic history. Ralph Rose became the first competitor to have the honor when he led the team out at the 1908 Summer Games, the first official Olympic Games to feature a parade of nations. The first woman to represent the United States was fencer Janice Romary in 1968, her sixth consecutive Summer Olympics. Taffy Abel was the first person to represent the United States at the Winter Olympics when he was chosen to carry the flag at the inaugural Games in Chamonix in 1924.
In 1971, The U.S. Olympic Committee gave the Special Olympics official approval to use the name "Olympics". France sent the first athletes from outside North America to the second games held in 1970. The third games in 1972 saw 10 nations send athletes The first Special Olympics World Winter Games were held in February 1977 in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, U.S. The United Nations declared 1986, the year of the Special Olympics. In 1988, the Special Olympics was officially recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The first World Games held outside the U.S., were the winter games of 1993 in Salzburg and Schladming, Austria. The Austrian president was the first head of state to personally open the games.
The first Olympics after the war, the 1920 Summer Olympics, were held in Antwerp, Belgium, and featured figure skating and an ice hockey tournament. Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey were banned from competing in the Games. At the IOC Congress held the following year it was decided that the host nation of the 1924 Summer Olympics, France, would host a separate "International Winter Sports Week" under the patronage of the IOC. Chamonix was chosen to host this "week" (actually 11 days) of events. The Games proved to be a success when more than 250 athletes from 16 nations competed in 16 events. Athletes from Finland and Norway won 28 medals, more than the rest of the participating nations combined. Germany remained banned until 1925, and instead hosted a series of games called Deutsche Kampfspiele, starting with the winter edition of 1922 (which predated the first Winter Olympics). In 1925 the IOC decided to create a separate winter event and the 1924 Games in Chamonix was retroactively designated as the first Winter Olympics.
The first International Special Olympics Summer Games were held in Chicago, Illinois, US, in 1968, while the first International Special Olympics Winter Games were held in February 1977 in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, US. In 1991, the name was officially changed from International Special Olympics Summer/Winter Games to Special Olympics World Summer/Winter Games.