London 2012

The 2012 Olympic Games are to be held in London.  Events will be happening in a number of different stadiums.  The athletic events, such as the 100m sprint, will take place in the brand new Olympic Stadium.

Other events, such as swimming, basketball and other sports that cannot take place in the Olympic stadium, will be happening elsewhere.  For example, the much anticipated football tournament will be happening all around the country in the following stadiums:

• Ricoh Arena, Coventry
• Hampden Park, Glasgow
• Millennium Stadium, Cardiff
• Old Trafford, Manchester
• St James' Park, Newcastle
• Wembley, London

The sportswear for the British athletes was designed by famous designer, Stella McCartney.

The mascots for the 2012 Olympics are called Wenlock and Mandeville.  They are cartoons depicting two drops of steel from a steelworks in Bolton.  They are named Wenlock, after the Shropshire town of Much Wenlock, which held a forerunner of the current Olympic Games, and Mandeville, after Stoke Mandeville, a village in Buckinghamshire where a forerunner to the Paralympic Games were first held.  The writer Michael Morpurgo wrote a story about the mascots and there will be an ongoing series concerning the mascots in the run-up to the Games in 2012.  Two stories have been created about the mascots: Out Of A Rainbow, the story of how Wenlock and Mandeville came to be, and Adventures On A Rainbow, which features the children from Out Of A Rainbow meeting the mascots and trying out many different Olympic and Paralympic sports.

List of Olympic Hosts

The summer games in 2016 will be held in Brazil's largest city, Rio de Janeiro.  Here is a list of the cities that have hosted the modern games since the second world war..

2016	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2012	London, Great Britain
2008	Beijing, China
2004	Athens, Greece
2000	Sydney, Australia
1996	Atlanta, United States
1992	Barcelona, Spain
1988	Seoul, South Korea
1984	Los Angeles, United States
1980	Moscow, Soviet Union
1976	Montreal, Canada
1972	Munich, West Germany
1968	Mexico City, Mexico
1964	Tokyo, Japan
1960	Rome, Italy
1956	Melbourne, Australia
1952	Helsinki, Finland
1948	London, Great Britain

The Birth of the Modern Olympics

The modern Olympic Games began in 1894 and were held in Athens in Greece.  The games attracted just 245 competitors, of whom more than 200 were Greek, and only 14 countries were represented. Nevertheless, no international events of this magnitude had been organized before. Female athletes were not allowed to compete.

Ancient Greece was the birthplace of the Olympic Games, so Athens was perceived to be an appropriate choice to stage the first modern Games. 

The most successful competitor was German wrestler and gymnast Carl Schuhmann, who won four gold medals.

Four years later the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris attracted more than four times as many athletes, including 11 women, who were allowed to compete for the first time, in croquet, golf, sailing, and tennis. 

1896	Athens, Greece
1900	Paris, France
1904	St. Louis, United States
1908	London, Great Britain
1912	Stockholm, Sweden

The Olympics planned for 1916 were cancelled because of the First World War.  The first Olympic Games held in Great Britain were in London in 1908.

Ancient Olympics

The Olympic games began over 2,700 years ago in Olympia, in southwest Greece. The Greek Olympics, thought to have begun in 776 BC, inspired the modern Olympic Games (begun in 1896).  The Games were part of a religious festival. The Games were held in honour of Zeus, king of the gods, and were staged every four years at Olympia, a valley near a city called Elis. People from all over Greece came to watch and take part but women were not allowed to complete.

At the first one-day Olympic Games, the only event was a short sprint from one end of the stadium to the other. Gradually more events were added to make four days of competitions. They included wrestling, boxing, long jump, throwing the javelin and discus, and chariot racing. In the pentathlon, there were five events: running, wrestling, javelin, discus and long jump. One of the toughest events was the race of hoplites. Hoplites were men wearing armour and carrying shields.

Winners were given a wreath of leaves, and a hero's welcome back home. Winners might marry rich women, enjoy free meals, invitations to parties, and the best seats in the theatre.

The running track was much wider than a modern one. Twenty people could run at once.

The pankration or all-in wrestling was the nastiest event. There were hardly any rules. Biting and poking people's eyes were officially banned, but some competitors did both! While it does not seem very sporting to us, all-in wrestling was very popular. Boxing was tough too. The fighters wore leather gloves and a boxer was allowed to go on hitting his opponent even after he'd knocked him to the ground!

However, cheating was punished. Anyone caught cheating, trying to bribe an athlete for instance, had to pay for a bronze statue of Zeus, as a punishment.