Do You Believe in Magic? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Marathon

Unfortunately, women were not allowed to compete during the inaugural games because Olympic founder and organizer Pierre de Coubertin believed that women participants would be "impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic and incorrect". Stamata Revithi, a Greek woman, ran the 40 kilometer race the day after the men's race in 5.5 hours.

She was not allowed to finish the race in Panathinaiko Stadium. Little was known about her life prior to the race except that she had been living in poverty with two children.

She is believed to have been thin and blonde and athletically able to participate in the race. After the race, her name all but disappeared from history. It would not be until 1984 that women were finally allowed to compete in the Olympic marathon event.

Answer: 4

During the 1936 games in Berlin, Germany, Jesse Owens, an African American, embarrassed Hitler and his political views by "single-handedly crushing Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy" by winning four gold medals in track and field events. He won the 100 meter race, 200 meter race, long jump and 4 x 100 meter relay.

Answer: Canada

At a time when only amateur hockey players were allowed to participate in the Olympic Games, Canada had a long history of success in hockey at the games having won five of the previous six gold medals since its introduction during the 1920 winter games.

In the following tournaments, the USSR/Unified Team would go on to win eight of the next twelve tournaments. In 2002, with professional hockey players well involved in Olympic hockey events, Canada would go on to defeat the United States for their first hockey gold in fifty years.

Answer: Ethiopia

Bikila is a story of heroism as well as tragedy. During the 1960 Olympic games, he ran the marathon event in 2 hours and 21 minutes. At the following games in Tokyo, Japan in 1964, he broke his own record by running the race in 2 hours and 12 minutes.

Heroically, he broke his record just 40 days after suffering an appendicitis attack that required surgery. He was a high ranking member of the Ethiopian Imperial Guard reaching the rank of captain and was a beloved family man. In 1969, Bikila was struck by a car, became paralyzed and was never able to walk again.

He participated in the 1970 Stoke Mandeville Games (an early predecessor to the Paralympic Games) where he competed in archery and table tennis. He died in 1973 following complications associated with the car accident and was given a state funeral by Ethiopian president Haile Selassie.

Answer: Downhill

In a race that was littered with treacherous conditions, Klammer won the race after being the favorite and final favorite to finish the race. Inspired by his younger brother who was paralyzed during a skiing accident at the age of 16, he disregarded his own safety on an extremely icy course. He would finish the race just .33 seconds ahead of Bernhard Russi of Switzerland.

Answer: Receive a perfect score

At the age of just 14, Comaneci received a 10.0 score on the uneven bars event. At the time, it was believed by the Omega Scoreboard manufacturer that it was impossible to give a perfect score and it was not programmed to do so. She was given a score of 1.0 as it was the only way the judges could give her a 10. During her career she became the first Romanian woman to win the all-round gold medal and the youngest to win the all-round title.

Answer: Bobsled

The Jamaican bobsled team became the headline story of the Calgary winter games when they were the complete "underdog" to win the event. The team had very little experience in winter sport or bobsledding events in general and would go on to borrow spare sleds from opposing teams.

They would not go on to qualify or win the event, but this moment in Olympic history became the spark needed to compete in future events. They went on to compete in many Olympic games and finished in 14th spot during the 1994 Olympic Games in Norway.

At the 2014 Winter Olympics, a women's bobsled team competed to become the first female Jamaican squad to have participated in an international event for nearly a decade.

Answer: Basketball

Prior to the Games, it was decided to allow professionals to play in the sport of basketball. As a result, the American basketball team dominated the men's basketball event winning all of their games. The closest any team came to winning a game against them was 117-85 gold medal victory over Croatia.

Many viewed this step as a positive for ratings and overall interest in the Games. Unfortunately, many saw the American team as bullies towards the other teams. With a lineup that consisted of star players such as Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Scottie Pippin, Charles Barkley and Magic Johnson, others believe it is hard to argue that the Olympic Committee did the right thing.

Answer: Cuba

The American men's baseball squad was not expected to win the gold medal as the Cubans were the favored team. They were able to squeak past the South Koreans in the semi-finals by a score of 3-2. The Cubans, who had entered the tournament with a record of 18-0, were the heavy favorites to win the gold medal. With strong pitching from Ben Sheets, however, the Americans emerged victorious, shutting out the Cubans by a score of 4-0 in the championship game.

Answer: Michael Phelps

In 2000, Phelps participated at the Summer Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, but failed to win any medals. Starting at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, Phelps won his first ever gold medal in the 400-meter medley. In all, he would go on to win six gold medals and two silvers during his second Games giving him the second-best individual performance at the Games behind Mark Spitz (in 1972). Going on to participate in three more Olympic Games in 2008, 2012, and 2016 he would raise his total medal count to 28 medals.

In all, he won a total of 23 gold, 3 silver and 2 bronze.