Olympic Firsts Trivia Quiz

Answer: Rio 2016

Running from August 5 to August 21, the Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics occurred wholly in Brazil's winter season. They were only the third Olympics hosted by a country in the Southern Hemisphere (1956 Melbourne, 2000 Sydney).

South America was the fifth of the six inhabited continents to host the Olympics, leaving only Africa to be crossed off the list.

Answer: Barcelona 1992

The modern Olympics originally had a strong commitment to amateurism in sports, viewing those who received professional training as having an unfair advantage. Athletes were stripped of their medals if they were found to have been paid for sporting prowess, even including professionalism in sports other than their Olympic events, and being paid for coaching.

In the mid-20th century, these rules were massively degraded by loopholes - for instance, a government could fully fund the full-time career of an "amateur" athlete as long as they were formally a student or soldier or worker. They were gradually abandoned, and after the 1988 Olympics they were abolished in almost all forms.

Answer: Berlin 1936

In the Ancient Olympics, a fire in the Games burned on the altar of a monument to Hestia (goddess of the hearth). The modern Olympics symbolize continuity from these Games by a torch that burns throughout the Games, with a flame that was ignited in Olympia, Greece. Once the initial torch is lit, it is used to light several backup torches, as it is common for torches to be extinguished by rain or accidents. The backups ensure that the fire reaching the Olympic stadium is the same one lit in Greece.

The 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics were hosted by Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler used the Games to promote his fascist state's pseudoscientific racial hierarchy, preventing all Jewish athletes in his own country from participating, and encouraging the shameful suppression of Jewish athletes in other countries' delegations in their attempts not to offend Hitler.

Answer: Paris 1900

The 1900 Games (only the second to take place) were not the focal point of the Paris Exposition, so there was no opening ceremony, and events took place over several months. The first women's gold medal was received by Hélène de Pourtalès as one of the three members of the Swiss sailing team.

Just under 1000 athletes compared, and only 22 were women. A female-only golf event was won by Margaret Abbott. The first unusual aspect of this is that her mother competed in the same event. The second is that golf is not a well-known Olympic event, only appearing in 1900 and 1904 until its revival in 2016.

But by far the most surprising fact is that Abbott was unaware she had won an Olympic gold! She knew she was taking part in a Paris Exposition competition, but did not know it was an Olympic event, and did not know the part she played in Olympic history.

Answer: Tokyo 1964

The Olympics in Asia include two Summer and two Winter Games in Japan (1964, 1972, 1998, 2020). The 2020 Olympic Games - held in 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic - marked the second time Tokyo was the host city. South Korea and China have also hosted Olympic Games.

South Africa's Apartheid system began in 1948, and from this point they began sending white-only Olympic teams. The International Olympic Committee Avery Brundage insisted for many years that South Africa's white supremacist segregation was its own business, and that politics should not interfere with sport. Sustained activism, along with continued complaints to the IOC by black South Africans, led to Brundage and the IOC finally agreeing to ban South Africa in 1964, until it could send a multi-racial delegation.

Answer: Chamonix 1924

World War II prevented two Winter Olympics from taking place, but they have otherwise continued uninterrupted since 1924. It was not until 1992 that the Winter Olympics were moved to the cycle of occurring two years after the Summer Olympics, so that both are on a four-year cycle and overall one Olympics occurs every two years.

In Chamonix 1924, there were five types of sports to watch: bobsleigh, curling, ice hockey, skiing and skating.

Answer: Rome 1960

The precursor to the Paralympics, originally for wheelchair-bound war veterans, was the Stoke Mandeville Games of 1948, alongside the London Summer Olympics. After several iterations of this competition, it became a part of the Olympics. The name "Paralympics" was chosen in 1984.

Answer: Sydney 2000

The Triathlon is a Summer Olympics event that has been featured since 2000. Debuting at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo (held in 2021) was the mixed triathlon - in which teams had to have two men and two women. This came alongside introduction of many other mixed relay events, to boost the profile of women's sport.

Melbourne previously hosted the Summer Olympics in 1956, with the exception of equestrian, which were held several months earlier in Stockholm. The 2000 Olympics were the first where every event was held in the Southern Hemisphere (in Sydney).

Answer: Seoul 1988

Robert Dover was team captain for each of the six Olympics in which he performed in the dressage event. His four bronze medals were a strong achievement for the United States.

Gay athletes in the Olympics date back many decades earlier - it is impossible to tell who the first gay Olympian was, but an early contender is Otto Peltzer, a German world record-setting athlete in middle distance running. He was imprisoned in 1935 for his sexuality and later sent to a Nazi concentration camp, which he thankfully survived.

Answer: Singapore 2010

204 countries took part in the Singapore 2010 Summer Youth Olympics. The Youth Olympics take place on the same yearly schedule as the Olympics and Paralympics, but with the Summer and Winter swapped around: Winter Youth Olympics take place on leap years, and Summer Youth Olympics two years between the Winter ones.

Surprisingly, the Youth Olympics has an older age requirement than the Summer and Winter Olympics. As an example, Sky Brown - a British skateboarder - was aged 13 at the time of the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics (held in 2021), and became GB's youngest medallist with a bronze. Though there is no overall age limit in the non-Youth Olympics, each sporting federation can set age limits for particular events.