The Final event that crosses my mind is the Olympics. It does not matter what the event or sport that might be on the television, if a team is wearing the red, white, and blue I am sure that it catches your eye. Why is that? Well to me it is simple, it is the pride for your country that you get when the United States flag is flying high, or an American runner is holding it on the podium. This is the idea that started way back in 1896 and has continued to grow ever since. .
In Athens, Greece in 1896, men gathered from fourteen different countries to compete in what is known as the birth of the modern Olympic Games. In Athens the ancient Greeks had been competing in a similar way for years now, but nothing like this. It had been 1,500 years since the Olympic games were last held in Athens so as you can imagine, all eyes were on this event. IT was an American, who actually goes down in the record books for winning the first gold medal of the modern Olympic Games. James Connolly won the triple jump that year, before later going on to place in the high jump and the long jump. It was much smaller than what we would imagine the Olympic games, only two hundred and forty one athletes participated, in forty three events. Out of the fourteen countries that were represented Greece, Germany, and France were the most well represented. Great Britain also, had a good number of Athletes that attended, and like the other thirteen countries all of their athletes were male. .
Some of the events in the 1896 Olympics were much more rigorous then anything we would imagine today. There were no rules or safety regulations like we have today, so in the swimming for instance a boat would take the athletes off the coast line the desired distance and drop them off, where they had to swim back. Hungarian swimmer Alfréd Hajos, who won the 100m and 1200m, confessed after the Games, that "the will to live completely overcame his desire to win.