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The same questions as the quiz, right answer highlighted and the fact under it. Print the page for a quiz night: the print layout keeps the questions and answers only. The Sports topic in Lock&Learn holds 122 facts in all.
Who exactly was banned from the ancient Olympic Games, according to ancient custom?
Married women faced a cliff-tossing ban at the ancient Olympics. According to the ancient writer Pausanias, a married woman caught attending the Games could be thrown from a nearby cliff. Unmarried women, however, were allowed to watch, so the ban applied only to wives.
Source: Britannica
What legendary event inspired the very first Olympic marathon in 1896?
The Olympic marathon retraces an ancient messenger's run. The 1896 Athens marathon honored Pheidippides, a messenger said to have run from the town of Marathon to Athens with news of a Greek battle victory before collapsing. Greek runner Spyridon Louis won that inaugural Olympic marathon in front of a roaring home crowd.
Source: Wikipedia
In over 125 years of the modern Olympics, how many times have the Games been called off entirely?
The Olympics have been cancelled only three times ever. The modern Olympics were cancelled in 1916 due to World War I, and again in 1940 and 1944 during World War II. Otherwise the Games have gone ahead as scheduled every four years since 1896.
Source: Wikipedia
In which year and in which sports did women first compete at the Olympics?
Women first competed at the Olympics playing golf and croquet. At the 1900 Paris Games, 22 women competed for the first time, in tennis, golf, croquet, sailing and equestrian events. Swiss-American sailor Helene de Pourtales became the first female Olympic champion.
Source: Olympics.com
What do the five interlocking rings on the Olympic flag actually stand for?
The Olympic rings were designed to represent the continents. Pierre de Coubertin designed the five interlocking rings in 1913 to represent the inhabited continents united by the Olympic movement. Contrary to a popular myth, the individual ring colors were never meant to match specific continents.
Source: Wikipedia
How old is the tradition of carrying a torch from Greece to the host city?
The Olympic torch relay wasn't an ancient Greek tradition. The torch relay was actually invented for the 1936 Berlin Games, not passed down from antiquity. Organizer Carl Diem devised the 12-day relay from Olympia to Berlin partly as a publicity boost, and every Games since has repeated it.
Source: Wikipedia
What unusual category of competition handed out Olympic medals from 1912 to 1948?
The Olympics once awarded medals for sculpture and poetry. Official art competitions in architecture, literature, music, painting and sculpture were part of the Olympic program for decades, awarding 151 medals in total. They were dropped in 1949 after officials decided professional artists clashed with the amateur ideal expected of athletes.
Source: Smithsonian Magazine
Why did the apparent winner of the 1908 Olympic marathon lose his medal?
A marathon winner was disqualified for being helped over the line. Italian runner Dorando Pietri collapsed several times in the final stretch of the 1908 London marathon, and officials rushed in to help him across the finish line. He was disqualified for receiving assistance, though Queen Alexandra later gave him a special gilded cup as consolation.
Source: Wikipedia
Why did the scoreboard show the wrong number after a legendary 1976 gymnastics routine?
A scoreboard once flashed '1.00' for a perfect gymnastics score. When 14-year-old Nadia Comaneci scored the first perfect 10 in Olympic history on the uneven bars in 1976, the scoreboard wasn't built to display four digits, so it flashed 1.00 instead. She went on to earn seven perfect 10s at those Montreal Games.
Source: Olympics.com
What silent protest during a 1968 medal ceremony made headlines worldwide?
Two sprinters raised gloved fists on the Olympic podium. At the 1968 Mexico City Games, Tommie Smith and John Carlos each raised a black-gloved fist during the national anthem to protest racial injustice, standing shoeless in black socks to represent poverty. Both were expelled from the Olympic Village as a result.
Source: Wikipedia
How did the slowest 100m freestyle swimmer in Olympic history end up winning his heat?
A swimmer who'd never seen an Olympic pool still won his heat. Equatorial Guinea's Eric Moussambani, nicknamed 'Eric the Eel,' had trained for only eight months and had never swum in a full-size pool before the 2000 Sydney Games. He struggled to finish but won his heat anyway after both rivals were disqualified for false starts.
Source: Wikipedia
How did an amateur British ski jumper become one of the most famous Olympians of 1988?
A plasterer became a ski jumping legend by finishing last. Michael 'Eddie the Eagle' Edwards finished dead last in both ski jumping events at the 1988 Calgary Games, having funded his own Olympic dream on a plasterer's wages. His unlikely fame led the IOC to introduce a stricter qualifying rule nicknamed after him.
Source: Wikipedia
How could someone win an Olympic gold medal without ever realizing it?
An Olympic champion died without knowing she'd won a medal. Margaret Abbott won the women's golf event at the 1900 Paris Olympics, which were folded into a World's Fair and barely labeled as Olympic at all. She died in 1955 never knowing she was America's first female Olympic champion.
Source: Wikipedia
How did a badly injured ankle become one of gymnastics' most famous Olympic moments?
A gymnast stuck a one-legged vault on a badly hurt ankle. At the 1996 Atlanta Games, Kerri Strug badly sprained her ankle on her first vault attempt and, believing a second vault was needed, competed again and stuck the landing on one leg. It later emerged that coach Bela Karolyi had miscalculated the scores and the US team had already clinched the gold before her final vault.
Source: Wikipedia
What is the only Olympic event where animals were deliberately killed?
Olympic athletes once shot live birds out of the sky. At the 1900 Paris Games, competitors shot live pigeons released from traps, with roughly 300 birds killed in total. It remains the only time in Olympic history animals were intentionally killed, and the ensuing outcry helped push the sport toward clay targets instead.
Source: Guinness World Records
Which playground game was a scored Olympic event for two decades?
Tug of war was once a genuine Olympic sport. Tug of war featured at every Summer Olympics from 1900 to 1920. Team size varied over the years, from six pullers in 1900 to eight from 1908 onward. It was dropped afterward as the IOC trimmed the programme and cracked down on squads seen as too professional, including Britain's police-officer teams.
Source: Wikipedia
What did the bizarre 1904 'plunge for distance' event actually measure?
An Olympic diving event once rewarded staying still underwater. In this one-off 1904 Olympic event, divers leapt into the pool and then stayed completely motionless, with their distance measured after 60 seconds or whenever their head broke the surface. It never appeared at another Olympics.
Source: Wikipedia
How can synchronized swimming work when there's only one swimmer in the pool?
Solo synchronized swimming was an actual Olympic event. From 1984 to 1992, Olympic synchronized swimming included a solo category, where a single swimmer synchronized her routine to music rather than to teammates. The category was replaced by team competition starting at the 1996 Games.
Source: Wikipedia
What controversial two-day event ran alongside the 1904 St. Louis Olympics?
The 1904 Olympics included a widely condemned sideshow event. Organizers paid indigenous people already on display at the World's Fair to compete in events like the high jump and discus, hoping to 'prove' racial theories of the era. Olympic founder Pierre de Coubertin himself called it an 'outrageous charade.'
Source: National Museum of the American Indian Magazine
Why did the best underwater swimmer at the 1900 Olympics finish third?
An Olympic swimmer once lost by swimming in circles. The one-time 1900 Olympic underwater swimming event scored competitors on time and distance covered beneath the Seine. Denmark's Peder Lykkeberg was clearly the best underwater swimmer but placed third because he swam in circles instead of a straight line, costing him distance points.
Source: Wikipedia
This page has 20, each with three answers and the fact that settles it. They are the first 20 of the 122 facts in the Sports topic of Lock&Learn, which holds the rest.
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