The 2024 Summer Olympics, or the games of the XXXIII Olympiad, begin this week in Paris. If you don’t speak Roman numerals, this is the 33rd summer games. The very first Olympics took place in Athens, Greece, in 1896. Those very first games were only for male athletes. Just 241 men from 14 countries competed in 42 events, and the winners didn’t even get medals. The winners received wreaths, jars of olives, or public meals. The first Olympic medals were awarded in 1904.
The 33rd Olympiad will include 10,500 athletes from 205 delegations. They will compete in 32 sports, including break dancing, surfing, and men’s artistic swimming. Which sports will you watch?
John and Crosley have been reading books about the history of the Olympics and some famous Olympic athletes. Check out some of their favorites at your local library.
The astonishing tale of nine working-class boys from the American West who, at the 1936 Olympics, showed the world what true grit really meant. With rowers who were the sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the University of Washington’s eight-oar crew was never expected to defeat the elite East Coast teams. Yet, they did, going on to shock the world by challenging the German boat rowing for Adolf Hitler.
Who Was Jesse Owens? by James Buckley, Jr. Ages 10-12.
At the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics, track and field star Jesse Owens ran himself straight into international glory by winning four gold medals. But the life of Jesse Owens is much more than a sports story. Born in rural Alabama under the oppressive Jim Crow laws, Owens’s family suffered many hardships. As a boy, he worked several jobs, such as delivering groceries and working in a shoe repair shop to make ends meet. But Owens defied the odds to become a sensational student athlete, eventually running track for Ohio State. He was chosen to compete in the Summer Olympics in Nazi Germany, where Adolf Hitler was promoting the idea of “Aryan superiority.” Owens’s winning streak at the games humiliated Hitler and crushed the myth of racial supremacy.
What are the Summer Olympics? by Gail Herman. Ages 8-12.
Every four years during the summer, athletes from every corner of the globe meet to compete in the Olympics—the greatest sports contest on earth. For about two weeks, athletes test their skill, their strength, and their luck in more than three hundred events. Arenas for the Olympics become a world stage, with billions of fans following the Games on TV. Generals, princes, and movie stars have competed in the Olympics. But more often than not, athletes are ordinary young men and women. Except, of course, they are not ordinary. They are champions in running, jumping, swimming, rowing, cycling, gymnastics, tennis, and soccer. Name any warm-weather sport, and most likely, it’s been played at the Summer Olympics.
The Story of the Olympic Games by The Olympic Museum. Grades 3-7.
The Olympic games are the world’s greatest global sporting spectacle. This stunningly illustrated official history, written especially for children, charts the events from its origins in ancient Greece to its revival in 1896 and the 27 subsequent competitions. In addition to pages packed with exclusive photographs of the gripping action, legendary athletes, and artifacts that have defined each game, the book covers short-lived sports, groundbreaking firsts, fun fast facts, and much more.