Taking off Travel blog

A couple of weeks ago, we published some fun facts about the Olympics. But did you know that the USA has a lot to be proud of when it comes to this global event? Here’s a US-only edition of Olympic fun facts.

1. The USA has sent athletes to every Olympic Games except the boycotted 1980 games.
2. We hold the record for the most medals won by a country at a single Winter Olympics. The US set the record at the Vancouver games with a total of 37 medals.
3. Our first ever Olympian was Thomas Burke who won gold in both the 100 meters and the 400 meters in 1896.
4. The total number of medals won by American athletes at the Summer Olympics is 2302 (source NBC).(though of course we’re hoping to add some more this year.)
5. Most of our Summer Olympics medals are won in track and field and swimming.
6. Most of America’s Winter Olympics medals have been won in speed skating and figure skating.
7. America has hosted the Summer Olympics four times: St. Louis (1904); Los Angeles (1932 and 1984); and Atlanta (1996).
8. America has also hosted the Winter Olympics four times: Lake Placid (1932 and 1980); Squaw Valley (1960); and Salt Lake City (2002).
9. Janice-Lee Romary was the first woman to serve as flag bearer for the US in an Olympic Games (Mexico, 1968).
10. She was also the first woman to compete in 6 Olympic Games, competing in individual foil in the games between 1948 and 1968.
11. Walt Disney headed the organizing committee for the 1960 Winter games in Squaw Valley, California.
12. The 1960 Summer Games were the first to be televised in the US, by CBS.
13. Margaret Abbott, who won gold in women’s golf in 1900, didn’t realize she had won till much later. She thought she was taking part in a tournament for the World’s Fair which was taking place at the same time.
14. In 1904 at the St Louis games, Fred Lorz appeared to have won the marathon. It later turned out that he had hitched a ride part of the way!
15. Michael Phelps is the leading Olympian, having won 14 gold medals in swimming events; he has also won 2 bronze medals.

How many of these fun facts did you know?

Image: thaines/Flickr

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Tags: london 2012, olympics, Travel Fun

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 25th, 2012 at 6:25 am and is filed under Travel Fun. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.