Olympic Games in the USA

The United States of America (USA) has sent athletes to every celebration of the modern Olympic Games, except the 1980 Summer Olympics, which it boycotted. The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) is the National Olympic Committee for the United States.

Thomas Burke was the first athlete to represent the United States at the Olympics. He took first place in both the 100 meters and the 400 meters of the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece.

American athletes have won a total of 2298 medals at the Summer Olympic Games and another 253 at the Winter Olympic Games. More medals have been won in athletics (track and field) (738, 29%) and swimming (489, 19%) than any others. The United States is the only country to have won at least one gold medal at every Winter Olympics, and has won the total medal count at Lake Placid in the 1932 Winter Olympics and at Vancouver in the 2010 Winter Olympics.

The United States has won more gold and overall medals than any other country in the Summer Games and overall. The US also has the second-most gold and overall medals at the Winter games, trailing only Norway.

During the Vancouver Olympics, the United States set a record for most total medals of any country at a single Winter Olympics.

Links:

http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopage/olympic.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_at_the_Olympics

http://www.topendsports.com/events/summer/countries/usa.htm

Light Athletics

Athletics is an exclusive collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking. The most common types of athletics competitions are track and field, road running, cross country running, and race walking. The simplicity of the competitions, and the lack of a need for expensive equipment, makes athletics one of the most commonly competed sports in the world.

Organised athletics are traced back to the Ancient Olympic Games from 776 BC, and most modern events are conducted by the member clubs of the International Association of Athletics Federations. The athletics meeting forms the backbone of the modern Summer Olympics, and other leading international meetings include the IAAF World Championships and World Indoor Championships, and athletes with a physical disability compete at the Summer Paralympics and the IPC Athletics World Championships.