The Olympic Games bring together the world's best athletes to compete in the greatest sports festival on earth. The Games are among the most important events on the planet, mobilizing people from almost every country in the world and thrilling audiences with victories, records and inspirational stories of achievement. Every four years, one city is awarded the privilege of hosting this event. Over a two-week period, competitors, supporters and spectators mix and cheer in support of the Olympic spirit.

The first official record of the Olympic Games dates back to 776 B.C.E. They were held as a tribute to Zeus, who, according to Greek mythology, was the king of the gods and held the power to suspend wars and battles. Victory in the Olympic Games would have brought great acclaim to an athlete and would have brought glory to his city of origin. The Olympic Games were banned by the Christian Roman emperor Theodosius in 393 A.C.E. for being pagan.

The Games were reborn 1,500 years later, thanks to the efforts of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, a French pedagogue and sportsman who saw in sports and in the Greek Olympic ideals a strong source of inspiration for perfection of the human being. The first Olympic Games of the modern era occurred in Athens in 1896. Coubertin is the father of modern Olympism, a philosophy that promotes a way of life based on combining sports with culture and education.

In 1924, the Winter Olympic Games were created, and they are held every four years. Another important innovation was the emergence of the Paralympic Games, in which disabled athletes compete. The Games began when Sir Ludwig Guttmann in 1948 organized a sports competition in England involving World War II veterans with spinal cord injuries. Four years later, an international movement was born when competitors from the Netherlands joined in the games. The event has grown at a fast pace, including with the addition of Winter Olympics in 1976. The last Paralympic Games, held in Beijing in 2008, included 3,951 athletes representing 146 countries.