Quiz: Memorable Ceremonies
Which of the following items was not given to event winners at the first modern Olympic Games held in Athens in 1896?
- For these first modern games, only first and second-place winners received prizes. Event winners received a silver medal, olive branches and a diploma, while second-place finishers were given a bronze medal, a diploma and a crown of laurel.
During the 1996 Atlanta Games, this American gymnast had to be carried to the podium by her coach because of an ankle injury she aggravated on her final vault.
- Strug's performance helped the U.S. win its first ever team gold medal in gymnastics.
The opening ceremonies at which Olympic Summer Games featured a man using a jet-pack and 84 grand pianos being used simultaneously to play the music of George Gershwin?
- The Hollywood-influenced festivities took place in Memorial Coliseum in 1984 before a live audience of 92,655 and 2.5 billion television viewers.
A letter written by a 17-year-old Chinese-Australian named John Ian Wing prompted Olympic organizers in this city to alter its closing ceremony so that athletes for the first time would not enter the stadium divided into nations, but instead would march as one big group.
- It wasn't until lunchtime on the day before the closing ceremony that the decision on the format change was made by Australian Olympic Committee Chairman Kent Hughes and approved by IOC president Avery Brundage.
The spectacular lighting of the Olympic flame during the opening ceremonies at the 1992 Barcelona Games occurred when Spanish Paralympian Antonio Rebollo shot what at the Olympic cauldron.
- The ceremony was also made special by the first appearance of a unified German team since 1964 and the appearance of a South African team for the first time since 1960.
The torch relay first appeared at which Olympic Summer Games?
- That first relay used upwards of 3,000 torchbearers. The relay before the Sydney games will use 11,000 torchbearers.
The opening ceremony at the 1920 Summer Games in Antwerp, Belgium, featured three new elements: the reading of the Olympic oath, the raising of the Olympic flag, and this, which was done to symbolize the ideals of brotherhood and world peace.
- In 1920 it was doves, but in other years it has been pigeons.
At medal ceremonies for the 1936 Berlin Games, gold medallists received what additional gift?
- They were year-old potted oaks, to be exact, and reportedly two of track star Jesse Owens' trees still stand today - one at James Ford Rhodes High School in Cleveland and the other at USC in Los Angeles.
The black gloves that covered the fists of sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos during their famous 1968 protest of the mistreatment of blacks have been much publicized. But what color were their shoes?
- The courageous 200m gold and bronze medallists stood on the podium without shoes, instead donning black socks to represent black poverty.
The opening ceremony in this city featured the first televised "Greetings from Space" at the Olympics.
- Two Soviet cosmonauts appeared on a giant electronic screen and conveyed good wishes from outer space to all the athletes.
