16 Facts About The Olympics That Take Home The Gold
The Olympic torch has been to space 3 times (beat that, Bezos), plus 15 more fun facts about the greatest games on Earth.
![16 Facts About The Olympics That Take Home The Gold](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/3/8/3/787383_320x180.jpg)
You should know the gold is mostly silver, and 15 other bonkers facts about the greatest games on earth!
![In 1960, Abebe Bikila ran the Men's Marathon barefoot and won. He became the first east African to win an Olympic medal- and broke the world record. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/3/7/4/787374.jpg)
source: The Olympics
![The youngest athlete to ever win a medal was 10 years old. Dimitrios Loundras was the youngest athlete to ever medal in the modern Olympics. He won bronze in gymnastics at the 1896 Summer, Olympics in Athens. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/3/7/3/787373.jpg)
source: The 1896 Olympic Games
![As of 2016, a gold medal is worth about 564 its weight in gold and silver. While some medals have sold at auction for as much as 1.47 million. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/3/7/1/787371.jpg)
source: ABC News
![Gold medals are not made of gold. They are mostly silver and finished with gold. The last time they were solid gold was in the 1904 Olympic Games. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/3/7/2/787372.jpg)
source: Parade.com
![The first official Olympic mascot was Waldi at the 1972 Games in Munich. He was a dachshund, a German dog breed. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/3/6/8/787368.jpg)
source: Olympics.com
![The official languages of the Olympics are English and French. See They are only ever joined by the language of the host country. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/3/7/0/787370.jpg)
Source: Olympic.org
![Five athletes have won medals in both the Winter and the Summer Olympics. Panasor While Christa Ludinger- Rothenburger is the only person to have won medals in the same year. Speed Skating in the winter, and cycling in the summer. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/3/6/9/787369.jpg)
Source: Time Magazine
![The United States has hosted the Summer Olympics more times than any other country. LOS ANGELES MEMORIAL LOLISLOM St. Louis in 1904, Los Angeles in 1932 & 1984, and Atlanta in 1996. Los Angeles is slated to host again in 2028. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/3/6/7/787367.jpg)
Source: Ball State University
![Women used to compete in their own competition: The Herean games. In ancient Greece, a separate festival in honor of Hera (the wife of Zeus) included foot races for unmarried girls. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/3/6/4/787364.jpg)
Source: Penn Museum
![In ancient times, the horse owners were declared Olympic champion- not the riders. As a result, the first female Olympic champion was Kyniska, daughter of King Archidamos of Sparta. Her four horses won in the 396BC and 392BC Olympiads. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/3/6/2/787362.jpg)
Source: Olympics.com
![The 2012 London Games were the first Olympics that had female athletes from all participating countries. Qatar, Brunei, and Saudia Arabia were the last countries to allow female athletes to compete. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/3/6/5/787365.jpg)
source: New York Times
![The Olympic torch has been to space. ArperaT 11T! 3aB. No 306! Per. No 126 Thrice- in 1996, 2000, and 2013. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/3/7/6/787376.jpg)
source: Space.com
![In 1936, a tie resulted something called the Friendship Medal BERLIN 1936 During the 1936 Berlin Games, two Japanese pole-vaulters tied for second place. They cut the silver and bronze medals in half and fused the two different halves together, leaving them both with a alf-silver and half-bronze medal. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/3/6/1/787361.jpg)
source: The Olympics
![Artists used to compete in the Olympics. From 1912-1948, painters, sculptors, architects, writers, and musicians competed for medals in their respective fields. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/3/6/6/787366.jpg)
source: Smithsonian Magazine
![From 1924-1992, the Winter and the Summer Olympics took place in the same year. Today they're on separate cycles and alternate every two years. Pricelent a Cimite Le Printest CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/3/6/3/787363.jpg)
source: Chicago Tribune
![The first Olympic Games took place in 8 B.C. in Olympia, Greece. And then every four years before it was banned in the 4th century, A.D. for being a pagan festival. The first modern Olympics took place in Athens, Greece, in 1896. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/3/5/9/787359.jpg)
source: History.com