Olympic Sports List

The Olympic Games is a multi-sport event held once every four years in the form of Summer Olympics and Winter Olympics. This event is organized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The 2016 Olympics is taking place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In 2016 Olympics, 39 sports will be played, including two new sports introduced - Rugby Sevens and Golf.

Olympics hosts nearly 400 events across 35 sports. The Summer Olympics includes 28 sports (with a total of 41 disciplines) and the Winter Olympics includes 7 sports (with 15 disciplines). The upcoming Summer Games in Beijing, China, has planned to host 302 events in 28 sports.

The Summer Olympic sports are archery, badminton, baseball, basketball, beach volleyball, boxing, cycling, diving, equestrian, fencing, field hockey, gymnastics, judo, mountain biking, rowing, sailing, shooting, soccer, softball, swimming, synchronized swimming, table tennis, tennis, track and field, volleyball, water polo, weightlifting, and wrestling.

Two sports, Taekwondo and Triathlon (swimming, biking, running), were introduced for the first time at the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney, Australia. In 1996, Mountain Biking made its Olympic debut.

The US has the record of hosting Summer Olympics for most number of times - four. On the contrary, two continents - Africa and South America - have never hosted a Summer Olympics event.

Women were allowed to participate in Olympics for the first time at the second Summer Games in 1900. Eleven women were allowed to compete in lawn tennis and golf.

While Larrisa Latynina, a gymnast from the former Soviet Union, had the record of winning highest number of medals (18) ever won by any participants in the history of Summer Olympics, she was unseated by American swimmer Michael Phelps. He has won the most number of Olympic medals - 22.