Olympic Summer Games - Statistics & Facts

The Summer Olympic Games is an international multi-sport competition which takes place every four years in a different host city. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is the host city for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, also known as Rio 2016. Even though the host country changes for every edition, the Games have primarily been hosted in Europe, while the U.S. hosted the Summer Games more than any other country – four times. Rio de Janeiro is the first city in South America to host the Summer Olympic Games. It is also the third time the Games are being held in the Southern Hemisphere – Australia hosted the Games twice in 1956 and 2000. Tokyo, Japan, will host the 2020 edition of the Games.

The 2016 Summer Olympic Games features 28 sports; two of them, golf and rugby, were added for the 2016 edition. The athletes will compete in over 300 medal events in 41 different disciplines, ranging from archery to football. Women athletes are competing in about 145 events at Rio 2016, a significant increase from the previous editions. Sporting events take place across a total of 33 venues in Rio de Janeiro, located in four different regions of the city. Five Brazilian cities, Brasília, Belo Horizonte, São Paulo, Salvador and Manaus, also host soccer games during the Olympics.

Athletes of around 200 countries have participated in the Summer Olympics since 2000, and only five countries, Greece, Australia, France, Great Britain, and Switzerland, participated in every edition of the Olympic Games since it was first held in Athens in 1896. Kosovo and South Sudan participate in the Olympics for the first time ever in Rio. More than 10,000 athletes are competing in the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio. The 2016 edition of the Games also has the highest share of female participants of all times. About 45 percent of the participants in Rio 2016 are women – around 4,700 women in total. In 1996, when Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., hosted the Olympics, women accounted for only 34 percent of the participants. In terms of medals won, the United States has the highest all-time total medal count of the Olympic Summer Games, while Russia ranks second and Germany takes the third place.

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