 The Olympic Games were a series of athletic competitions among representatives of city- states of Ancient Greece. They were held in honor of Zeus, and the Greeks gave them a mythological origin. Historical records indicate that they began in 776 BC in Olympia. They continued to be celebrated when Greece came under Roman rule, until the emperor Theodosius I suppressed them in 394 AD as part of the campaign to impose Christianity as the state religion of Rome.

The modern Olympic Games is the leading international sporting event featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games are considered to be the world's foremost sports competition with more than 200 nations participating.

 Table tennis competition has been in the Summer Olympic Games since 1988, with singles and doubles events for men and women. Athletes from China have dominated the sport, winning a total of 47 medals in 27 events, including 24 gold medals.

Taekwondo made its first appearance at the Summer Olympic Games as a demonstration sport at the 1998 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. The opening ceremony featured a mass demonstration of taekwondo with hundreds of adults and children performing moves in unison. Taekwondo was again a demonstration sport at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.

 The Winter Olympic Games is a major international sporting event which occurs once every four years. The first celebration of the Winter Olympics was held in Chamonix, France, in The original sports were alpine and cross- country skiing, figure skating, ice hockey, Nordic combined, ski jumping and speed skating.

 Ice hockey tournaments have been staged at the Olympic Games since The men's tournament was introduced at the 1920 Summer Olympics and was transferred permanently to the Winter Olympic Games program in 1924, in France. The women's tournament was first held at the 1998 Winter Olympics.

 Ski jumping has been included in the program of every Winter Olympic Games. From 1924 through 1956, the competition involved jumping from one hill whose length varied from each edition games to the next. Most historians have placed this length at 70 meters and have classified this as the large hill.

SIMONOVIC BOGDAN VIII2 DIMITRIJEVI C UROS VIII2