5 Incredible Facts I Bet You Didn’t Know About the Summer Olympics

The 2012 London Games are merely days away ( 9 Days 20 hours 56 minutes at the time of posting to be exact) and  I am one radio personality that can't wait. While I appreciate the Winter games I do not quite get into them as much as I do the Summer Games. Every 4 years it is like sports Christmas in July... unless the games are being held south of the Equator but we won't get into that.

Let me clarify by saying that when I get into the games I mean I REALLY get in to the games. I usually stay up until 4 or 5 am to watch such intriguing action as the water polo tournament, or I will waste an afternoon watching weightlifting on Bravo or what ever random NBC owned network is airing such an event. Needless to say yours truly is an Olympic enthusiast. I was shocked to discover, however, that there are tons of things I didn't know about the summer games. I chose my five favorites and decided to share them with the masses... or at least the 3 buzzhead's and my 2 friends that will read my post. As a self-promoting, side note, if you cant get enough of The Ripper and the Olympics check out my blog from a couple months ago about how the IOC wanted "The Who's" long deceased drummer to play at the opening ceremonies.

5.The Gold medals given out at the Olympic Games are not pure Gold!

The last Olympic gold medals that were made entirely out of gold were awarded in 1912. Today's 'gold' medals are actually made of sterling silver and covered with a thin coat of pure gold. Even more shocking, when the modern olympics began way back in 1896 the winner of each event won a silver medal.

4.The first athlete to win ANY event at Any modern olympics was an American.

This, of course,  is not that shocking  because 'Merica kicks some  major badonkadonk, but nonetheless,  James B. Connolly(from the good ole U.S. of A), winner of the hop, step, and jump (the first final event in the 1896 Olympics), was the first Olympic champion of the modern Olympic Games.

3.All of the  athletes that competed ancient olympics did so completely in the nude

I don't have much to say about this except that the Prudes at the IOC need to take note when dealing with the uniforms for women's beach volleyball.

2. Not every country is represented in every olympic games. In fact its extremely rare.

So rare in fact that only FIVE countries have been represented at all Summer Olympic Games – Greece, Great Britain, France, Switzerland, and Australia, though not always all as part of official teams. Switzerland is on this list even though they boycotted the 1956 Olympics - they had competed in the equestrian events several months earlier in Stockholm. France did did not send a team to the 1904 Games but a lone Frenchman did compete for the US and a mixed team. Also in 1896 Great Britain competed as part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, while Australia participated in 1908 and 1912 as part of a combined Australasia team with New Zealand. Therefore, only Greece is the ONE  nation to have participated under its own flag in all modern summer Olympic Games.

1. Traditionally the United States dominates the overall medal count, but there are THREE current olympic events that USA has never received a medal in.

Let me preface this by reminding you of my statement I made earlier about 'Merica kicking badonkadonk. I can prove this by saying we have literally run away with the all-time medal count for the summer olympic games. By run away with i mean Great Brittain has 715 medals, Germany has 851, the dirty soviets gathered 1010 during the communist regime. The United States has 2296. 229frickin'6 (like I said serious badonkadonk).

That being said we have a big goose egg when it comes to three current events. Handball- whatever the heck that is, Badminton, which I took a PE class in at MSU cause I wanted an easy A a few years back, and Table Tennis, stinkin' ping pong! You kidding me!

On a side note it turns out that Forrest Gump movie was full of dookie!

Anyway there you have it Buzzhead. A few things to keep in mind as you are putting a 10 spot down on the tiny asian diver chick to make the smallest splash ( or however they decide who wins those diving events).