Christa Luding from Germany at the Olympic Games in Albertville, France. | Photo credit: Getty Images
Quiz | Easy as Sunday morning: About Olympia
Mexican Norma Enriqueta Basilio, the first woman in the history of the modern Olympic Games to light the Olympic flame, runs up the 90 steps with the Olympic torch during the opening ceremony on October 12, 1968 in Mexico.
START QUIZ
1 / 10 | On this day in 1894, the International Olympic Committee was founded in Paris. On the initiative of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who believed that organized sport could create moral and social strength, the first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens in 1896. At the 1912 Games in Sweden, Coubertin himself won a gold medal for his work “Ode to Sport”. In which now-defunct category did he win the medal?
2 / 10 | Born on this day in 1877, Norman Pritchard was a hurdler who won two silver medals at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris. Before that, he had scored the first ever football hat-trick while studying at St. Xavier’s College in Kolkata. When Neeraj Chopra won gold in the javelin at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, he surpassed Pritchard’s record in athletics. What was his record?
Answer: Only Indian to win a medal in athletics at the Summer Olympics
DID YOU KNOW THE ANSWER?
YES
NO
SHOW THE ANSWER
3 / 10 | Born on this day in 1912, this English computer scientist loved running. He once said, “I have such a stressful job that the only way I can get it out of my head is to run fast; it’s the only way I can relax.” He almost qualified for the 1948 Olympics, but suffered a leg injury. Who was this runner whose work on the Enigma machine played a big role in ending World War II?
4 / 10 | Zinedine Zidane, born today in 1972, is a French football player who is also one of the most successful coaches. He led the French team to the trophy at the 1998 FIFA World Cup. Although he never played in the Olympic Games, he made a cameo appearance as “Numérodis” in the 2008 live-action adaptation of the comic strip ______ at the Olympic Games. Fill in the blanks with another French icon.
5 / 10 | Christa Lüding-Rothenburger is a German athlete who won gold in the 500 m speed skating at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. At the following Games in Calgary four years later, she won gold in the 1000 m. During the break between the two Games, her coach convinced her to take up cycling, and she made such good progress that she represented East Germany in cycling at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, where she won silver. What unique record does Christa hold that can never be beaten again?
Answer: Won medals at the Winter and Summer Olympics in the same year.
DID YOU KNOW THE ANSWER?
YES
NO
SHOW THE ANSWER
6 / 10 | At the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, the men’s pole vault ended in a three-way tie for second place. After American Bill Sefton was eliminated in the jump-off, the two remaining athletes, both Japanese, refused to continue competing. Officials chose one of them as the silver medalist and the other as the bronze medalist. What did these two friends do with the medals after the Games (in true friendship fashion)?
Answer: Cut both in half and combine them to make two half silver and half bronze medals.
DID YOU KNOW THE ANSWER?
YES
NO
SHOW THE ANSWER
7 / 10 | For the Olympic flame’s journey to the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, one of the venues required a special torchbearer containing a mixture of oxygen-generating chemicals as well as magnesium in fine powder form. This allowed the flame to burn at 2,000 degrees Celsius and create so much pressure that even surrounding water could not penetrate the tube. This was done so that the flame could be carried through which iconic location?
8 / 10 | As part of the journey of the Olympic flame to the 1992 Olympic Games in Albertville, it had to travel from Athens to Paris. During this journey, it traveled faster than the speed of sound for the first time. What means of transport was used to transport it?
9 / 10 | This sport was a team event at the Summer Olympics from 1900 to 1920. Teams consisted of six participants each, and Great Britain won five medals. It is the only land sport where you have to walk backwards to win. What is this sport that you mostly only see at fun picnics and company outings these days?
10 / 10 | The original Olympic motto Citius, Altius, Fortius (Latin: Faster, Higher, Stronger) was proposed by Pierre de Coubertin when the International Olympic Committee was founded in 1894. Since then, the updated motto is being used for the first time this year. So what does “Citius, Altius, Fortius – Communiter” stand for?
