Olympic Games Trivia Questions

Answer: Zola Budd

I remember watching this race live on television as there was so much hype surrounding the competition between Mary Decker and Zola Budd. Decker was supposed to take gold but Budd was a young eighteen year old barefoot runner to watch. During the race, there was jostling as the runners ran in a tight pack. Budd made a move midway through the race to get in front of Decker and as she did that, Decker's spike hit Budd's ankle. Budd took a miss-step and tripped Decker who went down and ended up not finishing the race at all. Budd ended up finishing well behind her potential. This race took place in Los Angeles and as Budd continued running, boos filled the stadium. After the race she tried to apologize to Decker but Decker was having none of it. Decker had a post-race interview and was obviously upset. As a result of her statements continually blaming Budd and the media for the hype, she was labeled a poor loser. Budd was subject to all kinds of negativity in the press, including being called a racist. The race and the fallout following it were awful for both athletes.

Answer: Drug usage by East German swim team

Shirley Babashoff (b. 1957) set 37 US national swimming records and at one time held all the US national freestyle records. At the 1976 US Olympics trials she won all the freestyle races and the 400 meter individual medley. However, she failed to win an individual gold medal at a time that Americans and Australians had previously dominated the sport.

She competed in both the 1972 and 1976 Olympics, winning six individual silver medals and three gold medals in relay races. Many in the press considered her a sore loser and nicknamed her "Surly Shirley" for her accusations about drug cheating by the East German swimmers. Later evidence exposed the extent of the state-sponsored use of drugs and the damage done to the athletes. No change in the results has occurred after the fact, although many have requested it.

Answer: Ethiopia

Bikila is a story of heroism as well as tragedy. During the 1960 Olympic games, he ran the marathon event in 2 hours and 21 minutes. At the following games in Tokyo, Japan in 1964, he broke his own record by running the race in 2 hours and 12 minutes. Heroically, he broke his record just 40 days after suffering an appendicitis attack that required surgery. He was a high ranking member of the Ethiopian Imperial Guard reaching the rank of captain and was a beloved family man. In 1969, Bikila was struck by a car, became paralyzed and was never able to walk again. He participated in the 1970 Stoke Mandeville Games (an early predecessor to the Paralympic Games) where he competed in archery and table tennis. He died in 1973 following complications associated with the car accident and was given a state funeral by Ethiopian president Haile Selassie.

Answer: Laura Trott

Laura Trott was born in 1992 and competed in the track cycling events in 2012 and in 2016. In both games she won the team pursuit (2012: teams of three cyclists for a distance of 3,000 metres; 2016: four cyclists for a distance of 4,000 metres) as well as the individual omnium (a set of six disciplines on track).

Sarah Hammer (born 1983) is American, and she won two silver medals in London 2012 - twice after Laura Trott. She repeated the same result in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro. Annette Edmondson (born 1991) is Australian. In London 2012 she won the bronze medal for the individual omnium. Tara Whitten (born 1980) is Canadian. She took her team to a bronze medal in London 2012 in the team pursuit. 

Answer: Judo

Judo made its debut, fittingly, at the Tokyo Olympics of 1964, but was left off for Mexico City, four years later. It came back in 1972, and has continued in every Olympiad since. Women's judo made its debut in 1988 as a demonstration sport, and medals were first awarded in 1992. Judo is one of a few Olympic medal oddities, as two bronze medals are awarded in every event, based on the tournament structure.

Answer: Larisa Latynina

Larisa Latynina competed in three Olympic Games for Russia and is recognized as one of the greatest Olympic athletes of all-time. In Melbourne in 1956 she won 4 Gold medals in the All-Around, Team, Floor Exercise, and Vault. She also earned a Silver medal on Bars and a Bronze medal in the Object Exercise. Four years later in the 1960 Rome Olympics she won 3 Gold medals in the All-Around, Team, and Floor Exercise. Silver medals were earned in the Bars and Balance Beam, and a Bronze medal on the Vault. In her final Olympic Games in 1964 in Tokyo, Larisa won six more medals: 2 Gold in Team and Floor Exercise, 2 Silver in the All-Around and Vault, and 2 Bronze in the Bars and Balance Beam.

Answer: Daley Thompson

Daley, or to give him his real name, Francis Morgan Thompson, was rarely seen without a smile on his face. In the 1984 competition, he set a world record that stood until 1992. He was the first decathlete to attempt three successive Olympic titles, but failed in 1988 because injury kept him down to fourth place. He was the first person to hold the Olympic, Commonwealth, World, and European titles in a single event at the same time. In major competitions, between 1979 and 1987, Thompson was never beaten.

Answer: Zara Tindall

Zara Tindall Is Princess Anne's daughter, Queen Elizabeth's granddaughter. At the London Olympics in 2012, she won a silver medal as a member of the British equestrian team. The team participated in three days of events. The events included dressage, cross-country, and jumping. She was awarded her medal by her mother, Princess Anne.

Answer: Pole vault

Sergey Bubka (b. 1963) was a pole vaulter born in what later became the Ukraine. He set 35 world records in the pole vault and was the first man to clear 20 feet on a vault. He won his first World Championship in 1983, but did not participate in the 1984 Olympics due to a boycott. In 1988 he won his only gold medal to be followed by major upsets in the next three Olympics. In 1992 he failed on his first three attempts. In 1996 he withdrew from competition due to a heel injury, and in 2000 he failed to medal with failures at least a foot lower than he normally cleared.

Due to the reward system in his contracts Bubka frequently increased the world record one centimeter higher at a time.

Answer: Downhill

In a race that was littered with treacherous conditions, Klammer won the race after being the favorite and final favorite to finish the race. Inspired by his younger brother who was paralyzed during a skiing accident at the age of 16, he disregarded his own safety on an extremely icy course. He would finish the race just .33 seconds ahead of Bernhard Russi of Switzerland.

Answer: London 2012

The Team Dressage is an addition to the Individual Dressage Event. At first, every competitor rides the first round. A number of the teams of several riders from the same country will qualify for the second round. The average score on both rounds determines the medal winners. In individual dressage there is even a third stage, with a freestyle dressage on music.

Equestrianism is one of the very few sports in which men and women compete against each other. The London 2012 Team Dressage event was won by Greet-Britain (two women and one man), while Germany (three women) took the silver and the Netherlands (two women and one man) won the bronze medal. The British team that won in London 2012, consisted of Carl Hester, Laura Bechtolsheimer and Charlotte Dujardin. In Rio de Janeiro 2016 the British team (Carl Hester, Charlotte Dujardin, Fiona Bigwood and Spencer Wilton) took the silver medal, after Germany and before the USA.

In Sydney 2000 the British Dressage team (with Carl Hester) ended eighth out of nine teams. The only equestrian medal for Great-Britain was a silver one in the Team Eventing. In Munich 1972 the British Dressage Team ended dead last. None of the British riders won any medal (not in jumping, not in eventing, and not in dressage).

Answer: Soviet Union

The USA dominated Olympic basketball in the 20th century, winning the first event held in 1936 and claiming the gold medal at every subsequent event until the Munich games of 1972. Starting as undisputed favourites, the USA was leading the Soviet Union by 50 points to 49 with just three seconds remaining on the clock. However, the Soviet coaching team chose that moment to dispute a time-out and the subsequent disruption led the referee to stop the match. After a lot of wrangling about the rights and wrongs of the situation (and with pretty much everyone confused as to whether the rules had been correctly applied) the match was restarted and the Soviet Union sneaked in one final basket to win the game by a single point. Needless to say, the USA team were outraged and ended up refusing to accept their silver medals in protest - the political situation between the two countries certainly didn't help matters either.

Despite this blot on the USA's Olympic basketball record, they won a total of 14 basketball Olympic gold medals during the 20th century (11 by the men's team and three by the women's).

Answer: Berlin 1936

It was in 1928, during the Amsterdam Olympics, that the lighting of the Cauldron was introduced. The first Olympic torch relay didn't take place until 1936, however; it traveled 3,422 kilometers (with a total of 3,422 torch bearers) in 8 days. This began the tradition, continued in every following Olympic Games.

Answer: Rowing

Rowing is one sport that has evolved greatly from the start. Only men were allowed to compete in rowing until Montreal 1976, when women got their turn. Races are staged over a 2000m course, but were staged at different lengths, like 1750m in Paris 1900, up to 3,218m in St. Louis 1904. Women's races started out at 1000m, being upgraded to 2000m in 1988. The six-lane courses have only been standard since 1956; before that, races were run between as little as two to three boats.

Answer: Paavo Nurmi

At 23 years of age he debuted at the 1920 Antwerp Olympic Games where he won the 10,000m Gold medal and Gold medals in the Team and Individual Cross-Country competition. He also won the Silver medal in the 5000m event. In 1924 at the "Chariots of Fire" Paris Olympics, he won a stunning five (5) Gold medals in distance races (1500m, 5000m, 3000m Team Race, Team Cross-Country, and Individual Cross-Country). Finally, in 1928 at the Amsterdam Games, he won Gold in the 10,000m event and Silver in the 5000m and 3000m Steeplecahse events.

Answer: Zola Budd

Budd was granted citizenship because of a newspaper campaign and because her grandfather was English. At the time she was seen as an exceptional long distance runner. The other controversy concerns, her collisions with Mary Decker which took place during the women's 3000m event. Decker collided with Budd at least three times and eventually crashed out of the race. An official investigation by the IAAF, International Association of Athletics Federations, cleared Budd of any wrong doing because she was leading and it is the following athlete's responsibility to avoid collisions.

Answer: Competitors jumped on horseback

The Equestrian long-jump only appeared in the 1900 Olympic Games. For comparison, in the same year, the human-only long jump winner, Meyer Prinstein of the USA, jumped 7.175 metres.

Answer: Odd Job

Harold T. Sakata was born in Hawaii in 1920. He was a wrestler and weightlifter who competed in the 1948 London Olympics. There, he won a silver medal in weightlifting after he lifted 380 kg in the light-heavyweight division. He appeared as Oddjob, a bodyguard to Bond villain Auric Goldfinger, in "Goldfinger" in 1964.

Answer: Ingemar Johansson

Ingemar Johansson (1932-2009) represented Sweden in the Helsinki 1952 Olympic games. During the final match against American Ed Sanders both fighters were warned for "passivity". Johansson maintained that he was attempting to let Sanders become the aggressor and counterpunch. However, the referee ultimately disqualified Johansson for passivity, and officials withheld his silver medal (although he later received it in 1982).

Johansson considering retiring afterwards, but eventually returned to the ring and won the European heavyweight championship. In 1956 he won the World Championship by defeating Floyd Patterson, but later lost two rematches to him.

Answer: Receive a perfect score

At the age of just 14, Comaneci received a 10.0 score on the uneven bars event. At the time, it was believed by the Omega Scoreboard manufacturer that it was impossible to give a perfect score and it was not programmed to do so. She was given a score of 1.0 as it was the only way the judges could give her a 10. During her career she became the first Romanian woman to win the all-round gold medal and the youngest to win the all-round title.

Answer: 1988 Seoul

Ben Jonson won the 100m gold medal race at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul in a world record time of 9.79 seconds. Sadly he didn't achieve this on his own merits, as he had taken the banned performance enhancing drug stanozolol - an anabolic steroid. His status as Olympic champion wasn't in dispute for long as he was summarily disqualified just three days after the event. Johnson was suspended from the sport for three years, but clearly hadn't learnt his lesson as he failed a further drugs test in 1993.

History now records the defending champion, Carl Lewis, as the 1988 Olympic 100m gold medallist in a world record time of 9.92 seconds. It took another 11 years before the world record legally reached 9.79 seconds - the American athlete Maurice Greene being the person responsible.

Answer: The Games were canceled

In 1936, Tokyo was awarded the honor of hosting the 1940 games, but in 1939, the city was changed to runner-up Helsinki due to World War II. It was eventually decided Helsinki would not host the Games either, and they were canceled altogether. Both cities already had a plan for the relay paths, but because of the cancelation, neither came to fruition.

Answer: Edoardo Mangiarotti -- Fencing

At just 17 years of age, Edoardo Mangiarotti won his first Olympic Gold medal in Team Epee. Sadly, the war years put the Olympic Games on hold and the Italian fencer would not return to Olympic competition until London in 1948 where he won a Silver medal in Team Foil and Team Epee and a Bronze medal in the Individual Epee competition. In Helsinki in 1952, Edoardo earned Gold medals in the Individual and Team Epee competition and Silver medals in Individual Foil and Team Foil. In Melbourne in 1956, he earned two more Gold medals in Team Foil and Team Epee and a Bronze medal in Individual Epee. Amazingly at 41 years of age he returned for one last Olympic Games in Rome in 1960. There he won a 6th Gold medal in Team Epee (24 years after his first Gold medal) and a Silver in Team Foil.

In 2003, the IOC (International Olympic Committee) awarded Edoardo Mangiarotti with a Platinum Wreath, stating "Edoardo Mangiarotti's total of 39 gold, silver & bronze medals in Olympic & World Fencing Championships not only earns him the distinction of being the greatest Fencer in that sport's history, but also distinguishes him as the most decorated athlete in ALL Olympic Sports in the history of the Olympics."

Answer: Sailing

In 1912, Craig won both the 100 and 200m titles beating teammate Don Lippincott both times. He retired from the sport immediately after the games. In 1948, he was selected as an alternate on the USA sailing team, although he didn't compete. He did, however, carry the flag into the stadium.

Answer: He was taking part in the "Obstacle Race - Swimming" event

Frederick Lane won the Gold medal in the "Obstacle Race - Swimming", which made its only appearance in the 1900 Paris Games. He also won Gold in the 200 metres freestyle swimming event in the same year.