This international multisport event is hosted once in every four years. The United States of America has so far hosted this event four times. Closely followed is the United Kingdom, who will host the Olympics for the third time in 2012. There are other countries who have hosted summer Olympics just once are Belgium, Finland, Canada, Japan, Italy, Netherlands, Mexico, South Korea, Spain, Russia and Sweden. For the first time ever China will also get to host the event in 2008 at Beijing. To its pride certain cities have hosted summer Olympics twice. They are Los Angeles, Paris Athens and London. This will be third time that London, for that matter any city will be hosting an Olympic for the third time.
Australia, Great Britain, Greece and Switzerland have never missed sending their teams to each and every Olympics. The Great Britain also takes pride in the fact that it has won at the least one Olympic gold in every Summer Olympic Games. It won one gold medal in the years 1904, 1952 and 1993 at Olympics. The Great Britain also won fifty six gold medals in the year 1908 Summer Olympic Games.
Qualification standards and the requisite rules and regulations of the Olympics are framed by the International Federation (IF). Competitors belonging to individual sports have to qualify sometimes by entering into a qualifying tournament. Sometimes a bench mark is set and the competitors are required to surpass that. So that developing countries too participate in the Olympics, wild card entries are also seen. Where teams play a particular sport they are selected after initial qualifying tournaments. The host nation generally is entitled for an automatic entry in the events by virtue of its hosting.
With the onset of the First World War the Summer Olympic Games scheduled to be held in Berlin got cancelled. The Second World War came with its own consequences too. The 1940 Olympics scheduled to be held at Tokyo war redirected to Helsinki and later that too was cancelled. The 1944 Olympics scheduled to be held in London also got cancelled due to the Second World War and London got to host their first Olympics only in the year 1948 after the Second World War was over.
The stage is all set in Beijing for the next Olympics to be held there. Many new events have been introduced including the all new BMX for both the men and the women for the forthcoming Olympics. Women will also been seen competing ‘Steeplechase’. Marathon swimming i.e. to swim more than a distance of about 10 kilometers is also being introduced. The ‘baseball’ and ‘softball’ events have been removed from the Olympics by the international Olympic Committee from the 2012 event. It is however yet to be decided whether it may be reintroduced in the events to come.