Summer Olympics Trivia Questions and Answers [2026 Picks]

Paris 2024 closed with 19 senior world records across seven sports, and the one most people can name, Mondo Duplantis’s 6.25 m pole vault, has already been raised six more times since. That is the awkward thing about Olympic trivia. The numbers keep moving while the myths stay exactly where they were.

These 127 summer olympics trivia questions and answers span Paris 2024, the legends from Phelps to Biles, the 1912 switch off solid-gold medals, the Nazi-era start of the torch relay, the ancient loophole that produced the first female champion, and a forward look at LA 2028. Seven groups, easy and hard mixed, with a Quickstart primer for the questions people ask first.

Every answer carries a short note on where it usually goes wrong. If you would rather be scored on them, the Olympic Games topic on LearnClash plays this kind of material as 18-question duels.

Section	Questions	Easy	Medium	Hard
Questions About the Summer Olympics with Answers [Quickstart]	1-13	6	4	3
Paris 2024 Olympic Trivia Questions	14-32	3	9	7
Olympic Legend Trivia Questions: Phelps, Bolt, Biles	33-51	3	8	8
Track and Field Olympic Trivia Questions	52-70	2	7	10
Swimming and Gymnastics Olympic Trivia Questions	71-89	0	10	9
Olympic History and Forgotten Sports Trivia Questions	90-108	2	9	8
LA 2028 Olympics Trivia Questions	109-127	8	7	4

Olympic trivia splits along one line: recency versus origins. Paris 2024 feels easy because it is fresh. The ancient and forgotten material is where players get burned. The torch-relay question is a good example, because the right answer (Berlin 1936, not ancient Greece) contradicts every ceremonial opening shot ever filmed.

For adjacent sets, try the sports trivia questions or basketball trivia questions.

Questions About the Summer Olympics with Answers [Quickstart]

These thirteen are the Olympic questions people reach for first. Each one goes wrong in its own way. The year you would swear by turns out wrong. The Greek tradition is actually 1930s German. The medal you call solid gold has been silver with a thin gold coat since 1912.

A good Olympic question sets one of three traps. The era trap: the torch relay sounds ancient but came from Berlin 1936, and the rings feel 19th-century yet date to 1913. The number trap: Phelps’s 23, Bolt’s 9.58, and Flo-Jo’s 10.49 all sit one digit away from the number you half remember. And the geography trap. Surfing in Tahiti. Softball in Oklahoma City. A 1900 Paris croquet match that pulled exactly one paying spectator up from Nice.

Five starter picks from the 127 below, one from each trap plus two more:

1. Where were the 2024 Summer Olympics held? Paris, July 26 to August 11. Third hosting, after 1900 and 1924. (Question 1)
2. When was the Olympic torch relay first held? Berlin 1936, invented as Nazi propaganda by Carl Diem. (Question 97)
3. Who won his fifth straight Greco-Roman gold at Paris 2024? Mijain Lopez of Cuba, one better than Phelps’s four in the 200m individual medley. (Question 17)
4. What is Florence Griffith-Joyner’s 100m world record? 10.49 seconds, set in 1988 and standing for 38 years. (Question 53)
5. What sports debut at LA 2028? Flag football and squash debut; cricket, lacrosse, and baseball-softball return. (Question 111)

The thirteen below keep the answers short. Paris 2024 was the 33rd modern Summer Games, the first with an opening ceremony staged outside a stadium, and the first Olympics held with full 50-50 gender parity in athlete quota places. The motto changed in 2021, and “how many sports?” has three valid answers depending on whether you count sports, disciplines, or medal events.

1. Where were the 2024 Summer Olympics held? (Easy)

Answer: Paris, France. The Games ran July 26 to August 11, 2024.

Paris became the second city to host the Summer Olympics three times (1900, 1924, 2024), tying London. The 1924 Games stuck in memory because Chariots of Fire put them on film. The 1900 Games barely register, buried inside a five-month run alongside the Paris Exposition.

2. How many sports are contested at the modern Summer Olympics? (Hard)

Answer: 32 sports at Paris 2024, with 329 medal events.

The number keeps shifting. Tokyo 2020 had 33. LA 2028 will have 36 sports and 351 medal events. The cleanest count is medal events, not “sports,” since one sport can host several disciplines (cycling covers road, track, BMX, and mountain bike).

3. When was the first modern Summer Olympics held? (Easy)

Answer: 1896 in Athens, Greece. Organized by Pierre de Coubertin’s freshly founded International Olympic Committee.

The Athens 1896 Games had no women, no torch relay, and no Olympic flag. All three came later. The opening was a few speeches, the Olympic Hymn, and a large choir, so if you picture full opening-ceremony pageantry at the first modern Games you are imagining something that did not exist yet.

4. How often are the Summer Olympics held? (Easy)

Answer: Every four years. The four-year cycle is called an Olympiad.

The cycle has only been broken three times, all by world wars. Tokyo 2020 was delayed a year to 2021 but still counted as the Games of the 32nd Olympiad. The IOC keeps the numbering even when the Games themselves cannot run.

5. What is the Olympic motto? (Medium)

Answer: “Citius, Altius, Fortius, Communiter.” Latin for “Faster, Higher, Stronger, Together.”

“Communiter” was added by IOC vote on 20 July 2021. The original three-word motto came from Coubertin in 1894 via his Dominican friend Henri Didon. Many trivia sites still list only the three-word version because the update was recent and quiet.

6. How many Olympic rings are there? (Easy)

Answer: Five. Coloured blue, yellow, black, green, and red on a white background.

The claim that each ring stands for one continent is wrong. Per Coubertin’s own writing, the six colours (rings plus background) reproduce the colours found in every national flag at the time. The rings symbolise the union of the five inhabited parts of the world under Olympism, but no specific colour is tied to a specific continent.

7. Who has won the most Olympic gold medals? (Easy)

Answer: Michael Phelps, with 23. Across four Games (2004, 2008, 2012, 2016).

His 28-medal total is also the all-time record. Larisa Latynina held the all-time medal record for 48 years (1964 to 2012) before Phelps passed her. Katie Ledecky reached 14 medals in Paris, the most by any American woman.

8. What is the oldest Olympic sport? (Hard)

Answer: Running, namely the stadion. A single sprint of about 192 metres, one length of the ancient stadium.

The stadion was the only event at the first ancient Olympics in 776 BCE, and by tradition it stayed the only contest for the first 13 Olympiads. Wrestling, pentathlon, and boxing were added later. Most modern lists call running “the original Olympic event” but skip the detail that it was the only event.

9. What city has hosted the Summer Olympics the most times? (Medium)

Answer: Three cities tied at three: London, Paris, and after 2028, Los Angeles. London (1908, 1948, 2012). Paris (1900, 1924, 2024). LA (1932, 1984, 2028).

LA 2028 is the moment LA catches the others. Athens and Tokyo have each hosted twice. Athens feels like the obvious answer thanks to the ancient roots, yet the modern Games have stopped there only in 1896 and 2004.

10. What does it take to win the modern pentathlon? (Medium)

Answer: Fencing, swimming, equestrian show jumping, pistol shooting, and a cross-country run.

Coubertin invented modern pentathlon for Stockholm 1912 to test the all-around athlete-soldier. The equestrian leg is being replaced by an obstacle course at LA 2028, after the horse-welfare scandal at Tokyo 2020 forced the change.

11. What was the first Summer Olympics to feature women? (Medium)

Answer: Paris 1900. 22 women competed across five sports: tennis, sailing, croquet, equestrian, and golf.

The first individual women’s champion was British tennis player Charlotte Cooper on 11 July 1900. Wrong guesses cluster around 1896 and 1928, both round-number dates that feel like they should mark a debut.

12. Which country has won the most Summer Olympic medals all-time? (Easy)

Answer: The United States. More than 2,700 medals across all Summer Games since 1896.

The Soviet Union is second in the all-time table despite competing only from 1952 to 1988. China has climbed fast since Beijing 2008. Russia’s all-time count has shrunk under reallocations from doping cases.

13. What was the first Olympics to be televised? (Hard)

Answer: Berlin 1936. The broadcasts were closed-circuit, shown in 25 viewing rooms around Berlin and Potsdam to roughly 162,000 people.

Rome 1960 is the usual answer, and it was the first Games broadcast live across borders. Berlin 1936 came first as a controlled local signal, not a true international broadcast.

Paris 2024 Olympic Trivia Questions [14-32]

Paris 2024 produced 19 senior world records across seven sports, staged the first opening ceremony outside a stadium, and was the first Games with full 50-50 gender parity in athlete quota places. The records came in archery, athletics, modern pentathlon, sport climbing, swimming, track cycling, and weightlifting.

Surfing ran in Teahupo’o, Tahiti, roughly 15,700 km from Paris. Breaking made what turned out to be its only scheduled Olympic appearance before LA 2028 cut it. And a 24-year-old Swede raised the pole vault record inside the Stade de France, then kept raising it for the next two years.

14. When did the Paris 2024 Olympics start? (Easy)

Answer: July 26, 2024. The opening ceremony rolled along the Seine over about four hours.

It was the first opening ceremony in modern Games history held outside a stadium. Roughly 6,800 athletes paraded on 85 boats. Heavy rain did not stop it, and there was no stadium backup waiting in the wings.

15. How many world records were broken at Paris 2024? (Hard)

Answer: 19 senior world records across seven sports. Archery, athletics, modern pentathlon, sport climbing, swimming, track cycling, and weightlifting.

Athletics supplied two that keep getting replayed, Duplantis’s 6.25 m and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s 50.37 in the 400m hurdles. Swimming supplied Pan Zhanle’s 46.40 in the men’s 100m freestyle. Some tallies count 17, depending on which marks they treat as senior records.

16. Who won the men’s pole vault at Paris 2024? (Medium)

Answer: Mondo Duplantis of Sweden, with 6.25 m. A world record at the time, his ninth.

Duplantis cleared 6.00 m to secure gold, then set the world record on his third attempt at 6.25 m. He has raised it since, most recently to 6.31 m at the Mondo Classic in Uppsala on 12 March 2026, his 15th world record. He was 24 in Paris and had won every global pole vault title since Tokyo 2020.

17. Which Cuban wrestler won his fifth straight Olympic gold at Paris 2024? (Hard)

Answer: Mijain Lopez Nunez. Greco-Roman 130 kg, the first athlete in any Olympic event to win five straight golds in the same individual event.

Phelps had done four in a row in the 200m individual medley. Lopez did one better across Beijing 2008, London 2012, Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020, and Paris 2024, sixteen years at the top of a sport where one referee call can end a career.

18. How many Olympic medals does Simone Biles now have? (Medium)

Answer: 11 total: 7 gold, 2 silver, 2 bronze.

Biles added four medals at Paris 2024 (team gold, all-around gold, vault gold, floor silver). Her 11 is the most by any American gymnast. Among women gymnasts, only Larisa Latynina (18) has more; Biles ties Vera Caslavska (11) for second. Across all sports the list is longer, since Katie Ledecky and Isabell Werth sit at 14 apiece.

19. What made Simone Biles’s Paris 2024 all-around gold historically unique? (Hard)

Answer: The eight-year gap between her two all-around gold medals.

Larisa Latynina and Vera Caslavska had both won back-to-back all-arounds four years apart. Biles went Rio 2016 to Paris 2024 with a Tokyo 2020 withdrawal in between. She was also the oldest women’s all-around champion in 72 years.

The Paris 2024 milestones in one strip, from the boats on the Seine to the closing ceremony.

20. Which American swimmer won her fourth straight gold in the 800m freestyle at Paris 2024? (Medium)

Answer: Katie Ledecky. London 2012, Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020, Paris 2024.

She is only the second swimmer ever to win the same event at four straight Olympics, after Phelps in the 200m IM. Her Paris haul brought her career medal count to 14, including 9 golds, tying Latynina for the women’s gold-medal record.

21. Which event made its Olympic debut at Paris 2024? (Medium)

Answer: Breaking, also known as breakdancing.

Breaking was a one-Games appearance, since LA 2028 dropped it from the lineup. Australia’s Rachael “Raygun” Gunn became a cultural moment online, finishing last in the women’s draw with a routine that included a kangaroo hop.

22. Where was surfing held during the Paris 2024 Olympics? (Hard)

Answer: Teahupo’o, Tahiti. Roughly 15,700 km from Paris.

The wave at Teahupo’o breaks over a shallow coral reef. The IOC has hosted geographically distant events before (Stockholm ran the equestrian events for the Melbourne 1956 Games), but Tahiti was the longest gap.

23. Which four NOCs won their first-ever Olympic gold medal at Paris 2024? (Hard)

Answer: Botswana, Dominica, Guatemala, and Saint Lucia.

Athletics was the common thread. Saint Lucia’s Julien Alfred won the women’s 100m. Dominica’s Thea LaFond won the triple jump. Letsile Tebogo won the men’s 200m for Botswana. Guatemala’s Adriana Ruano took trap shooting.

24. What was the venue for athletics at Paris 2024? (Medium)

Answer: Stade de France in Saint-Denis.

The stadium, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, seats about 80,000. It had already hosted the 2003 World Athletics Championships, so the purple Paris track was its second global athletics meet.

25. Who lit the Paris 2024 Olympic cauldron? (Medium)

Answer: Marie-José Pérec and Teddy Riner together. Then the cauldron lifted off as a hot-air balloon over the Tuileries.

Pérec is a three-time Olympic sprint champion (1992, 1996). Riner is the most decorated French judoka. Modern cauldrons are usually fixed; Paris built one that rose into the sky each evening.

26. What was the official mascot of Paris 2024? (Medium)

Answer: The Phryges. Stylised red Phrygian caps modelled on a French Revolution symbol.

The mascot has feet, eyes, and a French tricolour. Many viewers initially called them “the red blobs.” They were the first Olympic mascot designed around a piece of clothing.

27. What is the women’s 800m freestyle world record? (Hard)

Answer: 8:04.12 by Katie Ledecky. Set at the TYR Pro Swim Series in Fort Lauderdale in May 2025.

Her Rio 2016 winning time of 8:04.79 had stood as the record for almost nine years. Before Rio, no woman had broken 8:10 in an Olympic final.

28. Which fencer won Ukraine’s first medal and first gold of Paris 2024? (Hard)

Answer: Olga Kharlan. Individual sabre bronze, then women’s team sabre gold.

Kharlan came from 8-3 down to win the bronze bout, Ukraine’s first medal of the Games, and days later anchored the team that beat South Korea for the country’s first gold. A year earlier she had been disqualified at the World Championships for refusing to shake a Russian opponent’s hand.

29. Which flag bearer at the Paris 2024 opening ceremony went on to make Refugee Olympic Team history? (Medium)

Answer: Cindy Ngamba. Born in Cameroon, raised in the UK.

Ngamba carried the flag for the Refugee Olympic Team and then won its first-ever medal: a bronze in women’s middleweight boxing. The team had competed since Rio 2016 without a medal.

30. What was the official slogan of the Paris 2024 Olympics? (Medium)

Answer: “Games Wide Open.” In French: Ouvrons grand les Jeux.

The slogan tied into the open-air ceremony and the IOC’s gender-parity messaging. Past slogans include Beijing 2008’s “One World, One Dream” and London 2012’s “Inspire a Generation.”

31. Who finished atop the medal table at Paris 2024? (Easy)

Answer: The United States, with 126 total medals. Tied with China on gold (40 each) but ahead on total.

China matched the US gold count on the final day. Host nation France finished fifth with 64 medals. Russian athletes who competed did so as Individual Neutral Athletes, with no flag, no anthem, and no medal-table credit.

32. By how much did Noah Lyles win the Paris 2024 men’s 100m? (Easy)

Answer: Five thousandths of a second. 9.784 to Kishane Thompson’s 9.789.

Both were timed at 9.79 on the scoreboard, and the photo finish decided it. Lyles then took bronze in the 200m while running with COVID-19.

Olympic Legend Trivia Questions: Phelps, Bolt, Biles [33-51]

Five names carry most Olympic arguments: Phelps for the medal count, Bolt for the sprint double, Latynina for longevity, Biles for sheer difficulty, and now Duplantis for the pole vault. Phelps and the modern crowd come back fast. Latynina and the older greats do not, because their fame was never re-broadcast to anyone under fifty. The questions below are the ones where you usually have the headline right and the year or the detail one notch off.

33. How many gold medals did Michael Phelps win in his career? (Easy)

Answer: 23. Plus 3 silver and 2 bronze for 28 total.

That is the most Olympic golds and the most Olympic medals ever, in any sport, by any athlete. The prior record holder, Latynina with 18 total, had held it for 48 years.

34. At which Olympics did Phelps win 8 gold medals? (Medium)

Answer: Beijing 2008.

He became the first and only athlete to win 8 golds at a single Olympics. Spitz had set the prior record at 7 in Munich 1972. Phelps swam 17 races in 9 days to do it, with seven world records along the way.

35. How many Olympic Games did Michael Phelps compete in? (Medium)

Answer: Five. Sydney 2000, Athens 2004, Beijing 2008, London 2012, Rio 2016.

The easy miscount is four, because his medals only start at Athens 2004. Sydney 2000 was his debut at age 15, where he finished fifth in the 200m butterfly.

36. What is Usain Bolt’s 100m world record? (Easy)

Answer: 9.58 seconds. Set at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin.

Bolt also holds the Olympic record at 9.63, from London 2012. Both still stand in 2026. The fastest active sprinter is Kishane Thompson, whose 9.75 from 2025 is still 0.17 seconds short.

37. What is Usain Bolt’s 200m world record? (Medium)

Answer: 19.19 seconds. Same meet, same Berlin Olympic Stadium, same week as the 100m record.

19.19 has now stood for 17 years. Bolt is the only sprinter ever to break the 100m and 200m world records at the same championship.

38. How many Olympic golds did Usain Bolt win in the 100m? (Hard)

Answer: Three. Beijing 2008, London 2012, Rio 2016.

The trap here runs the other way: people remember that Bolt lost a gold and assume it came from the 100m. It was the 2008 4x100m relay, stripped after teammate Nesta Carter’s retest. Bolt’s individual sprint golds are intact, and his career total is 8, not the 9 he left Rio with.

39. Which gymnast scored the first perfect 10 in Olympic history? (Medium)

Answer: Nadia Comaneci. Uneven bars, Montreal 1976, age 14.

Omega had built the scoreboards on the assumption that a perfect 10 was impossible. Her score displayed as “1.00”, the only way the system could show 10.0. The crowd was confused for a moment until the announcer confirmed it.

40. How many perfect 10s did Comaneci earn at Montreal 1976? (Hard)

Answer: Seven.

Six more followed the first. She won three individual golds (all-around, balance beam, uneven bars). The perfect-10 ceiling itself survived until 2006, when the open-ended Code of Points replaced it.

41. Who held the all-time Olympic medal record before Phelps? (Hard)

Answer: Larisa Latynina of the Soviet Union. 18 medals (9 gold, 5 silver, 4 bronze) across three Olympics (1956, 1960, 1964).

Her record held from 1964 to 2012, the longest “most medals” run in modern Olympic history. She later coached the Soviet women’s team.

Medal stacks for five legends. Phelps’s 28 is a little over 1.5 times Latynina’s 18.

42. What records does Florence Griffith-Joyner still hold? (Medium)

Answer: The women’s 100m and 200m world records. 10.49 (1988 US trials) and 21.34 (Seoul 1988).

The 100m mark has stood for 38 years. The closest challenge came from Elaine Thompson-Herah at 10.54 in 2021, missing by 0.05 seconds. Some analysts argue the 10.49 was wind-aided beyond legal limits, but it was never reset.

43. What was Jesse Owens’s medal count at Berlin 1936? (Easy)

Answer: Four golds. 100m, 200m, long jump, 4x100m relay.

The Hitler-snubbed-Owens story is mostly myth. The IOC told Hitler to congratulate everyone or no one, and he chose no one after day one. Owens himself later said the snub he felt came from Roosevelt, who never sent congratulations.

44. How many Olympic gold medals did Carl Lewis win in long jump? (Hard)

Answer: Four straight. LA 1984, Seoul 1988, Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996.

Lewis is one of the few athletes to win the same individual event at four straight Olympics. The others include Phelps (200m IM), Al Oerter (discus, 1956 to 1968), and now Mijain Lopez, who went one further.

45. Who won boxing gold at Rome 1960 as “Cassius Clay”? (Hard)

Answer: Muhammad Ali. Light heavyweight division.

He converted to Islam and changed his name in 1964. His Olympic gold medal was famously thrown into the Ohio River, a story Ali told for decades, though biographers later questioned whether he simply lost it. He received a replacement medal at Atlanta 1996 when he lit the cauldron.

46. Who is the only tennis player to win Olympic gold and the four majors in the same season? (Hard)

Answer: Steffi Graf. Seoul 1988.

She won the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, US Open, and the Seoul gold. The “Golden Slam” has never been repeated. Serena Williams and Roger Federer come up in the conversation, and both fall short on the gold-and-slams-same-year combination.

47. What is Roger Federer’s best Olympic singles finish? (Medium)

Answer: Silver. London 2012, losing the final to Andy Murray.

For all his Grand Slam dominance, Federer never won Olympic singles gold. He won doubles gold at Beijing 2008 with Stan Wawrinka.

48. Which American gymnast won the all-around at LA 1984? (Hard)

Answer: Mary Lou Retton.

She was the first American woman to win the Olympic all-around. The Soviet boycott of LA 1984 thinned the field, but her perfect-10 vault on the final rotation still gets replayed every Olympic cycle.

49. How many golds did Mark Spitz win at Munich 1972? (Medium)

Answer: Seven.

Spitz held the single-Games gold record for 36 years until Phelps broke it in Beijing 2008. Spitz set a world record in each of his seven events and retired after Munich at age 22.

50. Which Cuban heavyweight won three straight Olympic boxing golds from 1972 to 1980? (Hard)

Answer: Teófilo Stevenson. Munich 1972, Montreal 1976, Moscow 1980.

Félix Savón later matched the count with three heavyweight golds of his own (1992, 1996, 2000). Both turned down professional contracts, and Stevenson reportedly refused a multi-million-dollar fight against Ali.

51. Who is the most decorated female Olympian of all time? (Medium)

Answer: Larisa Latynina, with 18 medals.

After Paris 2024, Ledecky’s 14th career medal made her the most decorated American woman in Olympic history and tied Latynina at 9 golds. Latynina still holds the women’s total-medal record.

Track and Field Olympic Trivia Questions [52-70]

Track and field is where Olympic record trivia lives. Paris 2024 ran 48 athletics medal events, and the sport’s world records range from marks set last spring to one from 1983 that nobody has approached in four decades. This section walks the records that still stand, the ones that fell at Paris 2024, and the marathon’s odd birth.

The marathon distance is the recurring trap. The now-famous 26 miles 385 yards was not picked for any athletic reason. It was set in 1908 so the London course could finish below the spot where the royal family wanted to sit and watch.

Four marks as they stood when this graphic was drawn. The pole vault and the marathon have moved on since; the women’s 100m has not moved since 1988.

52. Who holds the men’s 100m world record? (Easy)

Answer: Usain Bolt at 9.58 seconds. Set at the 2009 IAAF World Championships in Berlin.

Bolt was already the Olympic champion when he ran 9.58. He hit a top speed of about 12.3 metres per second around the 60 to 80 m mark. Only Tyson Gay and Yohan Blake, both at 9.69, have come within 0.15 seconds since.

53. Who holds the women’s 100m world record? (Medium)

Answer: Florence Griffith-Joyner at 10.49 seconds. US Olympic Trials, July 16, 1988.

The mark has stood for 38 years. The wind gauge for that race read 0.0 m/s while a gauge at the nearby triple jump runway read a strong tailwind at about the same time, and the debate has never fully closed. The IAAF (now World Athletics) never reset it.

54. What is the official marathon distance? (Easy)

Answer: 26 miles 385 yards, or 42.195 km.

The first Olympic marathon at Athens 1896 was about 40 km, running from Marathon to Athens. The 26.2 standard came at London 1908, when the course was laid out so the finish line sat below the royal box at White City Stadium. The IAAF made 42.195 km the standard in 1921.

55. Who holds the men’s marathon world record? (Hard)

Answer: Kelvin Kiptum at 2:00:35. Chicago Marathon, October 8, 2023.

He took the record from Kipchoge’s 2:01:09 (Berlin 2022). Kiptum died in a car accident in February 2024 at age 24, never having raced an Olympic marathon.

56. What is the pole vault world record in 2026? (Medium)

Answer: 6.31 m by Mondo Duplantis. Set at the Mondo Classic in Uppsala on 12 March 2026, his 15th world record.

His Paris 2024 mark of 6.25 m was record number nine. Since 2020 he has raised the bar one centimetre at a time, which is why “what is the pole vault record” is one of the few trivia questions that needs a year attached.

57. What is the men’s long jump world record? (Hard)

Answer: 8.95 metres by Mike Powell. Tokyo World Championships, August 30, 1991.

He beat Bob Beamon’s 1968 Mexico City mark of 8.90 in a head-to-head duel with Carl Lewis. Beamon’s mark had stood for 23 years; Powell’s has now stood for 35.

58. Who holds the triple jump world record? (Hard)

Answer: Jonathan Edwards of Great Britain at 18.29 metres. Gothenburg, August 7, 1995.

Edwards’s mark has now stood for 31 years. He also became the first man over 18 metres with a legal wind, in the same competition, one round earlier.

59. Who holds the men’s high jump world record? (Hard)

Answer: Javier Sotomayor of Cuba at 2.45 metres. Salamanca, July 27, 1993.

Sotomayor won Olympic gold at Barcelona 1992, but the world record came at a meet the following summer. The 2.45 has stood for 33 years, behind only Sedykh’s hammer (1986) and Powell’s long jump (1991) among unbroken men’s marks.

60. What is the women’s marathon world record? (Hard)

Answer: 2:09:56 by Ruth Chepngetich of Kenya. Chicago Marathon, October 13, 2024.

She became the first woman to break 2:10, beating Tigist Assefa’s 2:11:53 by nearly two minutes. Chepngetich was later banned for three years after a positive test in March 2025, but the Athletics Integrity Unit left results before that date standing, so the record remains on the books.

61. Which sprinter holds the men’s 200m world record? (Medium)

Answer: Usain Bolt at 19.19 seconds. 2009 World Championships, Berlin.

Yohan Blake came closest with 19.26 in 2011. Noah Lyles’s 19.31 from 2022 is the best of the current era.

62. What is the women’s 400m world record? (Hard)

Answer: 47.60 seconds by Marita Koch of East Germany. 1985 World Cup in Canberra.

The mark has stood for over 40 years and was set in the middle of the East German doping programme. It has never been annulled. Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone ran 47.78 to win the 2025 world title in Tokyo, 0.18 short.

63. Who holds the men’s 400m hurdles world record? (Medium)

Answer: Karsten Warholm of Norway at 45.94. Tokyo 2020 Olympic final.

Warholm had broken Kevin Young’s 29-year-old 46.78 with 46.70 in Oslo a month earlier, then took another three quarters of a second off it for gold. Rai Benjamin ran 46.17 in the same race, also under the old mark.

64. Who holds the women’s 400m hurdles world record? (Medium)

Answer: Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone at 50.37. Paris 2024 Olympic final.

It was her sixth world record in the event since 2021 and her second straight Olympic gold. She has since moved to the flat 400m, where she won the 2025 world title.

65. Why is the marathon 26.2 miles? (Medium)

Answer: Because of the London 1908 royal box. Organisers laid out a course of 26 miles 385 yards so the finish sat below the royal viewing platform at White City Stadium.

The distance did not become the global standard until 1921. Before that, the early Games ran marathons of anywhere from about 40 to 42.75 km. The 26.2 figure feels like it was always the rule; it was a one-off that stuck.

66. Who threw the men’s shot put world record? (Hard)

Answer: Ryan Crouser at 23.56 metres. LA Grand Prix, May 27, 2023.

Crouser has broken the world record twice, first with 23.37 at the 2021 US trials. His Paris 2024 gold was his third straight Olympic title, the first time any shot putter has done that.

67. What is the women’s pole vault world record? (Hard)

Answer: 5.06 metres by Yelena Isinbayeva. Zurich, August 28, 2009.

Isinbayeva broke the outdoor world record 17 times during her career. The 5.06 has stood for 17 years.

68. Who holds the men’s discus world record? (Hard)

Answer: Mykolas Alekna of Lithuania at 75.56 metres. Ramona, Oklahoma, April 13, 2025.

Alekna first broke Jurgen Schult’s 1986 mark of 74.08 m in April 2024, also in Ramona, then went past 75 metres a year later. He did not reach those distances at Paris 2024, where Roje Stona of Jamaica took gold with 70.00 and Alekna took silver by three centimetres.

69. What is the men’s hammer throw world record? (Hard)

Answer: 86.74 metres by Yuriy Sedykh of the Soviet Union. Stuttgart, August 30, 1986.

Forty years and counting. It is the oldest men’s world record in Olympic athletics, older than Powell’s long jump and Sotomayor’s high jump. Most current throwers do not crack 82 metres.

70. Who won the men’s marathon at Paris 2024? (Medium)

Answer: Tamirat Tola of Ethiopia, in 2:06:26. An Olympic record on a Paris course with several stiff climbs.

Most analysts had expected the hilly profile to slow times. Eliud Kipchoge, the defending champion, dropped out partway through, ending his Olympic marathon streak.

Swimming and Gymnastics Olympic Trivia Questions [71-89]

Swimming (35 events) and gymnastics (18 across artistic, rhythmic, and trampoline) put 53 medal events on the Paris 2024 program, about one in six. Both pack elite athletes into short event windows, which is how a Phelps or a Biles stacks medals fast across one or two Games.

Comaneci’s 1.00 scoreboard and Phelps’s Beijing lane, side by side.

71. How many world records did Michael Phelps set in his career? (Hard)

Answer: 39 world records. 29 individual and 10 relay.

Phelps was setting world records as a 15-year-old in 2001 and broke his last one at the 2009 World Championships in Rome.

72. What is Phelps’s signature event? (Medium)

Answer: The 200m butterfly.

He won gold in it at Athens 2004, Beijing 2008, and Rio 2016, with a silver at London 2012 behind Chad le Clos. His Beijing 2008 final was swum with goggles full of water from about the 75 m mark, and he still set a world record at 1:52.03.

73. How many golds did Léon Marchand win at Paris 2024? (Hard)

Answer: Four individual golds. 400m IM, 200m butterfly, 200m breaststroke, 200m IM, plus a relay bronze.

The 200m butterfly and 200m breaststroke finals were on the same evening, roughly two hours apart. Winning both in Olympic-record times is the part that keeps coming up in pub quizzes.

74. Who holds the men’s 100m freestyle world record? (Hard)

Answer: Pan Zhanle of China at 46.40. Paris 2024 final.

He won by more than a second, a wide margin in a two-lap sprint. It was one of the 19 senior world records set at those Games.

75. Who won the men’s 1500m freestyle at Paris 2024? (Hard)

Answer: Bobby Finke of the United States, in a world record 14:30.67.

He took down Sun Yang’s 14:31.02 from London 2012 to defend his Tokyo title. It was the only individual swimming gold for the American men in Paris.

76. Who is the gymnast with the most named skills? (Hard)

Answer: Simone Biles, with five eponymous skills. Two on vault, two on floor, one on beam.

A skill is named after a gymnast when they perform it first at a qualifying international meet and it enters the Code of Points. Her Yurchenko double pike (Biles II on vault) carries a 6.4 difficulty value, the highest on the women’s vault table.

77. Where did synchronized swimming first appear at the Olympics? (Medium)

Answer: LA 1984.

The sport was renamed artistic swimming in 2017. Tracie Ruiz of the US won the first solo gold. Paris 2024 was the first Games where men were eligible for the team event, though no team actually selected one.

78. How long is the open water swimming marathon at the Olympics? (Medium)

Answer: 10 km.

Open water was added at Beijing 2008. The Paris 2024 race was held in the Seine after extensive water-quality testing, in a river that had been closed to swimmers for about a century.

79. What are the dimensions of an Olympic swimming pool? (Medium)

Answer: 50 metres long, 25 metres wide, at least 2 metres deep. Ten lanes are marked, with eight used for racing.

Depth became a talking point in Paris, where the temporary pool at La Défense Arena was 2.15 m deep. World Aquatics recommends 3 m for the Games, and shallower water was blamed for slower times.

80. Which swimmers have won the same event at four straight Olympics? (Hard)

Answer: Michael Phelps (200m IM, 2004 to 2016) and Katie Ledecky (800m freestyle, 2012 to 2024).

No swimmer has won the same event five times. Ledecky has said she wants to race at LA 2028, which would be the first attempt.

81. Where did the first gymnastics events at the modern Games take place? (Medium)

Answer: Athens 1896.

Men’s apparatus only. Women’s gymnastics did not appear until Amsterdam 1928, and only as a team event. Individual women’s medals were first awarded at Helsinki 1952.

82. Who is the most successful Romanian gymnast in Olympic history? (Medium)

Answer: Nadia Comaneci with 5 Olympic gold medals. Plus 3 silvers and a bronze.

She won three of the golds and all seven of her perfect 10s at 14 in Montreal 1976, then added two more golds at Moscow 1980. She defected to the West in 1989.

83. Who is the most decorated American Olympic swimmer after Phelps? (Medium)

Answer: Katie Ledecky with 14 medals. 9 gold, 4 silver, 1 bronze across four Olympics (2012, 2016, 2020, 2024).

She has won the 800m freestyle four straight times, the second swimmer after Phelps to four-peat a single event.

84. What is the gymnastics Code of Points used for? (Hard)

Answer: To score each routine on difficulty and execution. Routines no longer have a maximum 10.0 cap; the Code was opened in 2006.

A modern routine scores difficulty (the D-score, no upper bound) plus execution (the E-score, capped at 10.0). Biles’s vault scores at Paris 2024 topped 15.

85. Where will Olympic swimming be held at LA 2028? (Medium)

Answer: SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.

A temporary pool goes into the football stadium. Capacity for swimming is planned at around 38,000, roughly double any previous Olympic pool.

86. Who won the women’s floor exercise final at Paris 2024? (Hard)

Answer: Rebeca Andrade of Brazil. Biles took silver.

The bronze changed hands after the fact. Jordan Chiles was awarded it on the night after a score inquiry, then the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled the inquiry had been filed too late, and the medal was reallocated to Romania’s Ana Barbosu.

87. Which gymnast had the highest difficulty vault at the Games? (Medium)

Answer: Simone Biles. The Yurchenko double pike, rated 6.4.

She was the only woman to compete it at Paris 2024. It is attempted rarely because a short landing carries real injury risk.

88. Who won the men’s all-around gymnastics gold at Paris 2024? (Hard)

Answer: Shinnosuke Oka of Japan.

Japan has now won four straight men’s all-around titles: Kohei Uchimura in 2012 and 2016, Daiki Hashimoto in Tokyo, and Oka in Paris. Oka also won team gold and the horizontal bar.

89. What is the youngest age a gymnast can compete at the Olympics? (Medium)

Answer: 16. The athlete must turn 16 during the calendar year of the Games.

Comaneci was 14 at Montreal 1976. The FIG raised the minimum to 15 in 1981 and to 16 in 1997.

Olympic History and Forgotten Sports Trivia Questions [90-108]

The Olympic torch relay dates to Berlin 1936, not ancient Greece. Olympic gold medals have not been solid gold since Stockholm 1912. And the 1900 Paris Games ran live pigeon shooting. The history pages are where the odd Olympic trivia lives.

The torch relay is the question that runs against intuition. Every shot of the flame lit at Olympia, every solemn handoff between runners, pushes the imagination toward antiquity, which is exactly the wrong direction. The real answer is 1936, and the man behind it was a classicist working for the Nazi organising committee.

From 776 BCE to the 2021 motto change, with the 1936 torch invention and three wartime cancellations in the middle.

For the ancient Games in wider context, the history trivia questions guide covers Olympia alongside the rest of antiquity.

90. When did the first ancient Olympic Games take place? (Medium)

Answer: 776 BCE. In Olympia, in the western Peloponnese.

The Games consisted of a single event for the first 13 Olympiads: the stadion, a sprint of about 192 metres. Wrestling, pentathlon, boxing, and horse events were added over the following centuries. The ancient Games ran for nearly 1,200 years before the Roman emperor Theodosius I banned them in 393 CE.

91. What was pankration in the ancient Games? (Hard)

Answer: A combat sport combining boxing and wrestling. Almost anything was allowed except biting and eye-gouging.

Strangling, kicking, and joint manipulation were all legal. Matches could last hours and occasionally ended in death. Pankration is probably the closest ancient equivalent to today’s mixed martial arts.

92. Who was the first female Olympic champion in antiquity? (Hard)

Answer: Kyniska of Sparta. Chariot racing, around 396 BCE.

Ancient rules crowned the owner of the winning horses, not the driver. Married women were barred from even watching the Games. Kyniska found the loophole: she owned the chariot.

93. What was the punishment for a married woman caught watching the ancient Games? (Hard)

Answer: Being thrown from Mount Typaion, near Olympia.

The rule applied to married women only. Unmarried women and priestesses were permitted in some sections. Pausanias, who records the rule, could not name a single case of it being carried out.

94. Who founded the modern Olympic Games? (Easy)

Answer: Pierre de Coubertin. He co-founded the International Olympic Committee in 1894; the first modern Games followed in Athens in 1896.

Coubertin was a French educator and historian. He admired British public-school athletics and believed organised sport could help prevent another major European war. He served as IOC president from 1896 to 1925.

95. When were the Olympic rings designed? (Medium)

Answer: 1913, by Pierre de Coubertin.

They were drawn for the IOC’s 20th anniversary congress in Paris in 1914 and first flew on the Olympic flag at Antwerp 1920. The colours, plus the white background, were chosen so the design contained at least one colour from every national flag of the time.

96. Do the Olympic rings stand for the five continents? (Medium)

Answer: Not as individual colours, no. The five rings stand for the union of five inhabited continents. No specific colour maps to a specific continent.

The “blue for Europe, yellow for Asia, black for Africa, green for Australia, red for America” assignment is repeated in classrooms everywhere. Coubertin explicitly wrote that the colours were chosen for flag compatibility, not continental matching.

97. When was the Olympic torch relay first held? (Hard)

Answer: Berlin 1936. Invented by German classicist Carl Diem as part of Nazi propaganda.

Diem staged a relay of 3,331 runners covering roughly 3,187 km from Olympia to Berlin over 12 days. Leni Riefenstahl’s film Olympia portrayed it as the continuation of an ancient ritual. There was no ancient torch relay; the ancient Games kept a fixed flame at the altar of Hestia.

98. What was the Olympic motto until 2021? (Medium)

Answer: “Citius, Altius, Fortius.” Latin for “Faster, Higher, Stronger.”

The motto was adopted at the IOC’s founding in 1894 at Coubertin’s urging; he borrowed it from his Dominican friend Henri Didon. “Communiter” (Together) was approved on 20 July 2021 as a deliberate response to the COVID-era Games.

99. When were Olympic gold medals last made of solid gold? (Medium)

Answer: Stockholm 1912.

Since then, Olympic gold medals have been at least 92.5 percent silver plated with about 6 grams of pure gold. The Paris 2024 gold medal weighed 529 grams: 505 grams of silver, 6 grams of gold, and an 18-gram hexagon of iron taken from the Eiffel Tower.

I pulled the first-encounter answer split for this question from LearnClash production on 27 July 2026. Asked which metal makes up at least 92.5 percent of an Olympic gold medal, 16 first-time answerers went six for silver, six for copper, and the other four scattered across zinc, iron, tin, and nickel. Sixteen answers is far too few to call a trend, and I would not publish it as one. It is the reason the medal question sits in this list.

100. Which Olympics were cancelled due to World War I? (Medium)

Answer: Berlin 1916.

Germany won the bid in 1912 and the Deutsches Stadion was built. The IOC initially assumed the war would be over by Christmas 1914 and did not cancel right away. By 1915 it was clear the war would not end in time, and the 1916 Games became the first ever cancelled.

101. Which Olympics were cancelled due to World War II? (Medium)

Answer: Two: 1940 and 1944. Tokyo (then Helsinki) 1940; London 1944.

Tokyo 1940 would have been the first non-Western Summer Olympics. Japan withdrew in July 1938, citing the war with China. Helsinki was reassigned the Games, but the Soviet invasion of Finland in late 1939 ended that plan. London 1944 was never staged; London hosted the 1948 “Austerity Games” instead.

102. Which Olympic event used live birds as targets? (Hard)

Answer: Live pigeon shooting. Paris 1900, the only time it was held.

Around 300 birds were killed. Belgian Léon de Lunden won by shooting 21. Clay targets took over from 1908 and have been the standard since. The IOC’s own records are ambiguous about whether the event was even official.

103. Was tug-of-war an Olympic sport? (Hard)

Answer: Yes. From Paris 1900 to Antwerp 1920.

Five Games featured tug-of-war as a medal event. Britain, the US, and Sweden dominated. The sport was dropped in the 1920s during a broader IOC push to trim events, and its federation still lobbies for reinstatement.

104. Which sport at Paris 1900 had only one spectator? (Hard)

Answer: Croquet.

Only French competitors entered. A single English visitor is recorded as having travelled from Nice to watch. Croquet was dropped after 1900, and the official report later noted that the sport “had hardly any pretensions to athleticism.”

105. Was the marathon part of the ancient Games? (Medium)

Answer: No. The marathon is a modern invention from 1896.

The race was created for Athens 1896 to commemorate the legendary run of Pheidippides from Marathon to Athens in 490 BCE. The legend’s historical accuracy is disputed. The modern distance was not fixed until 1921.

106. Why was the 1980 Moscow Olympics boycotted? (Medium)

Answer: A US-led protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. More than 60 invited countries did not attend.

The 1984 LA Games were then counter-boycotted by the Soviet Union and most of its allies. Both boycotts thinned medal fields, which is why results from those two Games carry an asterisk in a lot of sports histories.

107. Which Summer Olympics was held in a year not divisible by four? (Easy)

Answer: Tokyo 2021. Officially still called “Tokyo 2020.”

Tokyo 2020 was delayed a year by COVID-19. The IOC kept the original branding on medals, signage, and the official record to preserve sponsor contracts and the four-year accounting. Winter Games have run in off-years since 1994, so the question only works for the Summer edition.

108. What does the Olympic motto’s “Communiter” mean? (Hard)

Answer: “Together” (Latin). Added to the motto in 2021.

The full motto is now “Citius, Altius, Fortius, Communiter.” The IOC announced the change as part of the post-COVID rebrand, and many reference sites still list only the three-word version.

LA 2028 Olympics Trivia Questions [109-127]

LA 2028 will be the first Summer Olympics in decades to build no new permanent venues. The Games run July 14 to 30, 2028, with 36 sports and 351 medal events, both records. Five sports debut or return, including flag football’s Olympic debut and cricket’s first appearance since 1900.

The dates are the detail people get wrong. The natural guess is late July into mid-August, copying Paris 2024, but LA’s calendar lands two full weeks earlier than recent Summer Games. The other one is the venue plan: athletics in the Coliseum during week one and swimming in SoFi Stadium during week two, a swap of the traditional order.

109. When are the LA 2028 Olympics scheduled? (Easy)

Answer: July 14 to 30, 2028.

The Paralympics follow August 15 to 27, 2028. LA 2028’s calendar starts two weeks earlier than Paris 2024 (July 26 to August 11), so it overlaps more of the US school summer break.

110. How many sports will be contested at LA 2028? (Easy)

Answer: 36 sports. With 351 medal events and an athlete quota of 11,198.

That is up from Paris 2024’s 32 sports and 329 events. The IOC approved the programme in April 2025, and it is the largest in Olympic history on all three counts.

111. Which sports return to the Olympics at LA 2028? (Easy)

Answer: Five sports return or debut. Cricket, lacrosse, baseball-softball, squash, and flag football.

Cricket last appeared at Paris 1900. Lacrosse last awarded medals at London 1908. Baseball-softball returned at Tokyo 2020 and was dropped for Paris 2024. Squash and flag football are Olympic debuts.

112. What is the largest swimming venue ever to host the Olympics? (Medium)

Answer: SoFi Stadium at LA 2028. A temporary pool will be installed for the Games.

SoFi is planned to hold around 38,000 for swimming, roughly double the largest previous Olympic pool. The pool comes out after the Games and the stadium returns to NFL and concert use.

The LA 2028 venue spread, from Inglewood to Oklahoma City.

113. Which two stadiums will have hosted three Olympic Games each after 2028? (Hard)

Answer: LA Memorial Coliseum and the Rose Bowl.

The Coliseum hosted athletics in 1932 and 1984 and will host athletics again in 2028, which LA28 bills as the first stadium to stage events at three Games. The Rose Bowl hosted events in 1932 and the football final in 1984, and it hosts the 2028 football finals too.

114. Where will Olympic surfing be held at LA 2028? (Medium)

Answer: Lower Trestles, San Onofre State Beach. In California, just south of San Clemente.

Far closer to the host city than Paris’s Tahiti detour. Lower Trestles is a reliably consistent wave and has hosted the World Surf League Finals.

115. Where will softball be played at LA 2028? (Hard)

Answer: Devon Park in Oklahoma City.

Softball and canoe slalom were both moved out of Los Angeles to Oklahoma City to avoid building new venues. Devon Park is the home of the Women’s College World Series.

116. Which cities will host football (soccer) at LA 2028? (Hard)

Answer: Six cities outside Los Angeles plus the Rose Bowl. New York, Columbus, Nashville, St. Louis, San Jose, and San Diego for the group stages and knockout rounds, with the finals in Pasadena.

LA28 announced the seven venues on 3 February 2026. Six are MLS club stadiums, one of them New York City FC’s new ground in Queens, which does not open until 2027; the seventh is the Rose Bowl. The women’s tournament grows to 16 teams, more than the men’s 12, a first for the Olympics.

117. Where will the LA 2028 football gold-medal matches be played? (Hard)

Answer: The Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Men’s final on July 28, women’s final on July 29, 2028.

Group matches begin on July 10, four days before the opening ceremony, which is normal for Olympic football. The Rose Bowl also staged the 1984 Olympic final and the 1994 World Cup final.

118. What new sport debuts at LA 2028 that has never been an Olympic sport before? (Easy)

Answer: Flag football.

The format is 5-on-5 with six men’s and six women’s teams of ten players. NFL owners voted unanimously in May 2025 to let their players take part, with a limit of one player per club.

119. What new rowing discipline debuts at LA 2028? (Medium)

Answer: Coastal rowing beach sprints.

The IOC confirmed the discipline in April 2025. Races run from the sand into open water at the Long Beach waterfront, in wider, heavier boats than the classic shells used on flat courses.

120. Which sport is being dropped from LA 2028 after only one appearance? (Medium)

Answer: Breaking. It made its Olympic debut at Paris 2024.

LA 2028’s organisers left breaking out of their sport proposal. Its federation had hoped for a Paris-and-LA window similar to the one skateboarding got.

121. How many athletes are set to compete at LA 2028? (Medium)

Answer: About 11,200. The IOC set the quota at 11,198, including 698 places for the five added sports.

Around 200 National Olympic Committees are expected. Russia’s status is unresolved as of August 2026.

122. Where is the LA 2028 athletes’ village located? (Medium)

Answer: UCLA campus in Westwood.

Student housing becomes athlete accommodation while the campus is on summer break. It is the same approach that lets LA 2028 avoid building a single new permanent housing block.

123. What is the LA 2028 Olympic mascot? (Easy)

Answer: Not yet announced as of August 2026.

Past LA Games set the precedent both ways: 1932 had no mascot, and 1984 had Sam the Olympic Eagle. Recent hosts have unveiled their mascots roughly two years out.

124. Where will Olympic basketball be played at LA 2028? (Easy)

Answer: The Intuit Dome in Inglewood. All of it, from group stage to the gold-medal games.

The Intuit Dome opened in 2024 as the home of the LA Clippers. Crypto.com Arena downtown, the Lakers’ home, hosts artistic gymnastics, trampoline, and the boxing finals instead.

125. Where will Olympic athletics take place at LA 2028? (Easy)

Answer: LA Memorial Coliseum.

The same venue that hosted athletics in 1932 and 1984. A temporary track goes in over the football field, and the stadium seats about 77,500.

126. What is unusual about the LA 2028 competition schedule? (Medium)

Answer: Athletics runs in week one and swimming in week two. The reverse of the traditional order.

The swap gives organisers time to convert SoFi Stadium from the opening ceremony into a swimming arena. It is the first time since Mexico City 1968 that swimming has been placed in the second week.

127. How many medal events will LA 2028 contest? (Easy)

Answer: 351.

The prior record was Tokyo 2020’s 339; Paris 2024 had 329. The increase comes from the five added sports and new events inside existing ones, including 50 m stroke races in swimming.

Where the answer notes come from

The “where it goes wrong” notes on this page are a mix of two things: standard reference-checking against World Athletics, World Aquatics, and Olympics.com, and a small amount of production data from LearnClash. The data is thin at the question level and I have tried not to oversell it. In the 27 July 2026 LearnClash export, one Olympic question, “which athlete has won the most Olympic medals of all time”, had 25 first-encounter answers: 64 percent correct, and the wrong guess that came up most, one in five, was Usain Bolt. The Moscow 1980 boycott question was 18 percent correct on 11 answers. That hints that people misremember the reason, but eleven answers is far too few to call a signal, let alone headline.

For anyone who wants the scored version: a LearnClash duel deals 18 questions in rounds of three, gives you 45 seconds per question, and leaves each turn open long enough (72 hours) that opponents never need to be online at the same time. Matchmaking runs on Glicko-2, which the app labels ELO because that is the word quiz players use.

The Olympic Games topic mixes the material above with a few Winter Olympics questions that did not fit here. For the wider library, start at the trivia questions pillar.