Look at these paragraph titles.  Then read about the history of the modern Olympics.  Match the headings with the paragraphs.

1  The Olympic Games were revived in 1896 by Pierre de Coubertin, a young French nobleman, with thirteen countries competing.  De Coubertin had originally wanted them held in Paris, but the organising committee persuaded him that Athens was more appropriate, as the site of the ancient Olympics.  There were competitions in nine sports:  cycling, fencing, gymnastics, lawn tennis, shooting, swimming, track and field athletics, weightlifting and wrestling. Greece won most medals - winners were presented with silver and runners-up got bronze. The Games were a great success, and it was decided to hold them every four years, each year in a different city.

2  By 1908 the Olympic Games were becoming more popular, with over 2000 competitors from 23 different nations making the trip to London.  For the first time, medals were awarded to the top three places.  Since then the Games have been held every four years, with the exceptions of 1916, 1940 and 1944, when the First and Second World Wars forced their cancellation.  The Winter Olympics were first held in 1924, at Chamonix, France, and take place in the same year as the Summer Olympics, but at a separate site.

3  The Olympic flag, consisting of five different coloured rings representing the five regions of the world, was first unveiled in Antwerp in 1920, when the Olympic oath was also introduced. In 1928 in Amsterdam the Olympic flame first burned throughout the competition, having been kindled at the site of the ancient Olympics using the sun's rays and a mirror.

4  Since the first modern Games in Athens, many more sports have been added.  The decathlon, consisting of ten disciplines over two days, was introduced in 1912, and ice-hockey appeared in 1920, four years before the Winter Games began.  In more recent times, judo made its first appearance in 1964, and women's shooting events began in 1984.  Beach volleyball was incorporated into the 1996 Olympics.  In fact the range of present and former Olympic sports is vast.  Even the tug-of-war was once an Olympic event, and in 1900 both croquet and cricket made their only appearances.

5 Many Games are remembered for the great athletes who took part in them.  The 1972 Games will always be associated with the swimmer Mark Spitz, who won seven gold medals.  The 1936 Games in Berlin, intended by Germany to be a showcase for Aryan supremacy, are best remembered for the four gold medals won by the black athlete Jesse Owens, in one of the best track and field performances ever.  In 1976 Romania's Nadia Comaneci, at the age of 14, accumulated seven perfect scores during the gymnastics competition.  When 18-year-old Cassius Clay (later Mohammed Ali) won the boxing light-heavyweight in Rome, he was so proud he didn't take his medal off for two days.

6  However, we don't only remember the winners. Taking part is the most important thing, and many competitors go to the Olympics knowing that they do not stand a chance of winning a medal. 'Eddie the Eagle', a  construction worker from Gloucestershire, England, was the first (and only) British Olympic ski jumper and became fleetingly famous for finishing last - he still holds the British ski-jumping record.  In the Sydney Olympics in 2000, 'Eric the Eel' , Eric Moussambani from Equatorial Guinea, became similarly famous for his participation in the 100m freestyle swimming competition, in which he swam the furthest he had ever swum in his life. In one of the slowest times ever, Eric's swim was 30 seconds slower than Arnold Guttmann of Hungary, who won the first 100 metres in the sea near Piraeus, Greece, in 1896.

Now read the text again and decide if these statements are true or false.