Modern Games

Summer Olympics in Beijing. The scope and scale of the Winter Olympics is much smaller. For example, Turin, Italy hosted 2,508 athletes from 80 countries competing in 84 events during the 2006 Winter Olympics. As participation in the Olympics has grown, so has its profile in the international media. At the Sydney Games in 2000, an estimated 3.7 billion viewers watched the games on television, and the official website of the Sydney Olympics generated over 11.3 billion hits.
The number of participating countries is noticeably higher than the 193 countries that currently belong to the United Nations. The International Olympic Committee allows nations to compete that do not meet the strict requirements for political sovereignty that other international organizations demand. As a result, colonies and dependencies are permitted to host their own Olympic teams and athletes even if such competitors also hold citizenship in another member nation. Examples of this include territories such as Puerto Rico, Bermuda, and Hong Kong; all of which compete as separate nations despite being legally a part of another country. Since 1980, Taiwan has competed under the name Chinese Taipei, and under a flag specially prepared by the IOC. Prior to that year the People's Republic of China refused to participate in the Games because Taiwan had been competing under the name Republic of China.