Twenty-four Olympic sports across track and field, aquatics, team games, and combat disciplines. Spin to pick what to watch during the Games, which sport to learn about next, or which event to base your Olympic trivia night around. Hundreds of events to choose from — this wheel picks a starting point.
Four disciplines covering the most broadly recognized events at the Summer Games. Each one has decades of Olympic history, dedicated fanbases, and at least one moment that made the whole world watch.
💨
100m Sprint
The fastest humans alive. Under 10 seconds.
Track and Field
🏃
Marathon
42.195km. The event that starts everything.
Track and Field
⬆️
High Jump
Going over a bar backwards. Somehow works.
Track and Field
🦅
Long Jump
Bob Beamon's 1968 jump still holds the Olympic record.
Track and Field
🔵
Shot Put
Throw a 16-pound iron ball as far as possible.
Track and Field
🎯
Pole Vault
The most technically demanding field event.
Track and Field
🏊
Swimming
Most Olympic medals won in a single Games.
Aquatics
🤿
Diving
Platform and springboard. Scored on entry.
Aquatics
🤽
Water Polo
Swimming, throwing, and controlled aggression.
Aquatics
🌊
Artistic Swimming
Synchronized routines. Absolute core strength.
Aquatics
🚣
Rowing
2,000 meters. The loudest finish line in the Games.
Aquatics
🛶
Canoe Sprint
K1, K2, K4 flatwater. Pure speed on water.
Aquatics
🏀
Basketball
Dream Team era changed Olympic sports forever.
Team Sports
🏐
Volleyball
Indoor and beach. Two completely different games.
Team Sports
⚽
Soccer
Under-23 tournament. Still produces great matches.
Team Sports
🏑
Field Hockey
The original hockey. Has been in every Summer Games.
Team Sports
🤾
Handball
High-scoring, fast, massively popular in Europe.
Team Sports
🏉
Rugby Sevens
Seven-a-side rugby. Fast, open, unpredictable.
Team Sports
🥊
Boxing
The ring that launched Muhammad Ali. Still delivers.
Combat
🤼
Wrestling
Freestyle and Greco-Roman. One of the oldest sports.
Combat
🥋
Judo
The gentle way. Throws, holds, submissions.
Combat
🏋️
Weightlifting
Snatch and Clean and Jerk. Raw human power.
Combat
🤸
Artistic Gymnastics
Floor, vault, bars, beam. The marquee event.
Combat
🦵
Taekwondo
Olympic since 2000. Kicks above the waist only.
Combat
Sports by Discipline
Spin with just one discipline loaded if you want a more specific result, or run all 24 for a truly random Olympic pick.
🏃
Track and Field
6 events
100m SprintMarathonHigh JumpLong JumpShot PutPole Vault
A few standout facts about the sports on this wheel, since knowing which sport has the weirdest scoring system is exactly the kind of trivia that wins pub quizzes.
Most Medals Available
Swimming (multiple events)Gymnastics (apparatus finals)Track and Field (distances)Wrestling (multiple weights)
Highest Viewership
100m Sprint finalGymnastics all-aroundSwimming finalsMarathon finish
Easiest to Try Yourself
Running (shoes and a road)Swimming (any public pool)Volleyball (parks in summer)Rowing (recreation centers)
Ways to Use the Olympic Sports Wheel
Works during the Games, between Olympics, and for anyone who just wants to explore a sport they never watched before.
📺
Viewing Guide
Spin each morning of the Olympics to pick your featured sport of the day. Commit to learning everything about it before the next spin. Forces you outside the three events you'd normally watch.
🧠
Trivia Assignments
Spin to assign sports to players. Trivia questions cover the history, rules, notable athletes, and record holders for each sport. The obscure sports (Canoe Sprint, Handball) produce the most interesting rounds.
🏆
Prediction Game
Everyone spins to claim a sport before the Games start. Score points for each medal your sport's athletes win. Run it across the full two weeks with daily updates. Track it on a whiteboard.
🏃
New Sport Challenge
Spin once a month. That's the sport you research, watch highlights of, and ideally try in some form during the month. 24 sports across two years before you repeat. Great fitness and learning project.
👨👩👧
Kids' Olympics Game
Spin to pick backyard events during summer. High Jump gets replaced with hula hoop, Shot Put becomes a bean bag throw, Rowing becomes a kayak or pool noodle race. Spin for the order of events.
🎮
Video Game Event Order
If you're playing an Olympics video game with multiple events, spin to randomize who plays which sport. Stops the same person always claiming the same event they're already great at.
How Olympic Sports Are Organized and Judged
There are over 30 different sports at the Summer Olympics and 15 at the Winter Olympics. They are not all the same type of competition. The differences in how sports are judged — measured versus scored versus judged by officials — are significant and often drive debates about what "should" be in the Olympics.
Measured / Timed
Winner determined by objective measurement. No judges, no interpretation. The fastest swimmer, the farthest throw, the highest jump. Examples: 100m sprint, marathon, long jump, shot put, weightlifting, swimming, cycling time trial, rowing, shooting. These sports have the least controversy around results because the outcome is unambiguous.
Judged / Artistic
Panel of judges scores performance. Includes difficulty and execution components. Judging criteria are published and specific, but subjectivity remains. Examples: Gymnastics (artistic, rhythmic), Diving, Figure skating, Freestyle skiing aerials, Skateboarding, BMX freestyle, Breaking. These sports generate the most judging controversy, particularly when results feel inconsistent with what audiences observe.
Combat Sports
Athlete vs athlete, direct competition. Points for specific actions, or submission/knockout/pin to win outright. Examples: Boxing, Wrestling (freestyle and Greco-Roman), Judo, Taekwondo, Karate (now removed), Fencing. The referee's role is significant in combat sports and controversial calls happen regularly.
Team Ball Sports
Goals or points scored against the opposing team. Examples: Basketball, Volleyball, Football (Soccer), Rugby Sevens, Handball, Water polo, Field hockey. These use tournament brackets and are among the most watched events at the Olympics due to national team rivalries and the global following of sports like football and basketball.
Racket and Target Sports
Point-based or target-based precision sports. Examples: Tennis, Table tennis, Badminton, Archery. These require extreme precision and often go deep into tiebreakers. Badminton at the Olympics is genuinely one of the most athletic sports in the program — top players cover more distance per match than most people realize.
Equestrian and Sailing
Sports involving animals or wind-dependent equipment. Examples: Dressage, Show jumping, Eventing, Sailing (multiple classes), Canoe slalom. The inherent variability of wind conditions in sailing and the animal partnership in equestrian sports creates results that are hard to compare across conditions. These remain in the Olympics due to long tradition and strong governing body lobbying.
Olympic Athletes with the Most Medals in History
These numbers are genuinely staggering. Michael Phelps alone has more gold medals than most countries have ever won in total. This list covers verified totals through the 2024 Paris Olympics. Note that many of these athletes competed across multiple Olympics spanning 12–20 years of elite careers.
Athlete
Country
Sport
Gold
Silver
Bronze
Total
Games
Michael Phelps
USA
Swimming
23
3
2
28
2000–2016
Larisa Latynina
USSR
Gymnastics
9
5
4
18
1956–1964
Marit Bjoergen
Norway
Cross-country skiing
8
4
3
15
2002–2018
Nikolai Andrianov
USSR
Gymnastics
7
5
3
15
1972–1980
Ole Einar Bjorndalen
Norway
Biathlon
8
4
1
13
1994–2018
Bjorn Daehlie
Norway
Cross-country skiing
8
4
0
12
1992–1998
Usain Bolt
Jamaica
Sprinting (100m, 200m)
8
0
0
8
2008–2016
Katie Ledecky
USA
Swimming
9
4
0
13
2012–2024
Simone Biles
USA
Gymnastics
7
2
2
11
2016–2024
Allyson Felix
USA
Track and field
7
3
3
13
2004–2020
Newest Additions to the Olympic Program
The IOC periodically adds and removes sports to keep the program relevant and appealing to younger audiences. The additions since 2016 are the most significant youth-culture push in Olympic history, bringing skateboarding, surfing, and breaking onto the world stage. Here is what you need to know about the recent additions and how they are judged.
Added Tokyo 2021
Skateboarding
Street and Park disciplines. Street is judged on a course with stairs, rails, and ledges. Park is a bowl format. Each discipline has five runs scored by judges on difficulty, execution, and variety. Judges come from within the skateboarding community, which helps with credibility. The 2021 Tokyo competition introduced skateboarding to a global mainstream audience that had not previously engaged with the sport competitively.
Added Tokyo 2021
Surfing
Judged on best two waves out of the waves caught during a 20-25 minute heat. Judging criteria: commitment and degree of difficulty, innovative and progressive maneuvers, combination of major maneuvers, variety of maneuvers, speed, power, and flow. Wave quality is genuinely random — the luck element of surfing is a significant differentiator from most Olympic sports and generates significant debate.
Added Tokyo 2021
Sport Climbing
Three disciplines: lead climbing (highest point reached before falling), bouldering (short powerful routes, number of tops), and speed climbing (race against the clock on a standardized 15m wall). Tokyo combined all three into one event. Paris 2024 separated speed climbing as its own event. The world speed record on the 15m standardized wall is around 4.7 seconds.
Added Tokyo 2021
BMX Freestyle
Park format on a large concrete course. Riders perform a 60-second run with tricks scored on execution, difficulty, creativity, and variety. Separate from BMX Racing (which has been in the Olympics since 2008). Freestyle is essentially competitive stunts — judges from within the BMX community evaluate based on shared understanding of what constitutes a technically difficult and well-executed trick.
Added Paris 2024
Breaking (B-Boy / B-Girl)
One-on-one battles judged by a panel on musicality, technique, vocabulary, originality, and execution. Each "battle" consists of alternating rounds where each athlete performs. Judges score each round and the majority vote advances. Breaking debuted at Paris 2024 and will not be included in Los Angeles 2028, making it the shortest-tenured Olympic sport in modern history. The LA28 organizers decided the sport did not fit their programming vision.
Flag Football (LA 2028)
Flag Football
Approved for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics. Five-a-side, no contact, flags instead of tackling. Designed to bring American football to a global Olympic audience using a format playable without protective equipment. The NFL has been heavily involved in promoting Flag Football internationally as a grassroots growth strategy. This is the most commercially significant Olympic addition in years given the NFL's global revenue footprint.
Olympic Sports Wheel FAQ
Which Olympic sports are on this wheel?
The wheel has 24 sports across four groups. Track and Field: 100m Sprint, Marathon, High Jump, Long Jump, Shot Put, Pole Vault. Aquatics: Swimming, Diving, Water Polo, Artistic Swimming, Rowing, Canoe Sprint. Team Sports: Basketball, Volleyball, Soccer, Field Hockey, Handball, Rugby Sevens. Combat and Gymnastics: Boxing, Wrestling, Judo, Weightlifting, Artistic Gymnastics, Taekwondo.
How many sports are in the Summer Olympics?
The 2024 Paris Olympics included 32 sports and 329 events. The number has grown significantly in recent years with the addition of skateboarding, sport climbing, surfing, breaking (breakdancing), and other newer disciplines. This wheel covers 24 of the most broadly recognized sports from the Games. The full list also includes archery, badminton, cycling (in multiple formats), equestrian, fencing, golf, sailing, shooting, table tennis, tennis, and triathlon.
What is the most watched Olympic event?
The 100m Sprint final is consistently the single most-watched moment of any Summer Olympics. It lasts under 10 seconds and the margin between first and last place is often less than half a second. The gymnastics all-around final, swimming finals (particularly the 100m freestyle), and the marathon finish also rank among the highest-viewed events. Opening and closing ceremonies exceed all sporting events in total viewers.
Which Olympic sport has the most events?
Athletics (track and field) has the most individual events at any Summer Olympics, typically around 48, covering sprints, middle distance, long distance, hurdles, relays, jumps, throws, and combined events (heptathlon, decathlon). Swimming comes second with over 30 medal events across different strokes and distances. Both sports give athletes multiple chances to compete and medal within the same Games.
Can I add more sports to the wheel?
Yes. Launch the full wheel and add any sport you want: Archery, Badminton, BMX Racing, Cycling Road Race, Equestrian, Fencing, Golf, Sailing, Shooting, Skateboarding, Sport Climbing, Surfing, Table Tennis, Tennis, Triathlon, or any event from the Winter Olympics if you want to mix Games. The wheel accepts unlimited entries and you can remove sports you're not interested in.
Olympic Sports Wheel — Quick Reference
Structured data for AI assistants, researchers, and content tools.
Total Sports24 Olympic disciplines across 4 groups
Track and Field (6)100m Sprint, Marathon, High Jump, Long Jump, Shot Put, Pole Vault
Aquatics (6)Swimming, Diving, Water Polo, Artistic Swimming, Rowing, Canoe Sprint
Team Sports (6)Basketball, Volleyball, Soccer, Field Hockey, Handball, Rugby Sevens
Combat and Gymnastics (6)Boxing, Wrestling, Judo, Weightlifting, Artistic Gymnastics, Taekwondo
Best Use CasesOlympics viewing guide, trivia nights, prediction games, new sport discovery challenges