Egyption Olympics Committee
The Olympic Games have become one of the biggest sporting events of our time. Athletes from the entire world take part. Their achievements are watched from both near and far by hundreds of millions of spectators.
What makes the Olympic Games different from any other sports events is the fact that they are held every four years. They are the largest sporting celebration in terms of the number of sports on the programme, the number of athletes present and the number of people from different nations gathered together at the same time in the same place.
The Olympic Games include the Games of the Olympiad (i.e. the Summer Games) and the Olympic Winter Games.
The word Olympiad designates the four-year period that separates each edition of the Summer Games. The Summer and Winter Games originally took place in the same year, but since 1992, the Winter Games have been held two years from the Summer Games. The Summer Games and the Winter Games continue to be organized once every four years.
In the Summer Games, athletes compete in a wide variety of competitions in a total of 28 sports. The Winter Games, on the other hand, feature seven sports practiced on snow and ice, both indoors and outdoors.
It was Pierre de Coubertin of France who dreamt up this ambitious project, although others before him had tried to revive these Games during the 19th century, without having Coubertin’s success. Drawing inspiration from the ancient Olympic Games, he decided to create the modern Olympic Games. With this purpose, he founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1894 in Paris. The new committee set itself the objective of organising the first Olympic Games of modern times. The date of the first Games, 1896, marked the beginning of an extraordinary adventure that has now lasted for over a century!
(Resource: The Modern Olympic Games, publication of the Olympic Museum, 2nd edition 2007)
For more information about the Olympic Games, visit the official IOC Website.
Medals by Summer Games
Medals by Winter Games
List of medalists
Birth Date: 31 August 1905 in Tanta
Died: 11 October 1968
Achievements: Nosseir was a weightlifter who won the Gold medal in the heavyweight class at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. 22 years old Nosseir lifted 355 kg to book a new world record winning Egypt's first Olympic gold medal ever. He set 12 world records in the light-heavyweight and unlimited classes – four each in the snatch, clean and jerk, and total.
Birth Date: 1904
Died: 1968
Achievements: Ibrahim Moustafa was an Egyptian wrestler, Greco-Roman style. He competed in the light heavyweight class at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam and won a gold medal.
Birth Date: 1907 in Alexandria, Egypt
Died: 1944
Achievements: Simaika was an Olympic diver who won a silver medal for platform diving and a bronze medal for springboard diving in the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam; Simaika became a U.S pilot during WWII, and he was shot down over New Guinea and killed by head-hunters; he was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Birth Date: 17 May 1914
Achievements: Anwar Mesbah and Khadr El Touni were the most famous weightlifters of the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics. Mesbah won the gold medal for Egypt by lifting a record of 342.5 kg.
Birth Date: 1904
Died: 1968
Achievements: Ibrahim Moustafa was an Egyptian wrestler, Greco-Roman style. He competed in the light heavyweight class at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam and won a gold medal.
Birth Date: 15 March 1915
Died: 25 September 1956
Achievements: El Touni was ranked first on the list of history's 50 greatest weightlifters issued by the International Weightlifting Federation until the 1996 Games in Atlanta when Turkey's Naim Suleymanoglu surpassed El Touni to top the list. El Touni started practicing weightlifting at Shobra School then he continued to weight lift at various sporting clubs in the Cairo Area. During the 1936 Olympics El Touni set a world record crushing two German world champions at the time on their soil something which forced the International Weightlifting Federation to acknowledge something they once claimed to be an impossible feat. After winning the middleweight class gold medal, El Touni continued to compete for another 45 minutes, finally exceeding the total of the German silver medalist by 35 kg. The 20 years old lifted 15 kg more than the heavyweight gold medalist, a feat only El Touni has accomplished. El Touni world record stood for 13 years.
Adolf Hitler, who was watching from the stands, was fascinated by El Touni to the extent that he ordered a street to be named after him in the Olympic Village of Berlin. In Egypt, streets in Alexandria and Nasr City are also named after El Touni.
Birth Date: 24 June 1916
Achievements: Saleh Soliman was an Egyptian weightlifter who competed in the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics and won the silver medal in the featherweight class.
Birth Date: 1914 in Alexandria.
Died: 1984
Achievements: Shams was an Egyptian Weightlifter who competed in the 1936 Berlin and 1948 London Summer Olympics. In 1936 he won the bronze medal in the featherweight class (300.0 kg), and in 1948 he won the gold medal by lifting a total of weights of 360 kg in the lightweight. He is the second Egyptian to score two medals after Farid Simaika in diving back in 1928 Amsterdam but he is the first to score them on two different Olympic Games. He finished first in the 1949 World Championship lightweight class (352.5 kg) and the 1951 World Championship lightweight class (342.5 kg). He set six lightweight world records from 1936-1939 one in the snatch and five in the clean and jerk.
Achievements: Wasif was a light-heavyweight weightlifter (75-82.5 kg) in the Egyptian weightlifting team at the Summer Olympics in Berlin. He scored a bronze medal for Egypt after lifting a record of 360 kg.
Birth Date: 1925 in Alexandria.
Achievements: Fayed was a featherweight weightlifter (-60 kg) in the weightlifting Egyptian team at the summer Olympics of 1948 in London. He scored a gold medal for Egypt after lifting a record of 332.5 kg.
Achievements: Hamouda was a lightweight weightlifter (60-67.5 kg) in the weightlifting Egyptian team at the Summer Olympics of 1948 in London. He scored a silver medal for Egypt after lifting a record of 360 kg. He lost behind his team mate Ibrahim Shams who lifted the same weight but was lighter.
Achievements: Wasif was a light-heavyweight weightlifter (75-82.5 kg) in the Egyptian weightlifting team at the Summer Olympics in Berlin. He scored a bronze medal for Egypt after lifting a record of 360 kg.
Birth Date: 1904
Achievements: Mahmoud Ali Hassan who is more commonly Known as Ali Hassan was a Greco-Roman Bantamweight in the Egyptian wrestling team at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. He gained a silver medal for Egypt behind Kurt Pettersen of Sweden and behind Hailil Kaya of Turkey. Ali Hassan and Ibrahim Orabi were the first wrestlers from Egypt to gain an Olympic medal in wrestling getting silver and bronze medals respectively.
Achievements: Orabi was a Greco-Roman light heavyweight in the Egyptian wrestling team at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. He gained a bronze medal for Egypt behind Karl-Erik Nilsson of Sweden with a first place and Kelpo Grondahl of Finland in the second place.
Birth Date: 27 December 1927
Achievements: Rashid was a featherweight weightlifter (57-61 kg) in the wrestling Egyptian team which participated at the Summer Olympics of 1952 in Helsinki. He gained a bronze medal and the only medal for Egypt in that year.
Achievements: Osman Sayed was a Greco-Roman flyweight in the Egyptian wrestling team at the Summer Olympics of 1960 in Rome. He obtained a silver medal for Egypt.
Achievements: El Guindi was a boxer, flyweight category, playing for Egypt at the Summer Olympics of 1960 in Rome. He obtained a bronze medal for Egypt.
Birth Date: 16 January 1956
Achievements: Rashwan is a retired Egyptian judoka. At the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles he won the silver medal in the men's open class category. He won the fair-play international award in 1984 when he lost the finals to Japan's Yasuhiro Yamashita, who tore a right calf muscle in the preliminaries. He is the silver medalist at the 1985 World Judo Championship in the open weight. He is the silver medalist at the 1987 World Judo Championship in heavy weight. He also won the gold medal in the heavyweight and open class category in the African Championship in 1982 and 1983. Rashwan retired in 1992.
Birth Date: 1 September 1979 in Alexandria
Achievements: Gaber is an Egyptian Greco-Roman wrestler. He won the gold medal in the men's Greco-Roman 96 kg at the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics, Gaber bulldozed through the competition and won with a gap of 10 points (10-0) to take his country's first gold medal in 50 years. He also won the silver medal at the 2003 World Championship. Gaber won another gold medal in the 2005 Almeria Mediterranean Games. Gaber was Egypt's flag bearer at the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing However, he failed to qualify for the quarter finals in Beijing. He won the silver medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Birth Date: 19 February 1975 in Cairo
Achievements: Mohamed Aly Reda is an Egyptian boxer who competed in the Super Heavyweight class (over 91 kg) at the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics and won a silver medal after walking over from the final match after injuring himself. He also won a silver medal at the All Africa Games Abuja 2003 after he lost the final to Gbenga Oluokun.
Birth Date: 21 October 1975 in Cairo
Achievements: Ahmed Ismail is an Egyptian boxer who competed in the men's light heavyweight (-81 kg) at the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics and won the bronze medal. One year earlier (2003) he captured the gold medal in his weight division at the All Africa Games in Abuja, Nigeria. He also won the bronze medal for the light heavyweight in the 2001 Tunis Mediterranean Games.
Birth Date: 22 April 1973
Achievements: Mohamed El Sayed is an Egyptian Boxer. In the 2003 he captured the silver medal in heavyweight at the All Africa Games in Abuja when he lost the final to local Emmanuel Izonritei. At the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics he competed in the heavyweight class (91 kg) and he made it to the semi finals, but was stopped when a medical test revealed that he had a broken arm so he received the bronze medal.
Birth Date: 12 April 1982
Achievements: Bayoumi is an Egyptian taekwondo athlete who won a bronze medal in the 58 kg weight class at the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics. He also won another bronze medal in the flyweight category at the World Championship Beijing 2007.
Birth Date: March 17, 1982
Achievements: He won a bronze medal in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Egypt's first judo medal in 24 years.
Birth Date: 25 November 1990
Achievements: He is an Egyptian fencer who won a silver medal in the men's foil event at the 2012 Summer Olympics. He took up fencing at the age of eight and, in 2008, began fencing internationally, winning medals at the African and World Junior Championships, as well as the Junior World Cup, before progressing to the senior level in 2011. Later that year he earned gold medals at the 2011 Pan Arab Games in the individual and team foil events before progressing to the 2012 Summer Games, where he won Africa's first ever Olympic fencing medal.