The International Olympic Committee (IOC) (French: Comité international olympique, CIO) is an international non-governmental organization based in Lausanne, Switzerland, created by Pierre, Baron de Coubertin, on 23 June 1894 with Demetrios Vikelas as its first president. Today its membership consists of 105 active members and 32 honorary members.
The IOC organizes the modern Olympic Games and Youth Olympic Games, held in Summer and Winter, every four years. The first Summer Olympics organized by the International Olympic Committee were held in Athens, Greece, in 1896; the first Winter Olympics were in Chamonix, France, in 1924. Until 1992, both Summer and Winter Olympics were held in the same year. After that year, however, the IOC shifted the Winter Olympics to the even years between Summer Games, to help space the planning of the two events two years apart from one another, and improve the financial balance of the IOC, which receives greater income on Olympic years. The first Summer Youth Olympics were in Singapore in 2010 and the first Winter Youth Olympics were held in Innsbruck in 2012.
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“Like Olympic medals and tennis trophies, all they signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone else.”
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