John Stephen Akhwari cramped up and then fell, badly injuring his knee and shoulder, during the men’s marathon at Mexico City 1968. But, despite being barely able to hobble, the part-time Tanzanian farmer refused to stop. Now 78 years old, Akhwari is delighted people still want to hear about the race during which he embodied the term “Olympic spirit”.

Fifty-six years ago, Tokyo saw the opening of its first Olympic Games. That moment is seen by many as a turning point for Japan. The Games saw the country emerge from the devastating consequences of World War II as a united, peaceful member of the international community, a global industrial power and an exporter of top-quality technological goods.

Gary Hall Senior won medals at three Olympic Games and held numerous world records, but on one late-August day in 1972, it was Hall’s friend, clubmate and fellow competitor, Mark Spitz, who set the sporting world alight, as Hall explains…

Lisa Fernandez is arguably the greatest softball player of all time. The USA star helped her country to three gold medals thanks to her pinpoint pitching and fierce will to win, the second of those successes coming in Australia on 26 September 2000. Never was the pitcher’s passion more evident than when entering the “lion’s den” of Sydney 2000, however, with the USA facing off against their biggest rivals on their own turf…

As we mark the 10-year anniversary of the inaugural Youth Olympic Games (YOG), olympic.org highlights some of the ways the YOG have been most impactful since Singapore 2010.

When Billy Mills arrived in Tokyo for the 1964 Olympic Games, few people knew much about the lanky American athlete. By the time he left two weeks later, he was a global star.