first modern Olympic Games

The first modern Olympic Games included one winner who'd never tried his sport before

The first modern Olympic Games, which started 120 years ago today and are honored in a Google Doodle, included something more commonly associated with entitled children than ancient Greeks: a participation trophy. All 250 participants went home with a bronze medal.

That's not the only way the first modern Olympics, which revived a 1,500-year-old ancient Greek tradition, differed from today's glitzy, highly produced, occasionally corruption-soaked spectacle.

Although the first modern Olympics were unrecognizable in many ways — there were no women, no national teams, and only nine sporting events — the story of the runup to the first modern Olympics sounds awfully familiar: The host country was in political turmoil, and hosting the event turned out to be much, much more expensive than anyone had anticipated.

And just like today, some of the athletes had some incredible stories.

American athletes dominated the competition

In 1896, the American participants were a thrown-together group. There were no trials, very little time to prepare, and a team chosen based on, essentially, who could afford to get there.

The first American Olympians were 14 men, mostly from the Boston area and from Princeton. The mother of one of the Princeton athletes paid for their travel. Two athletes had to drop out of Harvard in order to compete, because they weren't given permission to miss class in order for the Olympics.

But the Americans ended up dominating the competition, winning 11 first-place honors — which were silver medals, because gold medals wouldn't be given out for another eight years. The Greeks had the second most victories.

Athletes competed in 43 events in nine sports: swimming, gymnastics, track, cycling, wrestling, weightlifting, fencing, shooting, and tennis

Robert Garrett, who won the discus event, had never used a real discus until he started participating in the competition. He'd had a blacksmith make him a practice version based on ancient Greek records; it turned out to be a foot wide and 30 pounds in weight, making it impossible to throw and more than 25 pounds heavier than the real thing.