USA DAWN: NEWS AND UPDATES

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 particip...