The summer Olympics happen every four years, and this year they will be held in Sydney, Australia. This huge international event stirs national pride around the world, offers top athletes a chance to compete for medals and glory, and allows the host a chance to showcase its country and culture. This year more than 200 countries will be participating and record-breaking numbers of TV viewers are expected to tune into the opening ceremonies spectacle.

The Web offers lots of information about Olympic sports, athletes, the countries represented, and current news. You can also explore the history of the Ancient Greek and modern Games, as well as some of the controversial issues surrounding this event.

Let's go to Sydney! I'll race you there.

Sydney 2000

The official Sydney 2000 Web site features a special Kids' area. SportsZone has brief descriptions of Olympic sports, profiles of a few young Australian athletes, a trivia challenge and a scrambler puzzle. The WorldZone section is intended to help you explore various cultures and make friends. So far, it includes jokes and riddles, answers to Olympic questions and a delightful children's art gallery, but as yet there is no information about world cultures. Teachers will find lesson ideas and downloadable PDF activity sheets to support material found throughout the kids' area. My very favorite part of this site is "Australia: The Land and People", a student project found in TechnoZone, which gives you a desktop tour of the Olympics' host country. This overview includes lots of pictures and facts about Australian animals, plants, history, government, and celebrations.

Outside of the kids' area, the Sydney 2000 site provides more detailed information about Olympic sports, their history, rules, and legendary athletes. You can discover facts about the Olympic flag, flame, motto and oath, and use the Torch Tracker to follow the torch around Australia. The site also includes news stories, stats sheets for Australian competitors, and a tourist guide to Sydney. As the Olympics approaches, more content will be added to the site, including facts about participating countries, and more information on the Paralympics which are scheduled to follow the Olympics.

If you're really keen, you can also visit the Web site for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. For Kids has printable coloring pages and puzzles, brief summaries of Winter Olympic sports, and a mascots page. Interactive games will be added in the future.

Winning Sites for Kids

The kids' sites I've found about the Olympics feature basic, brief information—they are suitable for younger children. Scholastic in Sydney presents a few interesting articles about the history, women, and host cities. Here, there are also country profiles, a couple of American athlete's bios, a piece about Australia, and a penpal place where you can learn about Australian kids, schools, and recreation. The CBS SportsZone Kids' Zone is another typical site offering a bit of information about Olympic sports, the Parade of Nations, the torch relay, and American athletes.

I also visited a different kind of kids' site, promoted by the United States Olympic Committee. Click on the button that reads "Kids Click Here" and you will go to a McDonalds kids' Olympic site. The Big Book of Fun offers a range of fun, printable activity and coloring pages, some of which require a color printer. While there is advertising on almost all Olympics sites, here the food chain's characters are an integral part of every page. You may want to think about the commercialization of the Olympics and whether you agree with it or not; should there be so much advertising or should the Games only be about athletic competition?

Fast Facts and Stats

Older kids may prefer the more indepth information about the 2000 Olympics found at Web sites for TV networks and other media. While these sites aren't designed especially for kids, the one's I've visited are suitable for a general audience, including children. By checking out media sites from various countries, you can follow the Olympics from different perspectives.

Read how the Olympics are being covered in Australia (ABC), Great Britain (BBC), the United States (NBC) and Canada (CBC), and many other countries. These sites offer a lot of information: profiles of participating countries, details about athletes, medal counts, and up-to-date news stories relating to Olympic preparations, competitions, issues, and behind the scenes activities. I particularly like the NBC site because of its extensive bios of athletes from around the world and the information about Australia, like the coast to coast tour, the Aussie Glossary, and "50 Things You May Not Know About Australia".

From Ancient Greece to Modern Japan

I find it interesting to see how little, and how much, the Olympic games have changed since they were first held in Ancient Greece. Did you know that the ancient Olympics coincided with an important religious festival? Can you believe that a truce was called, and honored, during the ancient Olympics so people could travel safely to the Games?

The Real Story of the Ancient Olympic Games is an online exhibit from the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. It has brief information about the first Games, and touches on issues surrounding the modern Olympics, such as whether athletes should be amateur or professional, and the roles of politics and commercialism in the Games.

Britannica.com has created a wonderful site for the 2000 Olympic Games. You can read encyclopedia articles about the ancient history of the Games, plus facts about all of the modern Olympic Games and current participating counties. I enjoyed learning about the Olympic Ceremonies. I didn't know that the five rings of the Olympic flag represent the five parts of the world that participate in the games. I also had no idea that the opening and closing ceremonies must follow a strict format laid out by the International Olympic Committee. Thankfully there is also lots of room for music, dancing and other cultural performances that make each ceremony unique and so interesting to watch—even for people who don't like sports. I remember being glued to my TV during the fantastic Nagano Winter Olympics ceremonies in 1998.

Be sure to check out the special Brittanica.com Shockwave presentations. You can learn more about racism at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, watch an animated primer on sports in the Olympics, and see a multimedia slideshow about the history of the games. Other special features will be added as the Olympics approach.

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Berit's Browse is where Berit highlights her favorite sites on various themes and discusses her opinions and observations about kids' sites and kids on the Internet. The column is also a great place for to cover topics that you are interested in. Let her know what you'd like to read about!