One of the highlights of the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 Olympics in London was the sketch featuring the Queen and James Bond. In the full clip, Bond - played by British actor Daniel Craig - is greeted by Her Royal Highness and her corgis at Buckingham Palace. Secret agent 007 whisks the Queen off into a helicopter flying over the capital to East London before the daredevils parachute out of the helicopter into the Olympic Stadium. Mark Sutton, the stuntman who parachuted into the Stadium dressed as Bond, died the following year in a wingsuit flying accident in Switzerland. He had been travelling at around 125 miles per hour when he hit a ridge. 

Hulking Swedish actor Dolph Lundgren is best known to movie fans for his role in the film Rocky IV in 1985. For the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta he was selected by the United States Olympic Committee as the team leader of the American modern pentathlon team. Though he attended the Games and marched with the US delegation in the Opening Ceremony, his role was largely honorary. It was bestowed on Lundgren as a result of the time he spent training with the team in preparation for his role in the film Pentathlon, where he starred as an East German Olympic gold medalist on the run from an abusive coach played by David Soul. As a result of the time he spent with the team, Lundgren became a major supporter of the campaign to keep modern pentathlon on the Olympic programme. 

The 1904 Olympic Games in St. Louis included the only appearance on the programme of the plunge for distance event, where competitors began with a standing dive and then had to remain motionless underwater for one minute or until their heads broke the surface of the water, whichever came first. William Dickey of the United States won the gold medal with a distance of 62 feet 6 inches, There were only five participants in the event, however, all Americans from the New York Athletic Club. Dickey's team-mates Edgar Adams and Leo Goodwin took the silver and bronze medals, respectively. Dickey's Olympic victory was far short of the world record at the time, which for a 60-second limit competition had been set at 79 feet 3 inches by W. Taylor of Bootle, England, in September 1902.

At the Opening Ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin future French First Lady Carla Bruni played a starring role. She appeared in a section of the event which paid tribute to the Italian flag. Bruni, a former model and well-known singer, followed 26 Olympic medallists in white suits and gowns marching in two files into the Stadio Olimpico Bruni wore a sparkling gown by Giorgio Armani, inspired by crystal and ice. She met French President Nicolas Sarkozy the following year and they married in February 2008. 

The Olympic Flame at the Opening Ceremony of the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer was to be skied down the ski jump at  Lysgårdsbakken before lighting the Cauldron. Originally this task had rested upon Ole Gunnar Fidjestøl, the 1988 Olympic bronze medallist. But after he was injured in a practice jump two days beforehand, his back-up Stein Gruben received the honour. After a jump of around 70 meters Gruben handed the Torch to visually impaired athlete Cathrine Hazel Ingnes, who represented Norway in cycling and cross-country skiing at the Paralympics. She then did a lap of the arena with the Torch before handing it over to  Crown Prince Haakon Magnus, who lit the Olympic Flame. 

Disqualified for interfering with an opponent during his victory in the 3,000 metres steeplechase at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Britain's Chris Brasher appealed and a three-hour inquiry meant the medal ceremony was postponed until the next day. His appeal successful, Brasher went on a celebratory bender with the British press and later admitted he had received gold "blind drunk, totally blotto, with an asinine grin on my face, breathing gin fumes over the French member of the International Olympic Committee". Brasher later founded the London Marathon. 

Of the 80 plus actors to have been cast by Hollywood to play Tarzan, many have been former Olympic athletes. The trend started in 1933 when Herman Brix, winner of an Olympic silver medal in shot put at Amsterdam 1928, was selected to play the role. But Brix injured his shoulder before filming started and was replaced by former swimmer Johnny Weissmuller, winner of five Olympic golds at Paris 1924 and Amsterdam 1928. Weissmuller played the role in a dozen of movies and still remains the best known of all the Tarzans to be cast. 

Margaret Abbott was the first American woman to win an Olympic event when she won the women's golf tournament at Paris in 1900. Abbott won a porcelain bowl for her first place as these were the only Games where the winners received valuable artifacts instead of medals. Historical research did not establish that the game was on the Olympic programme until after Abbott's death at the age of 78 in 1955, so she herself never knew it. Abbott had traveled to Paris to study art under Edgar Degas and Auguste Rodin. Her mother, Mary Perkins Ives Abbott, a novelist and Chicago Tribune book reviewer, also competed in the event, finishing equal seventh, making it the first - and still only - Olympic event in which a mother and daughter competed at the same time.

When the Czech Republic's Štěpánka Hilgertová returned to Prague after winning the Olympic gold medal in the canoeing K-1 event at Sydney 2000 she celebrated by taking a bath in a tub filled with 160 bottles of champagne. It was Hilgertová's second consecutive gold medal, having also won at Atlanta 1996, and she was awarded a bonus of $24,000 by the Czech Government. "I would compete even if there was no bonus," she said. "First, I like winning and second, like any woman, I am vain and I like to be the centre of attention."

Los Angeles were the only bidders for the 1984 Summer Olympics following the withdrawal of Tehran before the final selection in 1978. Los Angeles had unsuccessfully bid for the two previous Summer Olympics, in 1976 and 1980, awarded to Montreal and Moscow respectively. The United States Olympic Committee had at least one bid for every Olympics since 1944, but had not succeeded since the Los Angeles Olympics in 1932, the previous time there had been a single city in the race. Los Angeles is bidding to host the 2024 Olympics and will follow London as the only city to stage them three times if they are successful when the International Olympic Committee votes at its Session in Lima in 2017. 

Tonga's King Tāufaʻāhau Tupou IV declared a national holiday after boxer Paea Wolfgramm won an Olympic silver medal in the super-heavyweight division at Atlanta 1996. Wolfgramm, who stood at 1.93 metres tall and weighed 147 kilograms, was beaten in the final by Ukraine's Wladimir Klitschko. Klitschko won the world heavyweight title in 2006 and, as of November 2015, had successfully defended the title 23 times. Woflgramm's professional career was less successful and he retired after 20 victories and four defeats, including losing to Klitschko in just 90 seconds in 2000 for the WBC International heavyweight title. Wolfgramm now runs a car hire business in Brisbane.

The idea of holding the South Pacific Games originated with Dr A.H. Sahu Khan, one of Fiji's representatives at a meeting of the South Pacific Commission held at Rabaul during 1959. The idea was adopted and led to a meeting of nine Territories, held in Nouméa during March 1961, which awarded Fiji the honour of hosting the very first Games in 1963. The event changed its name to the Pacific Games in 1998 when it took place in Santa Rita, Guam. 

American ski jumper Anders Haugen did not receive his Olympic bronze medal from Chamonix in 1924 until 50 years after he should have done due to a scoring error. In 1974, at the 50th reunion of the 1924 Norwegian team, sports historian Jacob Vaage was going over the results when he noticed the error. The bronze medal had been awarded by mistake to Norwegian skier Thorleif Haug, winner of three gold medals in those first Winter Olympics. Later that year, Haugen visited Norway as an 86-year-old and was given the bronze medal by Anna Maria Magnussen, Haug's youngest daughter.