Olympic Games take place in Athens in 1896. The IOC elected the Greek writer Demetrius Vikelas as its first president. The first Games held under the auspices of the IOC was hosted in the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens in 1896. The Games brought together 14 nations and 241 athletes who competed in 43 events. Zappas and his cousin Konstantinos Zappas had left the Greek government a trust to fund future Olympic Games. This trust was used to help finance the 1896 Games. George Averoff contributed generously for the refurbishment of the stadium in preparation for the Games. The Greek government also provided
LGBT athletes in the Olympic and Paralympic Games the 2010s, Olympic organizers have often included a Pride House facility for LGBT athletes. Alongside the Olympics, international multi-sport events have also been organized specifically for LGBT athletes, including the Gay Games and World OutGames. Since 2014 the International Olympic Committee has listed sexual orientation as a protected category in the Olympic charter. In the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, only 14 athletes out of the 10,708 participants were openly gay, lesbian or bisexual, including: Of them only two, including Matthew Mitcham (who also won a gold medal, making him the first openly gay Olympic champion), were male. Mitcham gained