Summer Olympic Games 1906 Athens games were the first of an alternating series of games to be held in Athens, but the series failed to materialise. The games were more successful than the 1900 and 1904 games, with over 900 athletes competing, and contributed positively to the success of future games. The 1908 London Games saw numbers rise again, as well as the first running of the marathon over its now-standard distance of 42.195 km (26 miles 385 yards). The first Olympic Marathon in 1896 (a male-only race) was raced at a distance of 40 km (24 miles 85 yards). The new marathon
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