Summer Olympic Games from a 42-event competition with fewer than 250 male competitors from 14 nations in 1896, to 306 events with 11,238 competitors (6,179 men, 5,059 women) from 206 nations in 2016. The Summer Olympics has been hosted on five continents by a total of nineteen countries. The United States has hosted the Games four times (in 1904, 1932, 1984 and 1996); this is more times than any other nation. The Games have been held three times in the United Kingdom (in 1908, 1948 and 2012); twice each in Greece (1896, 2004), France (1900, 1924), Germany (1936, 1972) and Australia (1956, 2000);
Olympic Games ceremony I declare open the Rio Olympic Games, celebrating the XXXI Olympiad of the Modern Era". Next, the Olympic flag is carried horizontally (since the 1960 Summer Olympics) into the stadium and hoisted as the Olympic Hymn is played. The Olympic Charter states that the Olympic flag must "fly for the entire duration of the Olympic Games from a flagpole placed in a prominent position in the main stadium". At most games, the flag has been carried into the stadium by prominent athletes of the host nation, but in 2012, it was carried by an international group of athletes and non-athletes