Olympic Games ceremony the Games of the II Olympiad in Paris in 1900, which had no opening ceremony before as part of the 1900 World's Fair. There are five examples from the United States alone in which the Games were not opened by the head of state. The Olympic Charter provides that the person designated to open the Games should do so by reciting whichever of the following lines is appropriate: Before 1936, the opening official would often make a short welcoming speech before declaring the Games open. However, since 1936, when Adolf Hitler opened both the Garmisch Partenkirchen Winter Olympics and the
Independent Olympians at the Olympic Games the Games were scheduled to compete as Independent Olympic Participants. On 8 and 9 February, Shiva Keshavan participated in the luge competition and received 38th place. He would end up being the only athlete to officially participate as an Independent Olympic Participant. On 11 February 2014 the IOC reinstated the Indian Olympic Association after Narayana Ramachandran, the president of the World Squash Federation, was voted in as the new president of the Indian Olympic Association, allowing the two remaining athletes to compete under the Indian flag rather than as independent athletes. This was the first time such a reinstatement of