Olympiad of the games are so scanty that historians are not certain whether after 261 they were still held every four years. During the early years of the Olympiad, any physical benefit deriving from a sport was banned. Some winners were recorded though, until the last Olympiad of 393AD. In 394, Roman Emperor Theodosius I outlawed the games at Olympia as pagan. Though it would have been possible to continue the reckoning by just counting four-year periods, by the middle of the 5th century AD reckoning by Olympiads had become disused. The modern Olympiad is a period of four years, beginning
United States National Physics Olympiad United States National Physics Olympiad The United States National Physics Olympiad (USAPhO) is a high school physics competition run by the American Association of Physics Teachers and American Institute of Physics to select the team to represent United States at the International Physics Olympiad (IPhO). The team is selected through a series of exams testing their problem solving abilities. Approximately the top 20 finalists are invited to a rigorous study camp at University of Maryland to prepare for the IPhO. The International Physics Olympiad began in 1967 among Eastern European countries and many western countries soon joined in the 1970s.