Imagine you start an Olympics in your own backyard. Deciding what events to include might be simple at first. But if your Olympics grows in popularity, kids from other streets, other neighborhoods, and maybe even other towns will want to join in - and eventually they might want a say in what sports and events are included in the games, and in where they are held.

That's pretty much what happened to the Olympic Games over the centuries as they grew from a simple one-event contest to the huge competition that starts this Friday when 10,500 athletes from 202 countries gather in Athens for two weeks to compete in 28 different sports.

To understand how the Games got to this point, let's look at their ancient origins. And there's no better time to do so than now, when the Olympics have returned to Greece, the birthplace of both the ancient Olympics and the so-called "modern Olympics," first held in 1896.

No one is sure how old the Olympics are, but the first formal records date to 776 BC. Those written logs listed the champions, and the champions only, because the Greeks crowned only winners (with an olive wreath), and never honored second- and third-place finishers.

Just as might occur in a backyard Olympics, the ancient Games began with only one event, a simple footrace. It was about 180 meters, or 200 yards, long - roughly the length of the stadium in Olympia, the traditional site of the ancient Games. This race was the only event in the first 13 Olympics.

A shorter race of about 100 feet was contested by girls in the Heraea, a women's festival that was a form of consolation for women barred from the all-male Olympics (even female spectators were banned under penalty of being tossed from a cliff).

Gradually, over the next few hundred years, the program of the ancient Games, which paid tribute to Zeus, king of the Greek gods, was expanded. Wrestling, boxing, and pankration - a sport that combined the two - were added, as were horse and chariot races.

Mostly, the athletes wore no clothes, except for the chariot drivers and competitors in a warrior-like running event who raced two lengths of the stadium wearing helmets and armor and carrying shields.

Basically, though, things were kept simple, with a focus on track and field.

The ancient Olympics enjoyed a long history of about 12 centuries before Emperor Theodosius of Rome, who came to preside over Greece, abolished the Games in AD 394.

From there, picking up the Olympic trail requires leapfrogging ahead to the 1800s, when a Frenchman, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, an avid if not especially accomplished sportsman, struck on the idea of reviving the Olympics. (Although the most successful, he was not the only one: Evangelis Zappas and William Penny Brookes had each produced earlier Olympics-inspired competitions in Britain.)

The father of the modern Olympics wanted to encourage the physical and mental development of young people by creating an international competition capable of fostering friendship (Coubertin's success in doing so earned him a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1936). [Editor's note: The original version incorrectly stated that Coubertin won the Nobel, and incorrectly stated the year he was nominated.]

While Coubertin and his fellow organizers created Olympics with echoes of the old, they also wanted Games that reflected the modern world. Thus, in 1896, tennis was on the schedule, along with soccer and cricket, although the latter two were dropped because of lack of entrants - as was rowing because of rough seas. Swimming also was included, although not in a pool. Instead, competitors were delivered to an offshore starting point by boat, only to plunge into the nippy Mediterranean (in April) for their races.

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