On April 6, 1896, the Olympic Games were reborn in Athens after being banned by the Roman Emperor Theodosius I for 1,500 years. King George I of Greece welcomed the crowd of approximately 60,000 spectators and athletes from 13 nations to the competition with: "I hereby proclaim the opening of the first International Olympic Games in Athens." The first Olympic Games were held in the city of Elis in 776 BC. At the time the Olympics were at least 500 years old. Every four years, the ancient Olympics were held during a religious festival honoring Zeus, the Greek god. At first, events were limited to foot races, but over time numerous events were added, including boxing, wrestling, horse and chariot racing, and military competitions. The Pentathlon was introduced in 708 BC and featured events such as foot racing, long jump, discus and javelin throwing, and wrestling. However, the Olympics declined in 393 AD due to the rise of Rome. Theodosius I abolished the games in an attempt to suppress paganism in the Roman Empire. During the Renaissance, Europe became fascinated with ancient Greek culture, and some organized sports and folklore festivals using the name "Olympic Games". It was only in 1892 that Pierre de Coubertin proposed the idea that the Olympics should become a major international competition held every four years. Coubertin proposed the idea again at the conference on international competition held in Paris in June 1894 before 79 delegates who unanimously approved his proposal. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) was formed and the first games were scheduled in Athens in 1896. 280 participants from 13 nations competed in 43 events, including swimming, weightlifting, athletics, gymnastics,......middle of million paper, various factors caused the budget to swell to more than $51 billion, surpassing the estimated $44 billion cost of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, which were the most expensive Olympics in history. A total of 295 medals were awarded during the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Russia received the most medals with 33 medals, followed by Norway, Canada, the United States, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Belarus, Austria and France . The Sochi medal design was unveiled in May 2013. The design was intended to resemble the landscape of Sochi, with a section containing a "patchwork quilt" of diamonds representing the mountains. Those who won gold medals on February 15 received special medals with fragments of the Chelyabinsk meteor, marking the one-year anniversary of the event in which pieces of the cosmic fragments fell into Lake Chebarkul in the Ural Mountains in central Russia..