The national teams participating in the olympic games are governed by the so-called NOC's - National Olympic Committees - which on behalf of the nations handle a range of tasks connected to the olympic movement and the olympic games. In 2006 the IOC acknowledged 203 such NOCs.  
Almost all NOCs represent independent national states but the IOC also acknowledges a number of NOCs from independent territories, protectorates and special geographical areas. An example of this are the former republics of the Soviet Union, which participated under the name of EUN - the Unified Team - in the Barcelona 1992 summer games.
This part of the encyclopedia is not yet complete but we work on having a full presentation of all the NOCs that have participated in the olympics since 1896.  

More than 100.000 athletes have participated in the modern olympic games during their first 110 years. This total number of participating athletes spans a development from rather small olympic games to massive numbers of participants in recent olympics. It all began with approximately 300 participants in Athens 1896 but from here on the number of athletes graudually increased. In the first games after WW1 - Antwerp 1920 - there were about 2500 athletes, in London 1948 after WW2 around 4000 and in Athens 2004 about 11.000 athletes competed.

This part of the encyclopedia presenting the individual athletes of the games will probably never be complete but we plan to present a number of olympic competitors that proved to be outstanding among the 100.000 athletes in olympic history.