The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) is a non-profit organization that serves as the National Olympic Committee (NOC) and National Paralympic Committee (NPC) for the United States and coordinates the relationship between the United States Anti-Doping Agency and the World Anti-Doping Agency and various international sports federations. Under the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act, the Committee is chartered under Title 36 of the United States Code. Despite this federal mandate it receives no continuous financial assistance from the U.S. government. As a non-profit organization it competes with other charities for private contributions.
As a NOC, the Committee supports American athletes in general and Olympic athletes in specific and selects and enters athletes for participation in the Games of the Olympiad, Olympic Winter Games, and Pan American Games. Each individual Olympic Sport has a National Governing Body, supervised and funded by the USOC, which administers that sport and selects the athletes for the games. The Committee provides training centers, funds, and support staff to elite athletes.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) (French: le Comité international olympique) is an international corporation based in Lausanne, Switzerland, created by Pierre de Coubertin on 23 June 1894 with Demetrios Vikelas as its first president. Today its membership consists of the 205 National Olympic Committees (though Kuwait is suspended since 2010).
The IOC organizes the modern Olympic Games and Youth Olympic Games, held in Summer and Winter, every four years. The first Summer Olympics organized by the International Olympic Committee were held in Athens, Greece, in 1896; the first Winter Olympics were in Chamonix, France, in 1924. Until 1992, both Summer and Winter Olympics were held in the same year. After that year, however, the IOC shifted the Winter Olympics to the even years between Summer Games, to help space the planning of the two events two years apart from one another, and improve the financial balance of the IOC, which receives greater income on Olympic years. The first Summer Youth Olympics were in Singapore in 2010 and the first Winter Youth Olympics were held in Innsbruck in 2012.
The United States of America (USA) has sent athletes to every celebration of the modern Olympic Games, except the 1980 Summer Olympics, which it boycotted. The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) is the National Olympic Committee for the United States.
Thomas Burke was the first athlete to represent the United States at the Olympics. He took first place in both the 100 meters and the 400 meters of the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece.
American athletes have won a total of 2298 medals at the Summer Olympic Games and another 253 at the Winter Olympic Games. More medals have been won in athletics (track and field) (738, 29%) and swimming (489, 19%) than any others. The United States is the only country to have won at least one gold medal at every Winter Olympics, and has won the total medal count at Lake Placid in the 1932 Winter Olympics and at Vancouver in the 2010 Winter Olympics.
The United States has won more gold and overall medals than any other country in the Summer Games and overall. The US also has the second-most gold and overall medals at the Winter games, trailing only Norway.
Yael Friedman Averbuch (born November 3, 1986, in New York City, New York) is an American soccer midfielder currently playing for WFC Rossiyanka in the Russian Championship and the Champions League. She previously played for Sky Blue FC and Western New York Flash in WPS, also playing for the United States national team.
Averbuch's hometown is Montclair, New Jersey. Her younger sister is a midfielder for Stanford University.
Bob Bowlsby (born January 10, 1952) will become the seventh Commissioner of the Big 12 Conference on June 15, 2012. Prior to that position, he served as the Athletic Director at the University of Northern Iowa[citation needed], University of Iowa, and Stanford University.
Born in Waterloo, Iowa, Bowlsby was the AD at the University of Northern Iowa, until taking over as the athletic director at the University of Iowa from 1990 to 2006 prior to becoming Stanford's sixth athletic director in 2006. In 2012, he was hired to be commissioner of the Big 12 Conference. Bowlsby was selected as the NCAA Basketball Selection Committee Head in 2006. He was also a part of the United States Olympic Committee for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.
Bowlsby is a graduate of Moorhead State University (now called Minnesota State University Moorhead) and earned a master's degree from the University of Iowa. He is married with four children, Lisa, Matt, Rachel and Kyle.