America participated in the first Olympic Summer Games in 1896. The countries that participated were Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Chile, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. We had 14 competitors, which was small compared to the estimated 169 Greeks. 20 out of our 27 entries brought us top 3 finishes. America beat our host nation in terms of gold medals. We earned 11 gold, 7 silver, 2 bronze. An interesting fact is that all of the competitors were from the ivy league colleges Harvard, Princeton or members of the Boston Athletic Association. They trained at The Pennington School in Pennington, New Jersey in secret.
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