The Summer Olympics, the world's largest sports event held every four years, has at times been affected by politics. The Olympic Games held during the Cold War years sometimes reflected the ideological and strategic division during those years. If the United States led several countries in boycotting the 1980 Moscow Olympics, the erstwhile Soviet Union-led Eastern Bloc (except Romania) boycotted the 1984 Los Angeles Games.

The situation improved after the end of the Cold War. The 2012 London Olympics, however, has again reflected the prevailing tensions in world politics, albeit in a different way.

A remarkable feature of the London Games has been the performance of China. The Chinese won the highest number of medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. But then many experts doubted whether China would be able to repeat the performance. China's success was attributed to its home advantage, which refers to the better knowledge and adaptability of local teams to conditions at home compared to foreign teams.