The history of the Olympic games goes back to the start of the Modern Olympics over a century ago in 1896. If you want to be a real Olympic purist, Olympic history began in 776 BC and ended in 393 AD. That is over 1000 years of achievements, accolades and glory.

With so many years of competition in the books, firsts are rare to come by. Kind of.

Despite centuries of competition, the Rio Games were the site of many firsts in Olympics. The games themselves were the first Olympics held in the South America in the competition’s long history.

That isn’t the first break from tradition that these games have seen. For the first time, flowers were not given to medal winners. Instead, they were given a little model of the Rio Olympic Logo for a more sustainable souvenir.

All of the athletes participating in Rio have reached one goal or another getting there, but only few will be remembered for eternity for being the first to achieve something that had never been achieved before by a fellow countrymen or Olympic competitor.

Here are some of the firsts of the Rio Games: