I am not sure about the countries, but I will try to answer the financal part of the question. Somewhere on the internet I read, that on Olympics in Atlanta (which in were in the 1996 btw.) Americans spent 1.7 billion $ (cca. 1.5 billion € than) and on the games in London buget is 2.375 billion pounds (that is more than 3 billion €). So numbers vary a lot.
Click on the question under the 'Related Questions' link to see the 205 countries that are scheduled to participate in the 2008 Summer Olympic Games.
The first Olympic took place in Olympia, Greece in 776 BC. They would do participate in several sports, usually naked.
A lot, I know that! :) I know Canada doesn't participate that much in SUMMER olympics because they usually are really awesome in the WINTER olympics.
There are Winter Olympics and Summer Olympics. The Summer Olympics are usually hot, and the Winter Olympics are usually cold.
Each country usually has Olympic trials and or qualifiers. Then from there If u win the qualifier then u get to represent ur country.
It is usually from as young as 14 to 40s
205+
Many different places, usually countries trade off who has the Olympics.
They usually gather all the countries and have a vote for whichever country hosts the Summer and Winter Olympics
About 204 countries usually take part in the Summer Olympics. However, this this figure is lower for the Winter Olympics with only 88 countries.
Each country has their own way for athlete to qualify for the Olympic Games. In the US most athletes are chosen through a competition where the top athletes are named to the Olympic Team. Those competitions are usually called the Olympic Trials. So, if you're an American and want to try out for the Olympics, find a sport, train hard, and compete in the Olympic Trials. If you win, you go to the Olympics.
In western Greece women were not allowed to compete in the Olympic games. Women were not allowed to participate in the ancient Olympics because most women were know to disrespect Zeus and the other gods. Men usually played naked so the women were also not allowed to participate because of their differences to men.==============The original Olympics (like some other festival games) were a religious observance in which the participants made an offering to Zeus of a military virtue called agon. Women weren't warriors, so they didn't have agon.
The number of countries that take part in the modern Olympics will vary from time to time. On average, there are usually about 205 countries with over 300 events to compete in.