It was discovered at the Simeiz Observatory on the Crimean peninsula on 23 June 1924, by Soviet astronomer Vladimir Albitsky,[1] who named it after his mother, Olimpiada Albitskaya.

The author of the Dictionary of Minor Planets, Lutz Schmadel, learned about the naming circumstances from Nikolai Chernykh (1931–2004), a prolific long-time astronomer at Nauchnij, Crimea.

[3][4] Several rotational lightcurves of Olympiada have been obtained from photometric observations by American astronomer Brian Warner at his Palmer Divide Observatory in Colorado.

[11][13][14] In 2011, a modeled lightcurve using data from the Uppsala Asteroid Photometric Catalogue and other sources gave a concurring sidereal period 3.83359 hours, as well as two poles at (46.0°, 10.0°) and (242.0°, 52.0°) in ecliptic coordinates (λ, β) (Q=2+).

[6][7][8] The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link derives an untypically high albedo of 0.2069 and a diameter of 26.65 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 10.2.