19.08.2008
History of the Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is an international, multi-sport event subdivided into summer and winter sporting events.
The summer and winter games are each held every four years (an “Olympiad”). Until 1992, they were held in the same year. Since then, they have been celebrated two years apart.
The original Olympic Games began in 776 BC in Olympia, Greece, and were celebrated until AD 393.
Centuries later, the modern Olympic Games were revived in 1859 in Athens by a wealthy Greek philanthropist, Evangelos Zappas.
Subsequently, the International Olympic Committee was founded in 1894 by a French nobleman, Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin.
The first of the IOC's Olympic Games were the 1896 Summer Olympics, held in Athens, Greece. Participation in the Olympic Games has since increased to include athletes from nearly every nation in the world.
The most recent Summer Olympics were the 2004 Games in Athens and the most recent Winter Olympics were the 2006 Games in Turin.
The upcoming games in Beijing in 2008 aim to host 302 events in 28 sports.
The Olympic Movement
The Olympic Movement includes the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Organising Committees of the Olympic Games (OCOGs), the National Olympic Committees (NOCs), the International Federations (IFs), the national associations, clubs and, of course, the athletes.
At the heart of the Olympic Movement is the IOC, headed since 2001 by Jacques Rogge.
The IOC is ‘the government’ of the Olympics, making every important decision, including choosing the host city of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, as well as the programme of each Olympic Games.
The other organisations operate at a more specialised level:
- International Federations: the governing bodies of any given sport (eg. FIFA for football, and FIVB for volleyball.)
- National Olympic Committees, which regulate the Olympic Movement within each country (eg. QNOC, the NOC of Qatar)
- Organising Committees for the Olympic Games (OCOGs), which take care of the organisation of a specific celebration of the Olympics.
At present, 202 National Olympic Committees and 35 International Federations are part of the Olympic Movement. OCOGs are dissolved after each Games.
The term ‘Olympic Movement’ also includes everybody broadly involved in the Olympics, such as national sport governing bodies, athletes, media, and sponsors of the Olympic Games.
French and English are the two official languages of the Olympic movement.
Olympic symbols
The best known Olympic symbol is the Olympic Rings. These five intertwined rings represent the unity of five continents (with the Americas considered one continent).
On the Olympic flag, they appear in five colours on a white field. These colours, white (for the field), red, blue, green, yellow, and black were chosen so that each nation had at least one of the colours in its national flag.
The flag was adopted in 1914, but the first Olympic Games at which it was flown were in Antwerp in 1920.
The Olympic Motto is the Latin phrase “Citius, Altius, Fortius”, meaning “Swifter, Higher, Stronger”.
Coubertin’s ideals are best illustrated by the Olympic Creed: “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.”
Before the start of each Games, the Olympic Flame is lit in Olympia and brought to the host city by runners carrying the torch in relay. There it plays an important role in the opening ceremonies.
The Olympic mascot, an animal or human figure representing the cultural heritage of the host country, was introduced in 1968.
Olympic Sports
The Summer Olympic Games includes 28 sports with 38 disciplines. The Olympic Charter requires that there be a minimum of 15 Olympic sports at each Summer Games.
Following its 114th Session in Mexico in 2002, the IOC decided to limit the programme of the Summer Games to a maximum of 28 sports, 301 events, and 10,500 athletes.
The Summer sports include:
- Aquatics
- Archery
- Athletics
- Badminton
- Baseball
- Basketball
- Boxing
- Canoe / kayak
- Cycling
- Equestrian
- Fencing
- Football
- Gymnastics
- Handball
- Hockey
- Judo
- Modern Pentathlon
- Rowing
- Sailing
- Shooting
- Softball
- Table Tennis
- Taekwondo
- Tennis
- Triathlon
- Volleyball
- Weightlifting
- Wrestling
Host cities of the Olympic Summer Games:
1896 Athens
1900 Paris
1904 St. Louis
1908 London
1912 Stockholm
1920 Antwerp
1924 Paris
1928 Amsterdam
1932 Los Angeles
1936 Berlin
1948 London
1952 Helsinki
1956 Melbourne
1960 Rome
1964 Tokyo
1968 Mexico City
1972 Munich
1976 Montreal
1980 Moscow
1984 Los Angeles
1988 Seoul
1992 Barcelona
1996 Atlanta
2000 Sydney
2004 Athens