Unit-
VI
Olymbic
Movements
For
the 776 BC to AD 393 Games see Ancient Olympic Games. For the most recent
Summer Games in Beijing, see 2008
Summer Olympics. For the most recent Winter Games in Vancouver, see 2010
Winter Olympics. For the next Summer Games in London, see 2012
Summer Olympics. For other uses, see Olympic.
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Olympic Games
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Games
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The Olympic Games (French: les Jeux olympiques) (JO),[1] is a major
international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of
athletes participate in a variety of
competitions.
The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports
competition where more than 200 nations participate.[2] The Games are
currently held every two years, withSummer and Winter
Olympic Games alternating, although
they occur every four years within their respective seasonal games. Originally,
the ancient
Olympic Games were held in Olympia, Greece, from the
8th century BC to the 4th century AD. Baron Pierre
de Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1894. The IOC has since become the
governing body of theOlympic Movement, whose structure and
actions are defined by the Olympic Charter.
The evolution of the
Olympic Movement during the 20th and 21st centuries has resulted in several
changes to the Olympic Games. Some of these adjustments include the creation of
the Winter Games for ice and winter sports, the Paralympic Games for athletes
with a physical disability, and the Youth
Olympic Games for teenage athletes.
The IOC has had to adapt to the varying economic, political, and technological
realities of the 20th century. As a result, the Olympics shifted away from pure
amateurism, as envisioned by Coubertin, to allow participation of professional
athletes. The growing importance of themass media created the issue of
corporate sponsorship and commercialization of the Games. World Wars led to the
cancellation of the 1916, 1940, and 1944 Games. Large boycotts during the Cold War limited participation
in the 1980 and 1984 Games.
The Olympic Movement
consists of international sports federations (IFs), National Olympic Committees (NOCs), and organizing
committees for each specific Olympic Games. As the decision-making body, the
IOC is responsible for choosing the host city for each Olympic Games. The host
city is responsible for organizing and funding a celebration of the Games
consistent with the Olympic Charter. The Olympic program, consisting of the sports to be contested at
the Games, is also determined by the IOC. The celebration of the Games
encompasses many rituals and symbols, such as the Olympic flag and torch, as well as the opening
and closing ceremonies. Over 13,000 athletes compete at the Summer and Winter
Olympics in 33 different sports and nearly 400 events. The first, second, and
third place finishers in each event receive Olympic medals: gold, silver, and
bronze, respectively.
The Games have grown
in scale to the point that nearly every nation is represented. Such growth has
created numerous challenges, including boycotts, doping, bribery of officials, and terrorism. Every two years,
the Olympics and its media exposure provide unknown athletes with the chance to
attain national, and in particular cases, international fame. The Games also
constitute a major opportunity for the host city and country to showcase itself
to the world.
Contents
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7 Sports
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Ancient Olympics
Main
article: Ancient Olympic Games
The Ancient Olympic
Games were a series of competitions held between representatives of several city-states and kingdoms from Ancient Greece, which featured
mainly athletic but also combat and chariot racing events. During the Olympic
games all struggles against the participating city-states were postponed until
the games were finished.[3] The origin of these
Olympics is shrouded in mystery and legend.[4] One of the most popular
myths identifiesHeracles and his father Zeus as the progenitors of
the Games.[5][6][7] According to legend,
it was Heracles who first called the Games "Olympic" and established
the custom of holding them every four years.[8] A legend persists
that after Heracles completed his twelve
labors,
he built the Olympic stadium as an honor to Zeus.
Following its completion, he walked in a straight line for 200 steps and called
this distance a "stadion" (Greek: στάδιον, Latin: stadium, "stage"),
which later became a unit of distance. Another myth
associates the first Games with the ancient Greek concept of Olympic truce
(ἐκεχειρία, ekecheiria).[9] The most widely
accepted date for the inception of the Ancient Olympics is 776 BC; this is
based on inscriptions, found at Olympia, of the winners of a footrace held
every four years starting in 776 BC.[10] The Ancient Games
featured running events, a pentathlon (consisting of a jumping event, discus
and javelin throws, a foot race and wrestling), boxing, wrestling, pankration, and equestrian
events.[11][12]Tradition has it that Coroebus, a cook from the
city of Elis, was the first Olympic champion.[13]
The Olympics were of
fundamental religious importance, featuring sporting events alongside ritual
sacrifices honoring both Zeus (whosefamous statue by Phidias stood in his temple
at Olympia) and Pelops, divine hero and
mythical king of Olympia. Pelops was famous for his chariot race with King Oenomaus of Pisatis.[14] The winners of the
events were admired and immortalized in poems and statues.[15] The Games were held
every four years, and this period, known as an Olympiad, was used by Greeks
as one of their units of time measurement. The Games were part of a cycle known
as the Panhellenic Games, which included the Pythian Games, theNemean Games, and the Isthmian Games.[16]
The Olympic Games
reached their zenith in the 6th and
5th centuries BC, but then gradually declined in importance as the Romansgained power and
influence in Greece. There is no consensus on when the Games officially ended,
the most common-held date is 393 AD, when the emperor Theodosius I declared that all
pagan cults and practices be eliminated.[17] Another date cited is
426 AD, when his successor Theodosius II ordered the
destruction of all Greek temples.[18] After the demise of
the Olympics, they were not held again until the late 19th century.
Modern Games
Forerunners
The first significant
attempt to emulate the ancient Olympic Games was the L'Olympiade de la République, a
national Olympic festival held annually from 1796 to 1798 in Revolutionary France.[19]The competition
included several disciplines from the ancient Greek Olympics. The 1796 Games
also marked the introduction of the metric system into sport.[19]
In 1850 an Olympian Class
was started by Dr William
Penny Brookes at Much Wenlock, inShropshire, England. In 1859,
Dr Brookes changed the name to Wenlock Olympian Games. This annual sports
festival continues to this day.[20] The Wenlock Olympian
Society was founded by Dr. Brookes on November 15, 1860.[21]:28
Between 1862 and
1867, Liverpool held an annual Grand
Olympic Festival. Devised by John Hulleyand Charles Melly, these games were
the first to be wholly amateur in nature and international in outlook, although
only 'gentlemen amateurs' could compete.[22][23] The programme of the
first modern Olympiad in Athens in 1896 was almost identical to that of the
Liverpool Olympics.[24] In 1865 Hulley, Dr.
Brookes and E.G. Ravenstein founded the National Olympian Association in
Liverpool, a forerunner of the British Olympic Association. Its articles of
foundation provided the framework for the International Olympic
Charter.[25] In 1866, a national
Olympic Games in Great Britain was organized at London's Crystal
Palace.[26]
Revival
A
postage stamp from the first Greek Olympic stamp set.
Greek interest in
reviving the Olympic Games began with the Greek War of Independence from theOttoman Empire in 1821. It was first
proposed by poet and newspaper editor Panagiotis
Soutsos in his poem
"Dialogue of the Dead", published in 1833.[21]:1 Evangelis Zappas, a wealthy
Greek-Romanian philanthropist, first wrote to King Otto of Greece, in 1856,
offering to fund a permanent revival of the Olympic Games.[21]:14 Zappas sponsored the
first Olympic Games in 1859, which was
held in an Athens city square. Athletes
participated from Greece and the Ottoman Empire. Zappas funded the restoration
of the ancient Panathenaic
stadium so that it could host
all future Olympic Games.[21]:14
The Panathinaiko
Stadium hosted Olympics in
1870 and 1875.[21]:2, 13–23, 81 Thirty thousand
spectators attended that Games in 1870 though no official attendance records
are available for the 1875 Games.[21]:44 In 1890, after
attending the Olympian Games of the Wenlock Olympian Society, Baron Pierre
de Coubertin was inspired to found
the International Olympic Committee (IOC).[27]Coubertin built on
the ideas and work of Brookes and Zappas with the aim of establishing
internationally rotating Olympic Games that would occur every four years.[27] He presented these
ideas during the first Olympic Congress of the newly created
International Olympic Committee. This meeting was held from June 16 to June 23,
1894, at the Sorbonne University in Paris. On the last day of
the Congress, it was decided that the first Olympic Games, to come under the
auspices of the IOC, would take place in Athens in 1896.[28] The IOC elected the
Greek writer Demetrius Vikelas as its first
president.[21]:100–105
1896 Games
Main
article: 1896
Summer Olympics
The first Games held
under the auspices of the IOC was hosted in the Panathenaic
stadiumin Athens in 1896. These Games
brought together 14 nations and 241 athletes who competed in 43 events.[29] Zappas and his cousin Konstantinos
Zappas had left the Greek government a trust
to fund future Olympic Games. This trust was used to help finance the 1896
Games.[21]:117[30][31] George Averoff contributed
generously for the refurbishment of the stadium in preparation for the Games.[21]:128 The Greek government
also provided funding, which was expected to be recouped through the sale of
tickets to the Games and from the sale of the first Olympic commemorative stamp
set.[21]:128
The Greek officials
and public were enthusiastic about the experience of hosting these Games. This
feeling was shared by many of the athletes, who even demanded that Athens be
the host of the Olympic Games on a permanent basis. The IOC did not approve
this request. The committee planned that the modern Olympics would rotate
internationally. As such they decided to hold the second
Games in Paris.[32]
Changes and adaptations
Main
article: Summer
Olympic Games
After the success of
the 1896 Games, the Olympics entered a period of stagnation that threatened
their survival. The Olympic Games held at the Paris Exposition in 1900 and the World's Fair at St. Louis in 1904 were side-shows. The
Games at Paris did not have a stadium; however, this was the first time women
took part in the games. The St. Louis Games hosted 650 athletes, but 580 were
from the United States. The homogeneous
nature of these celebrations was a low point for the Olympic Movement.[33] The Games rebounded
when the 1906
Intercalated Games (so-called because
they were the second Games held within the third Olympiad) were held in
Athens. These Games are not officially recognized by the IOC and no
Intercalated Games have been held since. These Games, which were hosted at the Panathenaic
stadium in Athens, attracted
a broad international field of participants, and generated great public
interest. This marked the beginning of a rise in both the popularity and the
size of the Olympics.[34]
Winter Games
Main
article: Winter
Olympic Games
The Winter Olympics
(first held in Chamonix, France, in 1924) were created to feature snow and ice
sports that were logistically impossible to hold during the Summer Games.
Figure skating (in 1908 and 1920) and ice hockey (in 1920) were featured as
Olympic events at the Summer Olympics. The IOC desired to expand this list of
sports to encompass other winter activities. At the 1921
Olympic Congress,
in Lausanne, it was decided to
hold a winter version of the Olympic Games. A winter sports week (it was
actually 11 days) was held in1924 in Chamonix, France; this event
became the first Winter
Olympic Games.[35] The IOC mandated that
the Winter Games be celebrated every four years on the same year as their
summer counterpart.[36] This tradition was
upheld until the 1992
Games in Albertville, France; after that,
beginning with the 1994
Games,
the Winter Olympics were held on the third year of each Olympiad.
Paralympics
Main
article: Paralympic Games
In 1948, Sir Ludwig Guttmann, determined to
promote the rehabilitation of soldiers after World War II, organized a
multi-sport event between several hospitals to coincide with the 1948
London Olympics.
Guttmann's event, known then as the Stoke Mandeville Games, became an annual
sports festival. Over the next twelve years, Guttmann and others continued
their efforts to use sports as an avenue to healing. For the 1960
Olympic Games,
in Rome, Guttmann brought 400 athletes to
compete in the "Parallel Olympics", which became known as the first
Paralympics.
Since then, the Paralympics have been held in every Olympic year. As of the 1988
Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, the
host city for the Olympics has also played host to the Paralympics.[37] In 2001 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) signed an
agreement which guaranteed that host cities would be contracted to manage both
the Olympic and Paralympic Games.[38][39] The agreement came
into effect at the Summer Games in Beijing 2008, and the Winter Games in
Vancouver 2010. Chairman of the London organising committee, Lord Coe, said about the 2012
Summer Paralympics and Olympics in London, England
that,
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“
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We want
to change public attitudes towards disability, celebrate the excellence of
Paralympic sport and to enshrine from the very outset that the two Games are
an integrated whole.
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”
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Youth Games
In 2010, the Olympic
Games were complemented by the Youth Games, which gives athletes between the
ages of 14 and 18 the chance to compete. The Youth Olympic Games were conceived
by IOC president Jacques Rogge in 2001 and approved
during the 119th Congress of the IOC.[41][42] The first
Summer Youth Games were held in Singapore from 14–26 August
2010, while the inaugural Winter Games will be hosted in Innsbruck, Austria, two years
later.[43] These Games will be
shorter than the senior Games; the summer version will last twelve days, while
the winter version will last nine days.[44] The IOC allows 3,500
athletes and 875 officials to participate at the Summer Youth Games, and 970
athletes and 580 officials at the Winter Youth Games.[45][46] The sports to be
contested will coincide with those scheduled for the senior Games, however
there will be variations on the sports including mixed NOC and mixed gender
teams as well as a reduced number of disciplines and events.[47]
Recent games
From 241 participants
representing 14 nations in 1896, the Games have grown to about 10,500
competitors from 204 countries at the2008
Summer Olympics.[48] The scope and scale
of the Winter Olympics is smaller. For example, Turin hosted 2,508 athletes
from 80 countries competing in 84 events, during the 2006
Winter Olympics.[49] During the Games most
athletes and officials are housed in theOlympic village. This village is
intended to be a self-contained home for all the Olympic participants. It is
furnished with cafeterias, health clinics, and locations for religious
expression.[50]
The IOC allowed the
formation of National Olympic Committees representing countries that did not
meet the strict requirements for political sovereignty that other international
organizations demand. As a result, colonies and dependencies are permitted to
compete at Olympic Games. Examples of this include territories such as Puerto
Rico, Bermuda and Hong Kong, all of which compete as separate nations despite
being legally a part of another country.[51] The current version
of the Charter does only allow new National Olympic Committees representing
"independent State recognised by the international community". It
therefore did not allow the formation of National Olympic Committees for Sint Maarten and Curaçao when they gained the
same constitutional status as Aruba in 2010, although it
recognized the Aruban Olympic Committee in 1986.[52][53]
International Olympic Committee
Main
article: International Olympic Committee
The Olympic Movement
encompasses a large number of national and international sporting organizations
and federations, recognized media partners, as well as athletes, officials,
judges, and every other person and institution that agrees to abide by the
rules of theOlympic
Charter.[54] As the umbrella
organization of the Olympic Movement, theInternational Olympic Committee (IOC) is responsible
for selecting the host city, overseeing the planning of the Olympic Games,
updating and approving the sports program, and negotiating sponsorship and
broadcasting rights.[55] The Olympic Movement
is made of three major elements:
§ International Federations (IFs) are the governing
bodies that supervise a sport at an
international level. For example, the International Federation of Association
Football (FIFA) is the IF for football
(soccer),
and the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) is the international governing body
for volleyball. There are currently
35 IFs in the Olympic Movement, representing each of the Olympic sports.[56]
§ National Olympic Committees (NOCs) represent and
regulate the Olympic Movement within each country. For example, the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) is the NOC of
the United States. There are currently
205 NOCs recognized by the IOC.[48]
§ Organizing Committees
for the Olympic Games (OCOGs) constitute the temporary committees responsible
for the organization of a specific celebration of the Olympics. OCOGs are
dissolved after each Games, once the final report is delivered to the IOC.
French and English are the official
languages of the Olympic Movement. The other language used at each Olympic
Games is the language of the host country. Every proclamation (such as the
announcement of each country during the parade of nations in the opening
ceremony) is spoken in these three languages, or the main two depending on
whether the host country is an English or French speaking country.[57]
Criticism
The IOC has often
been criticized for being an intractable organization, with several members on
the committee for life. The leadership of IOC presidents Avery Brundage and Juan
Antonio Samaranch was especially
controversial. Brundage was president for over 20 years, and during his tenure
he protected the Olympics from political involvement.[58] He was accused of
both racism, for his handling of the apartheid issue with the South African delegation, and anti-Semitism.[59] Under the Samaranch presidency,
the office was accused of both nepotism and corruption.[60] Samaranch's ties with
the Franco
regime in Spain were also a source of
criticism.[61]
In 1998, it was
uncovered that several IOC members had taken bribes from members of the Salt Lake City bid committee for the
hosting of the 2002
Winter Olympics,
to ensure their votes were cast in favor of the American bid. The IOC pursued
an investigation which led to the resignation of four members and expulsion of
six others. The scandal set off further reforms that would change the way host
cities are selected, to avoid similar cases in the future.[62]
A BBC documentary entitled Panorama: Buying the Games, aired in August
2004, investigated the taking of bribes in the bidding process for the 2012
Summer Olympics.[63] The documentary claimed
it was possible to bribe IOC members into voting for a particular candidate
city. After being narrowly defeated in their bid for the 2012 Summer Games,[64] Parisian Mayor Bertrand
Delanoë specifically accused
the British
Prime Minister Tony Blair and the London Bid
Committee (headed by former Olympic champion Sebastian Coe) of breaking the bid
rules. He cited French President Jacques Chirac as a witness; Chirac
gave guarded interviews regarding his involvement.[65] The allegation was
never fully explored. The Turin bid for the 2006 Winter
Olympics was also shrouded in controversy. A prominent IOC member, Marc Hodler, strongly connected
with the rival bid of Sion, Switzerland, alleged bribery of
IOC officials by members of the Turin Organizing Committee. These accusations
led to a wide-ranging investigation. The allegations also served to sour many
IOC members against Sion's bid and potentially helped Turin to capture the host
city nomination.[66]
Commercialization
Main
article: Cost of the Olympic Games
The IOC originally
resisted funding by corporate sponsors. It was not until the retirement of IOC
president Avery Brundage, in 1972, that the
IOC began to explore the potential of the television medium and the lucrative
advertising markets available to them.[67] Under the leadership
of Juan
Antonio Samaranch the Games began to
shift toward international sponsors who sought to link their products to the
Olympic brand.[68]
Budget
During the first half
of the 20th century the IOC ran on a small budget.[68][69] As president of the
IOC from 1952 to 1972, Avery Brundage rejected all attempts to link the
Olympics with commercial interest.[67] Brundage believed the
lobby of corporate interests would unduly impact the IOC's decision-making.[67] Brundage's resistance
to this revenue stream meant the IOC left organizing committees to negotiate
their own sponsorship contracts and use the Olympic symbols.[67] When Brundage retired
the IOC had US$2 million in assets; eight years later the IOC coffers had
swelled to US$45 million.[67] This was primarily
due to a shift in ideology toward expansion of the Games through corporate
sponsorship and the sale of television rights.[67] When Juan Antonio
Samaranch was elected IOC president in 1980 his desire was to make the IOC
financially independent.[69]
The 1984
Summer Olympics became a watershed
moment in Olympic history. The Los Angeles-based organizing committee, led byPeter Ueberroth, was able to
generate a surplus of US$225 million, which was an unprecedented amount at
that time.[70] The organizing
committee had been able to create such a surplus in part by selling exclusive
sponsorship rights to select companies.[70]The IOC sought to
gain control of these sponsorship rights. Samaranch helped to establish The
Olympic Program (TOP) in 1985, in order to create an Olympic brand.[68] Membership in TOP
was, and is, very exclusive and expensive. Fees cost US$50 million for a
four year membership.[69] Members of TOP
received exclusive global advertising rights for their product category, and
use of the Olympic symbol, the interlocking rings, in their
publications and advertisements.[71]
Effect of television
A
cartoon from the 1936 Berlin Olympics imagines the year 2000 when spectators
will have been replaced by television and radio.
The 1936
Summer Olympics in Berlin were the
first Games to be broadcast on television, though only to local audiences.[72] The 1956
Winter Olympics were the first
internationally televised Olympic Games,[73] and the following
Winter Games had their
broadcasting rights sold for the first time to specialized television
broadcasting networks—CBS paid US$394,000 for
the American rights,[74] and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) allocated US$660,000.[68] In the following
decades the Olympics became one of the ideological fronts of the Cold War.
Superpowers jockeyed for political supremacy, and the IOC wanted to take
advantage of this heightened interest via the broadcast medium.[74] The sale of broadcast
rights enabled the IOC to increase the exposure of the Olympic Games, thereby
generating more interest, which in turn created more appeal to advertisers time
on television. This cycle allowed the IOC to charge ever-increasing fees for
those rights.[74]For example, CBS paid
US$375 million for the rights of the 1998
Nagano Games,[75] while NBC spent
US$3.5 billion for the broadcast rights of all the Olympic Games from 2000
to 2012.[68]
Viewership increased
exponentially from the 1960s until the end of the century. This was due to the
use of satellites to broadcast live television worldwide in 1964, and the
introduction of color television in 1968.[76] Global audience
estimates for the 1968
Mexico City Games was 600 million,
whereas at the Los
Angeles Games of 1984,
the audience numbers had increased to 900 million; that number swelled to
3.5 billion by the 1992
Summer Olympics in Barcelona.[77] However, at the 2000
Summer Games in Sydney, NBC drew the lowest
ratings for any Summer or Winter Olympics since 1968.[78] This was attributed
to two factors: one was the increased competition from cable channels, the
second was the internet, which was able to display results and video in real
time. Television companies were still relying on tape-delayed content, which
was becoming outdated in the information era.[79] A drop in ratings
meant that television studios had to give away free advertising time.[80] With such high costs
charged to broadcast the Games, the added pressure of the internet, and
increased competition from cable, the television lobby demanded concessions
from the IOC to boost ratings.[81] The IOC responded by
making a number of changes to the Olympic program. At the Summer Games, the
gymnastics competition was expanded from seven to nine nights, and a Champions
Gala was added to draw greater interest.[82] The IOC also expanded
the swimming and diving programs, both popular sports with a broad base of
television viewers.[82] Finally, the American
television lobby was able to dictate when certain events were held so that they
could be broadcast live during prime time in the United States.[83] The result of these
efforts was mixed: the ratings for the 2006 Winter Games, held in Torino,
Italy, were significantly lower than those for the 2002 Games, while there was
a sharp increase in viewership for the 2008 Summer Olympics, staged in Beijing.[80][84]
Controversy
The sale of the
Olympic brand has been controversial. The argument is that the Games have
become indistinguishable from any other commercialized sporting spectacle.[71] Specific criticism
was levelled at the IOC for market saturation during the 1996 Atlanta and 2000
Sydney Games. The cities were awash in corporations and merchants attempting to
sell Olympic-related wares.[85] The IOC indicated
that they would address this to prevent spectacles of over-marketing at future
Games.[85] Another criticism is
that the Games are funded by host cities and national governments; the IOC
incurs none of the cost, yet controls all the rights and profits from the
Olympic symbols. The IOC also takes a percentage of all sponsorship and
broadcast income.[71] Host cities continue
to compete ardently for the right to host the Games, even though there is no
certainty that they will earn back their investments.[86]
Symbols
Main
article: Olympic symbols
The Olympic Movement
uses symbols to represent the ideals embodied in the Olympic Charter. The
Olympic symbol, better known as the Olympic rings, consists of five
intertwined rings and represents the unity of the five inhabited continents
(America, Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe). The colored version of the
rings—blue, yellow, black, green, and red—over a white field forms the Olympic flag. These colors were
chosen because every nation had at least one of them on its national flag. The
flag was adopted in 1914 but flown for the first time only at the 1920
Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium. It has since been
hoisted during each celebration of the Games.[87]
The Olympic motto is Citius, Altius, Fortius, a Latin expression meaning
"Faster, Higher, Stronger". Coubertin's ideals are further expressed
in 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.[87]
Months before each
Games, the Olympic flame is lit in Olympia in
a ceremony that reflects ancient Greek rituals. A female performer, acting as a
priestess, ignites a torch by placing it inside a parabolic mirror which focuses the
sun's rays; she then lights the torch of the first relay bearer, thus
initiating the Olympic torch relay that will carry the flame to the host city's
Olympic stadium, where it plays an important role in the opening ceremony.[88] Though the flame has
been an Olympic symbol since 1928, the torch relay was
introduced at the 1936
Summer Games,
as part of the German government's attempt to promote its National
Socialist ideology.[87]
The Olympic mascot, an animal or human
figure representing the cultural heritage of the host country, was introduced
in 1968. It has played an
important part on the Games identity promotion since the 1980
Summer Olympics,
when the Russian bear cub Mishareached international
stardom.[89] The mascots of the
most recent Summer Olympics, in Beijing, were the Fuwa, five creatures that represent the
five fengshui elements important in
Chinese culture.[90]
Ceremonies
Main
article: Olympic Games ceremony
Opening
As mandated by the
Olympic Charter, various elements frame the opening ceremony of the Olympic
Games.[91][92] Most of these rituals
were established at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp.[93] The ceremony
typically starts with the hoisting of the host country's flag and a performance
of its national anthem.[91][92] The host nation then
presents artistic displays of music, singing, dance, and theater representative
of its culture.[93] The artistic
presentations have grown in scale and complexity as successive hosts attempt to
provide a ceremony that outlasts its predecessor's in terms of memorability.
The opening ceremony of the Beijing Games reportedly cost $100 million,
with much of the cost incurred in the artistic segment.[94]
After the artistic
portion of the ceremony, the athletes parade into the stadium grouped by
nation. Greece is traditionally the first nation to enter in order to honor the
origins of the Olympics. Nations then enter the stadium alphabetically
according to the host country's chosen language, with the host country's
athletes being the last to enter. During the 2004
Summer Olympics,
which was hosted in Athens, Greece, the Greek flag
entered the stadium first, while the Greek delegation entered last. Speeches
are given, formally opening the Games. Finally, the Olympic torch is brought
into the stadium and passed on until it reaches the final torch carrier—often a
well-known and successful Olympic athlete from the host nation—who lights the
Olympic flame in the stadium's cauldron.[91][92]
Closing
The closing ceremony
of the Olympic Games takes place after all sporting events have concluded.
Flag-bearers from each participating country enter the stadium, followed by the
athletes who enter together, without any national distinction. Three national
flags are hoisted while the corresponding national anthems are played: the flag
of Greece, to honor the birthplace of the Olympic Games; the flag of the
current host country, and the flag of the country hosting the next Summer or
Winter Olympic Games.[95] The president of the
organizing committee and the IOC president make their closing speeches, the
Games are officially closed, and the Olympic flame is extinguished.[96] In what is known as
the Antwerp Ceremony, the mayor of the city that organized the Games transfers
a special Olympic flag to the president of the IOC, who then passes it on to
the mayor of the city hosting the next Olympic Games.[97] After these
compulsory elements, the next host nation briefly introduces itself with
artistic displays of dance and theater representative of its culture.
Medal presentation
A
medal ceremony during the 2008 Summer Olympics.
A medal ceremony is
held after each Olympic event is concluded. The winner, second and third-place
competitors or teams stand on top of a three-tiered rostrum to be awarded their
respective medals.[98] After the medals are
given out by an IOC member, the national flags of the three medalists are
raised while the national anthem of the gold
medalist's country plays.[99] Volunteering citizens
of the host country also act as hosts during the medal ceremonies, as they aid
the officials who present the medals and act as flag-bearers.[100]For every Olympic
event, the respective medal ceremony is held, at most, one day after the
event's final. For the men's marathon, the competition is usually held early in
the morning on the last day of Olympic competition and its medal ceremony is
then held in the evening during the closing ceremony.
Sports
Main
article: Olympic sports
The Olympic Games program consists of 35
sports, 30 disciplines and nearly 400 events. For example, wrestling is a Summer Olympic
sport, comprising two disciplines: Greco-Roman and Freestyle. It is further
broken down into fourteen events for men and four events for women, each
representing a different weight class.[101] The Summer Olympics
program includes 26 sports, while the Winter Olympics program features 15
sports.[102] Athletics, swimming, fencing, and artistic gymnastics are the only summer
sports that have never been absent from the Olympic program. Cross-country skiing, figure skating, ice hockey, Nordic combined, ski jumping, andspeed skating have been featured at
every Winter Olympics program since its inception in 1924. Current Olympic
sports, likebadminton, basketball, and volleyball, first appeared on the program as demonstration
sports,
and were later promoted to full Olympic sports. Some sports that were featured
in earlier Games were later dropped from the program.[103]
Olympic sports are
governed by international sports federations (IFs) recognized by
the IOC as the global supervisors of those sports. There are 35 federations
represented at the IOC.[104] There are sports
recognized by the IOC that are not included on the Olympic program. These
sports are not considered Olympic sports, but they can be promoted to this
status during a program revision that occurs in the first IOC session following
a celebration of the Olympic Games.[105][106] During such
revisions, sports can be excluded or included in the program on the basis of a
two-thirds majority vote of the members of the IOC.[107] There are recognized
sports that have never been on an Olympic program in any capacity, including
chess and surfing.[108]
In October and
November 2004, the IOC established an Olympic Programme Commission, which was
tasked with reviewing the sports on the Olympic program and all non-Olympic
recognized sports. The goal was to apply a systematic approach to establishing
the Olympic program for each celebration of the Games.[109] The commission
formulated seven criteria to judge whether a sport should be included on the
Olympic program.[109] These criteria are
history and tradition of the sport, universality, popularity of the sport,
image, athletes' health, development of the International Federation that
governs the sport, and costs of holding the sport.[109] From this study five
recognized sports emerged as candidates for inclusion at the 2012 Summer
Olympics: golf, karate, rugby union, roller sports and squash.[109] These sports were
reviewed by the IOC Executive Board and then referred to the General Session in
Singapore in July 2005. Of the five sports recommended for inclusion only two
were selected as finalists: karate and squash.[109] Neither sport
attained the required two-thirds vote and consequently they were not promoted
to the Olympic program.[109] In October 2009 the
IOC voted to instate golf and rugby union as Olympic sports for the 2016 and 2020 Summer Olympic Games.[110]
The 114th IOC
Session,
in 2002, limited the Summer Games program to a maximum of 28 sports, 301
events, and 10,500 athletes.[109] Three years later, at
the 117th IOC Session, the first major
program revision was performed, which resulted in the exclusion of baseball and softball from the official
program of the 2012
London Games.
Since there was no agreement in the promotion of two other sports, the 2012
program will feature just 26 sports.[109] The 2016 and 2020
Games will return to the maximum of 28 sports given the addition of rugby and
golf.[110]
Amateurism and professionalism
Further
information: Amateurism
Professional NHL players were allowed
to participate in ice hockey starting in 1998 (1998
Gold medal game between Russia and the Czech Republic pictured).
The ethos of the aristocracy as
exemplified in the English Independent school greatly influenced
Pierre de Coubertin.[111] The independent
schools subscribed to the belief that sport formed an important part of
education, an attitude summed up in the saying mens sana in corpore sano, a sound mind in a
sound body. In this ethos, a gentleman was one who became an all-rounder, not
the best at one specific thing. There was also a prevailing concept of
fairness, in which practicing or training was considered tantamount to cheating.[111] Those who practiced a
sport professionally were considered to have an unfair advantage over those who
practiced it merely as a hobby.[111]
The exclusion of
professionals caused several controversies throughout the history of the modern
Olympics. The 1912
Olympic pentathlon and decathlon champion Jim Thorpe was stripped of his
medals when it was discovered that he had played semi-professional baseballbefore the Olympics.
His medals were posthumously restored by the IOC in 1983 on compassionate
grounds.[112] Swiss and Austrian
skiers boycotted the 1936
Winter Olympics in support of their
skiing teachers, who were not allowed to compete because they earned money with
their sport and were thus considered professionals.[113]
As class structure evolved
through the 20th century, the definition of the amateur athlete as an
aristocratic gentleman became outdated.[111] The advent of the
state-sponsored "full-time amateur athlete" of the Eastern Bloc
countries further eroded the ideology of the pure amateur, as it put the
self-financed amateurs of the Western countries at a disadvantage.
Nevertheless, the IOC held to the traditional rules regarding amateurism.[114] Beginning in the
1970s, amateurism requirements were gradually phased out of the Olympic
Charter. After the 1988 Games, the IOC decided to make all professional
athletes eligible for the Olympics, subject to the approval of the IFs.[115] As of 2004, the only
sports in which no professionals compete are boxing and wrestling, although even this
requires a definition of amateurism based on fight rules rather than on
payment, as some boxers and wrestlers receive cash prizes from their National
Olympic Committees. In men's football (soccer), only three
professional players over the age of 23 are eligible to participate per team in
the Olympic tournament.[115]
The Olympic Games
have been used as a platform to promote political ideologies almost from its
inception. Nazi Germany wished to portray the Nationalist Socialist Party as benevolent and
peace-loving when they hosted the 1936 Games, though they used the Games to display Aryan superiority.[130] Germany was the most
successful nation at the Games, which did much to support their allegations of Aryansupremacy, but
notable victories by African American Jesse Owens, who won four gold
medals, and Hungarian Jew Ibolya Csák, blunted the
message.[131] The Soviet Union did not participate
until the 1952
Summer Olympics in Helsinki. Instead, starting
in 1928, the
Soviets organized an
international sports event called Spartakiads. During the interwar
period of the 19201930s, communist and socialists and organizations in several countries,
including the United
States, attempted to counter what they called the "bourgeois"
Olympics with the Workers Olympics.[132][133] It was not until the 1956 Summer Gamesthat the Soviets
emerged as a sporting superpower and, in doing so, took full advantage of the
publicity that came with winning at the Olympics.[134] Individual athletes
have also used the Olympic stage to promote their own political agenda. At the 1968
Summer Olympics in Mexico City, two American track and fieldathletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who finished first
and third in the 200 meters, performed the Black Power salute on the victory stand.
The second place finisher, Peter Norman of Australia, wore an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge in support of
Smith and Carlos. In response to the protest, IOC President Avery Brundage told the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) to either send
the two athletes home or withdraw the track and field team. The USOC opted for
the former.[135]
Currently, the
government of Iran has taken steps to avoid any competition between its
athletes and those from Israel. An Iranianjudoka, Arash Miresmaeli, did not compete in
a match against an Israeli during the 2004
Summer Olympics.
Although he was officially disqualified for being overweight, Miresmaeli was
awarded US$125,000 in prize money by the Iranian government, an amount paid to
all Iranian gold medal winners. He was officially cleared of intentionally
avoiding the bout, but his receipt of the prize money raised suspicion.[136]
Use of performance enhancing drugs
Main
article: Use of
performance-enhancing drugs in the Olympic Games
In the early 20th century,
many Olympic athletes began using drugs to improve their athletic abilities.
For example, the winner of the marathon at the 1904
Games, Thomas
Hicks,
was given strychnine and brandy by his coach.[137] The only Olympic
death linked to doping occurred at the Rome
Games of 1960.
During the cycling road race, Danish cyclist Knud
Enemark Jensen fell from his bicycle
and later died. A coroner's inquiry found that he was under the influence of
amphetamines.[138] By the mid-1960s,
sports federations were starting to ban the use of performance enhancing drugs;
in 1967 the IOC followed suit.[139]
The first Olympic
athlete to test positive for the use of performance enhancing drugs wasHans-Gunnar
Liljenwall,
a Swedish pentathlete at the 1968
Summer Olympics,
who lost his bronze medal for alcohol use.[140] The most publicized
doping-related disqualification was that of Canadian sprinter Ben
Johnson,
who won the 100 meter dash at the 1988
Seoul Olympics but tested positive
for stanozolol. His gold medal was
subsequently stripped and awarded to runner-up Carl Lewis, who himself had
tested positive for banned substances prior to the Olympics.[141]
In the late 1990s,
the IOC took the initiative in a more organized battle against doping, by
forming the World Anti-Doping Agency(WADA) in 1999. There
was a sharp increase in positive drug tests at the 2000 Summer Olympics and 2002
Winter Olympics.
Several medalists in weightlifting and cross-country skiing were disqualified
because of doping offenses. During the 2006 Winter Olympics, only one athlete
failed a drug test and had a medal revoked. The IOC-established drug testing
regimen (now known as the Olympic Standard) has set the worldwide benchmark
that other sporting federations around the world attempt to emulate.[142] During the Beijing
games, 3,667 athletes were tested by the IOC under the auspices of the World
Anti-Doping Agency. Both urine and blood tests were used to detect banned
substances. Several athletes were barred from competition by their National
Olympic Committees prior to the Games; only three athletes failed drug tests
while in competition in Beijing.[138][143]
Gender discrimination
Women athletes were
first allowed to compete at the 1900
Summer Olympics in Paris, but at the1992
Summer Olympics thirty-five countries
were still fielding all-male delegations.[144] This number dropped
rapidly over the following years. In 1996, Lita Fariman was the first woman
to compete forIran
at the Olympics,
in shooting.[145] In 2000, Bahrain sent two women
competitors for the first time:Fatema
Hameed Gerashi and Mariam Mohamed Hadi Al Hilli.[146] In 2004, Robina Muqim Yaar andFriba Razayee became the first
women to compete for Afghanistan at the
Olympics.[147] In 2008, theUnited Arab Emirates sent female athletes
(Maitha
Al Maktoum competed in
taekwondo, and Latifa Al Maktoum in equestrian) to the
Olympic Games for the first time. Both athletes were from Dubai's ruling family.[148]
By 2010 only three
countries had never sent female athletes to the Games: Brunei, Saudi Arabia andQatar. Brunei had taken
part in only three celebrations of the Games, sending a single athlete on each
occasion, but Saudi Arabia and Qatar had been competing regularly with all-male
teams. In 2010, the International Olympic Committee announced it would
"press" these countries to enable and facilitate the participation of
women for the 2012
Summer Games; Anita DeFrantz, chair of the IOC's
Women and Sports Commission, suggested that countries be barred if they
prevented women from competing. Shortly thereafter, the Qatar
Olympic Committee announced that it
"hoped to send up to four female athletes in shooting and fencing" to the 2012 Summer Games in
London. In Saudi Arabia, by contrast, national law explicitly prohibits women
from competing at the Olympics - the only country where this is the case.[149][150]
In 2008, Ali
Al-Ahmed, director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs, likewise called for Saudi
Arabia to be barred from the Games, describing its ban on women athletes as a
violation of the International Olympic Committee charter. He noted: "For
the last 15 years, many international nongovernmental organizations worldwide
have been trying to lobby the IOC for better enforcement of its own laws
banning gender discrimination. [...] While their efforts did result in
increasing numbers of women Olympians, the IOC has been reluctant to take a
strong position and threaten the discriminating countries with suspension or
expulsion."[144] In July 2010, The Independent reported:
"Pressure is growing on the International Olympic Committee to kick out
Saudi Arabia, who are likely to be the only major nation not to include women
in their Olympic team for 2012. [...] Should Saudi Arabia [...] send a
male-only team to London, we understand they will face protests from equal
rights and women's groups which threaten to disrupt the Games".[150]
The only sport on the
Olympic programme that features men and women competing together is the
equestrian disciplines. There is no "Women's Eventing", or 'Men's
Dressage'. As of 2008 there were still more medal events for men than women.
With the addition of women's boxing to the programme in the 2012
Summer Olympics,
however, female athletes will be able to compete in all the same sports as men.[151]
Violence
Three Olympiads had to pass without a
celebration of the Games because of war: the 1916
Games were cancelled because of World War I, and the summer and
winter games of 1940 and 1944 were cancelled because of World War II. The South Ossetia War betweenGeorgia and Russia
erupted on the
opening day of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Both President Bush and Prime Minister Putin were attending the
Olympics at that time and spoke together about the conflict at a luncheon
hosted by Chinese President Hu Jintao.[152] When Nino Salukvadze of Georgia won the
bronze medal in the 10 meter air pistol competition, she
stood on the medal podium with Natalia Paderina, a Russian shooter
who had won the silver. In what became a much-publicized event from the Beijing
Games, Salukvadze and Paderina embraced on the podium after the ceremony had
ended.[153]
Terrorism has had an impact on
the Olympic Games. In 1972, when the Summer
Games were held in Munich, Germany, eleven
members of the Israeli
Olympic team were taken hostage by
the terrorist group Black
September in what is now known
as the Munich massacre. The terrorists
killed two of the athletes soon after they had taken them hostage and killed
the other nine during a failed liberation attempt. A German police officer and
5 terrorists also perished.[154] During the Summer
Olympics in 1996 in Atlanta, United States, a bomb was detonated at the Centennial
Olympic Park,
which killed two and injured 111 others. The bomb was set by Eric
Robert Rudolph,
an American domestic terrorist, who is currently
serving a life sentence for the bombing.[155] Security at the
Olympic Games has been an increasing concern and focus for Olympic planners
since the terrorist attacks of September
11, 2001.[156]
Citizenship
IOC rules for citizenship
The Olympic Charter
requires that an athlete is a national of the country they compete for. Dual
nationals may compete for either country, as long as three years have passed
between when the competitor competed for his former country. However, if the
NOCs and IF involved agree, the IOC Executive Board may reduce or cancel this
period.[157] This waiting period
exists only for those who previously competed for one nation and want to
compete for another. If an athlete gains a new or second nationality, they do
not have to wait any designated amount of time before participating for the new
or second nation. The IOC is only concerned with issues of citizenship and
nationality after individual nations have granted citizenship to athletes.
Reasons for changing citizenship
Sometimes, athletes
become citizens of new nations solely for the purpose of competing in the
Olympics. This usually happens either because people are drawn to sponsorships
and training facilities in places like the United States or because an athlete
does not qualify in their original country. This is usually because there are
many qualified athletes in an athlete’s home country and they want to be able
to participate as well as help the team of their new country. Between 1992 and
2008, there were about fifty athletes that have immigrated to the United States
to compete on the US Olympic team after having previously competed for another
nation.[158] Recently teams from Bahrain and Qatar have been almost
exclusively made up of foreign-born athletes.
Citizenship changes and disputes
One of the most
famous cases of changing nationality for the Olympics was Zola Budd, a South African
runner who immigrated to the United Kingdom because there was an apartheid-era
ban on the Olympics in South Africa. Budd was eligible for British citizenship
because her grandfather was born there, but British citizens accused the
government of expediting the citizenship process for her.[159]
Other notable
examples include Kenyan runner Bernard Lagat who became a United
States citizen in May 2004. The Kenyan constitution requires that one renounce
their Kenyan citizenship when they become a citizen of another nation. Lagat
competed for Kenya in the 2004 Athens Olympics even though he had already
become a United States citizen. According to Kenya, he was no longer a Kenyan
citizen, leaving his silver medal in jeopardy. Lagat said he started the
citizenship process in late 2003 and did not expect to become an American
citizen until after the Athens games.[160] Basketball player Becky Hammon was not being
considered for the United States Olympic team but wanted to play in an Olympic
Games, so she immigrated to Russia where she already played in a domestic
league during the WNBA offseason. Hammon received criticism from Americans,
including the US national team coach, even being called unpatriotic.[161]
Champions and medalists
The athletes or teams
who place first, second, or third in each event receive medals. The winners
receive gold medals, which were solid gold until 1912, then made of gilded
silver and now gold-plated silver. Every gold medal however must contain at
least six grams of pure gold. In events contested by asingle-elimination tournament (most notably
boxing), third place might not be determined and both semifinal losers receive
bronze medals. At the 1896
Olympics only the first two
received a medal; silver for first and bronze for second. The current
three-medal format was introduced at the 1904
Olympics.[citation needed] From 1948 onward
athletes placing fourth, fifth, and sixth have received certificates, which
became officially known as victory diplomas; in 1984 victory diplomas for
seventh- and eighth-place finishers were added. At the 2004 Summer Olympics in
Athens, the gold, silver, and bronze medal winners were also given olive
wreaths.[163] The IOC does not keep
statistics of medals won, but National Olympic Committees and the media record
medal statistics as a measure of success.
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