1932 Japanese Olympian Vintage Original Photo Olympic Japan
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1932 JAPANESE OLYMPIAN VINTAGE ORIGINAL PHOTO OLYMPIC JAPAN. A VINTAGE ORIGINAL PHOTO MEASURING APPROXIMATELY 5 1/4 X 8 1/2 INCHES FEATURING JAPANESE OLYMPIC TRACK STARS LEFT - SHIDZUO TAKADA, SHOTPUTTER, RIGHT - MIKIO ODA, WORLD SOP-STEP AND JUMP CHAMPION, WINNER EVENT AT 1928 OLYMPIUC MEET Mikio Oda (織田 幹雄, Oda Mikio, March 30, 1905 – December 2, 1998) was a Japanese athlete and the first Japanese Olympic gold medalist. He was the first Asian Olympic champion in an individual event. Shizuo Takada (高田 静雄, Takada Shizuo, 5 March 1909 – 10 December 1963) was a Japanese athlete. He competed in the men's shot put at the 1936 Summer Olympics.[1] He later made a name for himself as a photographer.
Mikio Oda (織田 幹雄, Oda Mikio, March 30, 1905 – December 2, 1998) was a Japanese athlete and the first Japanese Olympic gold medalist. He was the first Asian Olympic champion in an individual event.[1][2] Biography Oda was born in Kaita, Hiroshima Prefecture. At the age of 17, he set a new Japanese record for the triple jump at the 1923 Far Eastern Championship Games held in Osaka, and also won the long jump and high jump events.[3] He was selected as a member of the Japanese Olympic team for the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, participating in all three events. However, he failed to reach the semifinals in the long jump and high jump, and placed sixth in the triple jump competition.[1] On his return to Japan, he enrolled at Waseda University, but returned to compete in the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. Although he again did not reach the semifinals in the long jump and high jump, he won the triple jump event with a result of 15.21 meters, becoming the first Japanese athlete to win an Olympic gold medal.[1] In 1931, Oda graduated from Waseda University and was employed by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. On October 27 of the same year, he established a new world record for the triple jump of 15.58 meters. Oda served as coach and captain of the Japanese athletics team at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.[1] Upon retirement from competitive athletics, he focused his efforts on sports administration, becoming a member of the Japanese Olympic Committee in 1948 and later taking part in the IAAF's technical committee. He also served as coach for the Japanese athletics team at the 1952 Summer Olympics at Helsinki and the 1954 Asian Games in Manila.[1] During the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, the Olympic flag was raised to a height of exactly 15.21 meters, to pay respect to Oda's achievement 36 years earlier. Oda field, a 400-meter running track in Yoyogi built for the 1964 Olympics, was named after Oda.[4] His sporting achievements were recognized with the creation of the Mikio Oda Memorial International Amateur Athletic Game, an annual track and field competition that has been held since 1967.[2] He became a professor at Waseda University from 1965. In 1976, Oda was awarded the Olympic Order, the highest award of the Olympic Movement. In 1988, Oda was honored by the government as a Person of Cultural Merit, and in 1989, he was named honorary chairman of the Japan Association of Athletics Federations. In the final years of his life, Oda moved from his home at Aburatsubo in Yokosuka, Kanagawa to a nursing home in Kugenuma (Fujisawa, Kanagawa). His grave is at the Buddhist temple of Tokei-ji in Kamakura. In 2000, Oda was posthumously chosen as the best Asian male athlete of the century by a panel of track and field experts. MIKIO ODA OF HIROSHIMA PREFECTURE IN JAPAN PLACED SIXTH IN THE TRIPLE JUMP AT THE 1924 OLYMPIC GAMES IN PARIS. 15.58 METRES Four years later, at the Olympic Games in Amsterdam, Oda edged Levi Casey of the United States by four centimetres to win the gold medal and become Asia's first Olympic champion in an individual event. He also competed in the long jump in both 1924 and 1928, and in 1928 he placed ninth in the high jump. In 1931, while still a student at Waseda University, Oda triple-jumped 15.58 metres to set a world record. 15.21 METRES When the Olympic Games were held in Tokyo in 1964, the Olympic flag was raised to a height of 15.21 metres to honour Oda's winning Olympic jump of 36 years earlier. Oda died 2 December 1998 at the age of 93. In 2000, a panel of track and field experts voted him the Male Asian Athlete of the Century. Few paid much attention when Mikio Oda won Japan’s first Olympic gold medal — and Asia’s first individual gold medal — way back at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics. There was no podium ceremony. That protocol was introduced in 1932 at the Winter Games in Lake Placid and the Summer Games in Los Angeles. The medals prior to this were handed over at the end of the games, in this case by Dutch Queen Wilhelmina. Oda missed out. He’d already left for Paris to compete in another international meet. Such was the stature of the Olympics back then. They did have a flag-raising ceremony when he won the triple jump, known then as the “hop, skip and jump” or “hop, step and jump.” Only one problem: officials, it seems, didn’t have a Japanese flag. ADVERTISEMENT The flag that went up was brought to the Netherlands by the Japanese delegation that included members from Waseda University, where Oda was a student. Few expected a Japanese victory. And there wasn’t much fuss back home. “My father was from Hiroshima, so there was a celebration in his hometown upon his return,” his 83-year-old son Kazuo Oda told The Associated Press in an interview. “But as there were no media possibilities like today, his achievements were not known by everybody in Japan.” Oda’s life and triumphs are preserved in a yellowed family album, captured perfectly by a tiny snapshot that Kazuo Oda cradled in his palms that shows his father in mid-air flight in the triple jump almost a century ago. “My father was very quiet and almost shy about telling about his achievements,” Kazuo Oda said. “So when he was in his prime as an athlete, his achievements were not known to everybody like they could have been today.” Mikio Oda was famous when he died at 93 in 1998 and was selected posthumously as the best Asian athlete of the century. The distance of his winning jump — 15.21 meters (49.9 feet) — is etched in stone outside the new headquarters of the Japanese Olympic Committee. He also once held the world record of 15.58 meters (51.11 ft.) and placed sixth in the 1924 Olympics in Paris. He was also a journalist, a promoter of Olympic sport, and Japan’s track and field coach for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. He was among the favorites to light the cauldron at the ’64 games. But that honor went to the-late Yoshinori Sakai, who was born in Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, the day the U.S. bomber Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb on the city. The era in which Oda competed — he got to Amsterdam via a two-week train ride across Siberia in which he complained about the food — puts next year’s Tokyo Olympics into sharp relief, where at least $20 billion is being spent to ready the city. Or the ambitious 1964 Tokyo Olympics, which signaled Japan’s recovery 19 years after the end of World War II. The early games focused almost entirely on Europe, the Americas, and some outposts of the old British Empire. Though Oda won the first individual gold medal for Asia, the first team gold medal went to the field hockey team from British India — also in 1928. That win came several months before Oda’s at a time when the games were spread out over many months. “I would vote for either Rome 1960 or Tokyo 1964 as when the Olympic became a show for the entire world and not just the West,” Bill Mallon, past-president and co-founder of the International Society of Olympic Historians, told AP. Mallon, who helped dig up the research on podiums and early medal ceremonies, credited the Olympics’ rise to television. Rome was the first to offer international TV coverage and Tokyo expanded the coverage via early satellites. Tokyo was officially designated by the IOC to hold the Olympics in 1940. But Japan withdrew in mid-1938, citing the war in China as the reason. Helsinki stepped in, but those games were eventually cancelled. Kazuo Oda, who worked in the international trading business, recalled a trip to China in which a university dean said he recognized the Oda family name. “I told him it was my father,” Kazuo Oda recalled. “He then said how proud and happy he felt about my father winning the gold medal as the first person from Asia, saying that people from Asia at that time were still often subjected to racial discrimination.” Kazuo Oda said his father was genuinely cosmopolitan; “a fan of the Burberry raincoat” who regularly bought overseas books and newspapers to keep up. “I found so many dictionaries, such as one in Swedish in my father’s study,” Kazuo said. “I was wondering why he had such dictionaries but later I found that he was reading newspapers from all over the world including those from Sweden or Spain so that he could check the world sport trends and the details of the athletes.” He said his father even rented a cafe across from the ’64 Olympic Village, a meeting place where coaches and athletes from all countries could chat and hang out. It took Japan two decades to rebuild after the war, but Mikio Oda recognized the psychological damage lingered. “When Japanese athletes were faced with the strong (foreign) athletes, they could be easily intimidated,” Kazuo said. “That’s what vexed my father so much. Even if the (Japanese) athletes had capabilities, when they heard their competitors’ names they were prone to become hesitant. Japan was still in that phase at that time. Even by 1964, Japanese people still held on to the belief that Japanese could not beat the athletes from overseas.” That’s changed. Japan has an ambitious goal of winning 30 gold medals next year, almost twice its best previous total of 16. That would probably put it among the top five, competing squarely with far more populous countries like China and the United States. “He would have been happy if he had seen Tokyo hosting the second Summer Olympics,” Kazuo said. “But he was such an old-school person and only knew the time when sports were largely amateur. He did not live to see when the boundary between amateurism and professionalism in sports is ambiguous. I doubt that he would have liked it.” ___ Shizuo Takada (高田 静雄, Takada Shizuo, 5 March 1909 – 10 December 1963) was a Japanese athlete. He competed in the men's shot put at the 1936 Summer Olympics.[1] He later made a name for himself as a photographer.[2] The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (French: Jeux olympiques)[a][1] are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games are considered the world's foremost sports competition with more than 200 nations participating.[2] The Olympic Games are normally held every four years, alternating between the Summer and Winter Olympics every two years in the four-year period. Their creation was inspired by the ancient Olympic Games (Ancient Greek: Ὀλυμπιακοί Ἀγῶνες), 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, leading to the first modern Games in Athens in 1896. The IOC is the governing body of the Olympic Movement,[definition needed] with the Olympic Charter defining its structure and authority. The Olympic Movement consists of international sports federations (IFs), National Olympic Committees (NOCs), and organising committees for each specific Olympic Games. As the decision-making body, the IOC is responsible for choosing the host city for each Games, and organises and funds the Games according to the Olympic Charter. The IOC also determines the Olympic programme, consisting of the sports to be contested at the Games. There are several Olympic rituals and symbols, such as the Olympic flag and torch, as well as the opening and closing ceremonies. Over 14,000 athletes competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics and 2018 Winter Olympics combined, in 35 different sports and over 400 events.[4][5] The first, second, and third-place finishers in each event receive Olympic medals: gold, silver, and bronze, respectively. The Games have grown so much that nearly every nation is now represented; colonies and overseas territories are allowed to field their own teams. This growth has created numerous challenges and controversies, including boycotts, doping, bribery, and terrorism. Every two years the Olympics and its media exposure provide athletes with the chance to attain national and sometimes international fame. The Games also provide an opportunity for the host city and country to showcase themselves to the world. Contents 1 Ancient Olympics 2 Modern Games 2.1 Forerunners 2.2 Revival 2.3 1896 Games 2.4 Changes and adaptations 2.5 21st-century Games 2.6 Cost of the Games 2.7 Economic and social impact on host cities and countries 3 International Olympic Committee 3.1 Criticism 4 Commercialisation 4.1 Under national organising committees 4.2 Under IOC control 4.3 Budget 4.4 Effect of television 4.5 Olympic marketing 5 Symbols 6 Ceremonies 6.1 Opening ceremony 6.2 Closing ceremony 6.3 Medal presentation 7 Sports 7.1 Amateurism and professionalism 8 Controversies 8.1 Boycotts 8.2 Politics 8.3 Use of performance-enhancing drugs 8.4 Sex discrimination 8.5 War and terrorism 9 Citizenship 9.1 IOC rules for citizenship 9.2 Reasons for changing citizenship 9.3 Citizenship changes and disputes 10 Champions and medallists 11 Nations 11.1 Nations at the Summer Olympics 11.2 Nations at the Winter Olympics 11.3 Host nations and cities 12 See also 13 Notes 14 References 15 Sources 16 Further reading 17 External links Ancient Olympics Main article: Ancient Olympic Games Stadium in Olympia, Greece The Ancient Olympic Games were religious and athletic festivals held every four years at the sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia, Greece. Competition was among representatives of several city-states and kingdoms of Ancient Greece. These Games featured mainly athletic but also combat sports such as wrestling and the pankration, horse and chariot racing events. It has been widely written that during the Games, all conflicts among the participating city-states were postponed until the Games were finished. This cessation of hostilities was known as the Olympic peace or truce.[6] This idea is a modern myth because the Greeks never suspended their wars. The truce did allow those religious pilgrims who were travelling to Olympia to pass through warring territories unmolested because they were protected by Zeus.[7] The origin of the Olympics is shrouded in mystery and legend;[8] one of the most popular myths identifies Heracles and his father Zeus as the progenitors of the Games.[9][10][11] According to legend, it was Heracles who first called the Games "Olympic" and established the custom of holding them every four years.[12] The myth continues that after Heracles completed his twelve labours, he built the Olympic Stadium as an honour to Zeus. Following its completion, he walked in a straight line for 200 steps and called this distance a "stadion" (Ancient Greek: στάδιον, Latin: stadium, "stage"), which later became a unit of distance. The most widely accepted inception date for the Ancient Olympics is 776 BC; this is based on inscriptions, found at Olympia, listing the winners of a footrace held every four years starting in 776 BC.[13] 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.[14][15] Tradition has it that Coroebus, a cook from the city of Elis, was the first Olympic champion.[16] The Olympics were of fundamental religious importance, featuring sporting events alongside ritual sacrifices honouring both Zeus (whose famous 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.[17] The winners of the events were admired and immortalised in poems and statues.[18] 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, the Nemean Games, and the Isthmian Games.[19] The Olympic Games reached the height of their success in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, but then gradually declined in importance as the Romans gained power and influence in Greece. While there is no scholarly consensus as to when the Games officially ended, the most commonly held date is 393 AD, when the emperor Theodosius I decreed that all pagan cults and practices be eliminated.[b] Another date commonly cited is 426 AD, when his successor, Theodosius II, ordered the destruction of all Greek temples.[21] Modern Games See also: List of Olympic Games host cities Forerunners Baron Pierre de Coubertin Various uses of the term "Olympic" to describe athletic events in the modern era have been documented since the 17th century. The first such event was the Cotswold Games or "Cotswold Olimpick Games", an annual meeting near Chipping Campden, England, involving various sports. It was first organised by the lawyer Robert Dover between 1612 and 1642, with several later celebrations leading up to the present day. The British Olympic Association, in its bid for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, mentioned these games as "the first stirrings of Britain's Olympic beginnings".[22] L'Olympiade de la République, a national Olympic festival held annually from 1796 to 1798 in Revolutionary France also attempted to emulate the ancient Olympic Games.[23] The competition included several disciplines from the ancient Greek Olympics. The 1796 Games also marked the introduction of the metric system into sport.[23] 1834 Handbill, written in phonetic vernacular, advertising "Ho-limpyc Gaymes" in Oswestry, Shropshire, England In 1834 and 1836, Olympic games were held in Ramlösa [sv] (Olympiska spelen i Ramlösa), and an additional in Stockholm, Sweden in 1843, all organised by Gustaf Johan Schartau and others. At most 25,000 spectators saw the games.[24] In 1850, an Olympian Class was started by William Penny Brookes at Much Wenlock, in Shropshire, England. In 1859, Brookes changed the name to the Wenlock Olympian Games. This annual sports festival continues to this day.[25] The Wenlock Olympian Society was founded by Brookes on 15 November 1860.[26] Between 1862 and 1867, Liverpool held an annual Grand Olympic Festival. Devised by John Hulley and Charles Melly, these games were the first to be wholly amateur in nature and international in outlook, although only 'gentlemen amateurs' could compete.[27][28] The programme of the first modern Olympiad in Athens in 1896 was almost identical to that of the Liverpool Olympics.[29] In 1865 Hulley, 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.[30] In 1866, a national Olympic Games in Great Britain was organised at London's Crystal Palace.[31] Revival Evangelos Zappas Greek interest in reviving the Olympic Games began with the Greek War of Independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1821. It was first proposed by poet and newspaper editor Panagiotis Soutsos in his poem "Dialogue of the Dead", published in 1833.[32] Evangelos 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.[33] 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.[33] The stadium hosted Olympics in 1870 and 1875.[34] Thirty thousand spectators attended that Games in 1870, though no official attendance records are available for the 1875 Games.[35] 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).[36] 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.[36] He presented these ideas during the first Olympic Congress of the newly created International Olympic Committee. This meeting was held from 16 to 23 June 1894, at the University of 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.[37] The IOC elected the Greek writer Demetrius Vikelas as its first president.[38] 1896 Games Main article: 1896 Summer Olympics Opening ceremony in the Panathinaiko Stadium, 6 April 1896 The first Games held under the auspices of the IOC was hosted in the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens in 1896. The Games brought together 14 nations and 241 athletes who competed in 43 events.[39] 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.[40][41][42] George Averoff contributed generously for the refurbishment of the stadium in preparation for the Games.[43] The Greek government also provided funding, which was expected to be recouped through the sale of tickets and from the sale of the first Olympic commemorative stamp set.[43] Greek officials and the public were enthusiastic about the experience of hosting an Olympic Games. This feeling was shared by many of the athletes, who even demanded that Athens be the permanent Olympic host city. The IOC intended for subsequent Games to be rotated to various host cities around the world. The second Olympics was held in Paris.[44] Changes and adaptations Main article: Summer Olympic Games Francis Field of Washington University in St. Louis during the 1904 Summer Olympics After the success of the 1896 Games, the Olympics entered a period of stagnation which threatened its survival. The Olympic Games held at the Paris Exposition in 1900 and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis in 1904 failed to attract much participation or notice. Of the 650 athletes in the 1904 Olympics, 580 were American; the winner of the marathon was later disqualified upon discovery of a photograph of him riding in a car during the race.[45] The Games rebounded with the 1906 Intercalated Games (so-called because they were the second Olympics to take place within the third Olympiad), which were held in Athens. These Games attracted a broad international field of participants and generated a great deal of public interest, marking the beginning of a rise in both the popularity and the size of the Olympics. The 1906 Games were officially recognised by the IOC at the time (although not any longer), and no Intercalated Games have been held since.[46] Winter Games Main article: Winter Olympic Games Ice hockey game during the 1928 Winter Olympics at St. Moritz The Winter Olympics was 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 in 1924 in Chamonix, France, in connection with the Paris Games held three months later; this event became the first Winter Olympic Games.[47] Although it was intended that the same country host both the Winter and Summer Games in a given year, this idea was quickly abandoned. The IOC mandated that the Winter Games be celebrated every four years in the same year as their summer counterpart.[48] This tradition was upheld through the 1992 Games in Albertville, France; after that, beginning with the 1994 Games, the Winter Olympics were held every four years, two years after each Summer Olympics.[49] Paralympics Main article: Paralympic Games 1964 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo In 1948, Sir Ludwig Guttmann, determined to promote the rehabilitation of soldiers after World War II, organised a multi-sport event between several hospitals to coincide with the 1948 London Olympics. Originally known as the Stoke Mandeville Games, Guttmann's event became an annual sports festival. Over the next 12 years, Guttmann and others continued their efforts to use sports as an avenue to healing. In 1960, Guttmann brought 400 athletes to Rome to compete in the "Parallel Olympics", which ran in parallel with the Summer Olympics and came to be known as the first Paralympics. Since then, the Paralympics have been held in every Olympic year and, starting with the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul, the host city for the Olympics has also played host to the Paralympics.[50][c] The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) signed an agreement in 2001 which guaranteed that host cities would be contracted to manage both the Olympic and Paralympic Games.[52][53] The agreement came into effect at the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, and at the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver. Two years before the 2012 Games, the LOCOG chairman Lord Coe made the following statement about the Paralympics and Olympics in London:[54] 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. Youth Games Main article: Youth Olympic Games In 2010, the Olympic Games were complemented by the Youth Games, which give 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.[55][56] The first Summer Youth Games were held in Singapore from 14 to 26 August 2010, while the inaugural Winter Games were hosted in Innsbruck, Austria, two years later.[57] These Games will be shorter than the senior Games; the summer version will last twelve days, while the winter version will last nine days.[58] 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.[59][60] 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.[61] 21st-century Games The Summer Olympics have grown from 241 participants representing 14 nations in 1896, to more than 11,200 competitors representing 207 nations in 2016.[62] The scope and scale of the Winter Olympics is smaller; for example, Pyeongchang hosted 2,922 athletes from 92 nations in 2018. Most of the athletes and officials are housed in the Olympic Village for the duration of the Games. This accommodation centre is designed to be a self-contained home for all Olympic participants, and is furnished with cafeterias, health clinics, and locations for religious expression.[63] The IOC has allowed the formation of National Olympic Committees (NOCs) to represent individual nations. These do not meet the strict requirements for political sovereignty that other international organisations demand. As a result, colonies and dependencies are permitted to compete at Olympic Games, examples being territories such as Puerto Rico, Bermuda, and Hong Kong, all of which compete as separate nations despite being legally a part of another country.[64] The current version of the Olympic Charter allows for the establishment of new NOCs to represent nations that qualify as "an independent State recognised by the international community".[65] Consequently, the IOC did not allow the formation of NOCs for Sint Maarten and Curaçao when they gained the same constitutional status as Aruba in 2010, although the IOC had recognised the Aruban Olympic Committee in 1986.[66][67] Since 2012, athletes from the former Netherlands Antilles have had the option to represent either the Netherlands or Aruba.[68] Cost of the Games See also: Cost of the Olympic Games The Oxford Olympics Study 2016 found that, since 1960, sports-related costs for the Summer Games were on average US$5.2 billion and for the Winter Games $3.1 billion. These figures do not include wider infrastructure costs like roads, urban rail, and airports, which often cost as much or more than the sports-related costs. The most expensive Summer Games were Beijing 2008 at US$40–44 billion,[69] and the most expensive Winter Games were Sochi 2014 at US$51 billion.[70][71] As of 2016, costs per athlete were, on average, US$599,000 for the Summer Games and $1.3 million for the Winter Games; for London 2012, the cost per athlete was $1.4 million, and the figure was $7.9 million for Sochi 2014.[71] Where ambitious construction for the 1976 Games in Montreal and the 1980 Games in Moscow had burdened organisers with expenses greatly in excess of revenues, Los Angeles strictly controlled expenses for the 1984 Games by using existing facilities that were paid for by corporate sponsors. The Olympic Committee led by Peter Ueberroth used some of the profits to endow the LA84 Foundation to promote youth sports in Southern California, educate coaches and maintain a sports library. The 1984 Summer Olympics are often considered the most financially successful modern Olympics and a model for future Games.[72] Budget overruns are common for the Games. Average overrun for Games since 1960 is 156% in real terms,[73] which means that actual costs turned out to be on average 2.56 times the budget that was estimated at the time of winning the bid to host the Games. Montreal 1976 had the highest cost overrun for Summer Games, and for any Games, at 720%; Lake Placid 1980 had the highest cost overrun for Winter Games, at 324%. London 2012 had a cost overrun of 76%, Sochi 2014 of 289%.[71] It has been documented that cost and cost overrun for the Games follow a power-law distribution, which means that, first, the Games are prone to large cost overruns and, second, it is only a matter of time until an overrun occurs that is larger than the largest to date. In short, hosting the Games is economically and financially extremely risky.[74] Economic and social impact on host cities and countries This section has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This section contains weasel words: vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information. (May 2021) This section relies too much on references to primary sources. (May 2021) Many economists[who?] are sceptical about the economic benefits of hosting the Olympic Games, emphasising that such "mega-events" often have large costs while yielding relatively few tangible benefits in the long run.[75] Conversely hosting (or even bidding for) the Olympics appears to increase the host country's exports, as the host or candidate country sends a signal about trade openness when bidding to host the Games.[76] Moreover, research suggests that hosting the Summer Olympics has a strong positive effect on the philanthropic contributions of corporations headquartered in the host city, which seems to benefit the local nonprofit sector. This positive effect begins in the years leading up to the Games and might persist for several years afterwards, although not permanently. This finding suggests that hosting the Olympics might create opportunities for cities to influence local corporations in ways that benefit the local nonprofit sector and civil society.[77] The Games have also had significant negative effects on host communities; for example, the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions reports that the Olympics displaced more than two million people over two decades, often disproportionately affecting disadvantaged groups.[78] The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi were the most expensive Olympic Games in history, costing in excess of US$50 billion. According to a report by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development that was released at the time of the games, this cost will not boost Russia's national economy, but may attract business to Sochi and the southern Krasnodar region of Russia in the future as a result of improved services.[79] But by December 2014, The Guardian stated that Sochi "now feels like a ghost town", citing the spread-out nature of the stadiums and arenas, the still-unfinished construction, and the overall effects of Russia's political and economic turmoil.[80] Furthermore, at least four cities withdrew their bids for the 2022 Winter Olympics, citing the high costs or the lack of local support,[81] resulting in only a two-city race between Almaty, Kazakhstan and Beijing, China. Thus in July 2016, The Guardian stated that the biggest threat to the future of the Olympics is that very few cities want to host them.[82] Bidding for the 2024 Summer Olympics also became a two-city race between Paris and Los Angeles, so the IOC took the unusual step of simultaneously awarding both the 2024 Games to Paris and the 2028 Games to Los Angeles. Both the bids were praised for planning to use a record-breaking number of existing and temporary facilities.[83] International Olympic Committee See also: International Olympic Committee The Olympic Movement encompasses a large number of national and international sporting organisations and federations, recognised media partners, as well as athletes, officials, judges, and every other person and institution that agrees to abide by the rules of the Olympic Charter.[84] As the umbrella organisation of the Olympic Movement, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is responsible for selecting the host city, overseeing the planning of the Olympic Games, updating and approving the Olympic sports programme, and negotiating sponsorship and broadcasting rights.[85] 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 association football, and the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball is the international governing body for volleyball. There are currently 35 IFs in the Olympic Movement, representing each of the Olympic sports.[86] National Olympic Committees (NOCs) represent and regulate the Olympic Movement within each country. For example, the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) is the NOC of the Russian Federation. There are currently 206 NOCs recognised by the IOC.[87][88] Organising Committees for the Olympic Games (OCOGs) are temporary committees responsible for the organisation of each Olympic Games. OCOGs are dissolved after each Games once the final report is delivered to the IOC.[89] 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 (or languages, if a country has more than one official language apart from French or English). Every proclamation (such as the announcement of each country during the parade of nations in the opening ceremony) is spoken in these three (or more) languages, or the main two depending on whether the host country is an English or French speaking country: French is always spoken first, followed by an English translation, and then the dominant language of the host nation (when this is not English or French).[90] Criticism The IOC has often been accused of being an intractable organisation, with several life members on the committee. The presidential terms of Avery Brundage and Juan Antonio Samaranch were especially controversial. Brundage fought strongly for amateurism and against the commercialisation of the Olympic Games, even as these attitudes came to be seen as incongruous with the realities of modern sports. The advent of state-sponsored athletes from the Eastern Bloc countries further eroded the ideology of the pure amateur, as it placed self-financed amateurs of Western countries at a disadvantage.[91] Brundage was accused of racism—for resisting the exclusion of apartheid South Africa—and antisemitism.[92] Under the Samaranch presidency, the office was accused of both nepotism and corruption.[93] Samaranch's ties with the Franco regime in Spain were also a source of criticism.[94] In 1998, it was reported that several IOC members had taken gifts from members of the Salt Lake City bid committee for the hosting of the 2002 Winter Olympics. There were soon four independent investigations underway: by the IOC, the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), the Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC), and the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). Although nothing strictly illegal had occurred, it was felt that the acceptance of the gifts was morally dubious. As a result of the investigation, ten members of the IOC were expelled and a further ten sanctioned.[95] Stricter rules were adopted for future bids, and caps were introduced to define how much IOC members could accept from bid cities. Additionally, new term and age limits were put into place for IOC membership, and fifteen former Olympic athletes were added to the committee. Nevertheless, from sporting and business standpoints, the 2002 Olympics were one of the most successful Winter Games in history; records were set in both the broadcasting and marketing programs. Over 2 billion viewers watched more than 13 billion viewer-hours.[96] The 2002 Games were also a financial success, raising more money with fewer sponsors than any prior Olympic Games, leaving SLOC with a surplus of $40 million. This excess revenue was used to create the Utah Athletic Foundation (also known as the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation), which maintains and operates many of the surviving Olympic venues.[96] It was reported in 1999 that the Nagano Olympic bid committee had spent approximately $14 million on entertaining the 62 IOC members and many of their associates. The precise figures are unknown since Nagano destroyed the financial records after the IOC requested that the entertainment expenditures should not be made public.[97][98] A BBC documentary entitled Panorama: Buying the Games, which aired in August 2004, investigated the taking of bribes in the bidding process for the 2012 Summer Olympics.[99] The documentary claimed that it was possible to bribe IOC members into voting for a particular candidate city. After being narrowly defeated in their bid for the 2012 Games,[100] 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 concerning his involvement[101] but the allegation was never fully explored. Turin's 2006 Winter Olympic bid was also clouded by controversy. A prominent IOC member, Marc Hodler, closely connected to the rival bid of Sion, alleged bribery of IOC officials by members of the Turin Organising Committee. These accusations led to a wide-ranging investigation, and also served to sour many IOC members against Sion's bid which potentially helped Turin to capture the host city nomination.[102] The continued refusal by the IOC to hold a moment of silence at the opening ceremony for the eleven Israeli athletes killed by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics was criticised by the victims' families and Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League and B'nai B'rith International.[103][104] Ultimately, such a remembrance was held at the opening ceremony of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.[105] In April 2018, Norwegian track and field athletics manager Håkon Lutdal argued for abolishing the Olympic Games, arguing against the concept of gathering many sports in a single town, city or region no matter how popular or unpopular those sports are there. Instead, he argued for elevating the status of various world championships in different sports, usually at locations attracting more interested spectators.[106] In 2020, a group of Oxford University scholars documented high costs and cost overruns for the Games and criticised the IOC for not taking enough responsibility for controlling increasing costs.[74] The IOC criticised the study and the Oxford scholars countered the criticism, point by point, in an open letter to IOC President Thomas Bach.[107] Commercialisation Under national organising committees The Olympic Games have been commercialised to various degrees since the inaugural 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens, when a number of companies paid for advertising,[108] including Kodak.[109][110] In 1908, Oxo, Odol [de] mouthwash, and Indian Foot Powder became official sponsors of the London Olympic Games.[111][112][113] Coca-Cola first sponsored the Summer Olympics in 1928, and has remained an Olympic sponsor ever since.[108] Before the IOC took control of sponsorship, the NOCs had responsibility for negotiating their own contracts for sponsorship and use of the Olympic symbols.[114] Under IOC control 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.[114] 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.[115] Budget During the first half of the 20th century, the IOC ran on a small budget.[115][116] As president of the IOC from 1952 to 1972, Avery Brundage rejected all attempts to link the Olympics with commercial interest.[114] Brundage believed the lobby of corporate interests would unduly impact the IOC's decision-making.[114] Brundage's resistance to this revenue stream meant the IOC left organising committees to negotiate their own sponsorship contracts and use the Olympic symbols.[114] When Brundage retired the IOC had US$2 million in assets; eight years later the IOC coffers had swelled to US$45 million.[114] This was primarily due to a shift in ideology toward expansion of the Games through corporate sponsorship and the sale of television rights.[114] When Juan Antonio Samaranch was elected IOC president in 1980 his desire was to make the IOC financially independent.[116] The 1984 Summer Olympics became a watershed moment in Olympic history. The Los Angeles-based organising committee, led by Peter Ueberroth, was able to generate a surplus of US$225 million, which was an unprecedented amount at that time.[117] The organising committee had been able to create such a surplus in part by selling exclusive sponsorship rights to select companies.[117] The IOC sought to gain control of these sponsorship rights. Samaranch helped to establish The Olympic Programme (TOP) in 1985, in order to create an Olympic brand.[115] Membership in TOP was, and is, very exclusive and expensive. Fees cost US$50 million for a four-year membership.[116] 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.[118] Effect of television A cartoon from the 1936 Olympics imagines the year 2000 when spectators will have been replaced by television and radio, their cheers coming from loudspeakers. The 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin were the first Games to be broadcast on television, though only to local audiences.[119] The 1956 Winter Olympics in Italy were the first internationally televised Olympic Games,[120] and the broadcasting rights for the following Winter Games in California were sold for the first time to specialised television broadcasting networks—CBS paid US$394,000 for the American rights.[121][115] In the following decades, the Olympics became one of the ideological fronts of the Cold War, and the International Olympic Committee wanted to take advantage of this heightened interest via the broadcast medium.[121] The sale of broadcast rights enabled the IOC to increase the exposure of the Olympic Games, thereby generating more interest, which in turn enhanced the appeal of TV air time to the advertisers. This cycle allowed the IOC to charge ever-increasing fees for those rights.[121] For example, CBS paid US$375 million for the American broadcast rights for the 1998 Nagano Games,[122] while NBC spent US$3.5 billion for the American rights to air every Olympic Games from 2000 to 2012.[115] In 2011, NBC agreed to a $4.38 billion contract with the IOC to broadcast the Olympics through the 2020 Games, the most expensive television rights deal in Olympic history.[123] NBC then agreed to a $7.75 billion contract extension on 7 May 2014, to air the Olympics through the 2032 Games.[124] NBC also acquired the American television rights to the Youth Olympic Games, beginning in 2014,[125] and the Paralympic Games.[126] More than half of the Olympic Committee's global sponsors are American companies,[127] and NBC is one of the major sources of revenue for the IOC.[127] Viewership increased exponentially from the 1960s until the end of the 20th century. This was due to the advent of satellites for broadcasting live television worldwide starting in 1964, and the introduction of colour television in 1968.[128] The global audience for the 1968 Mexico City Games was estimated to be 600 million, whereas the audience numbers at the Los Angeles Games of 1984 had increased to 900 million; this number had swelled to 3.5 billion by the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.[129][130][131][132][133] 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. The IOC responded by making a number of changes to the Olympic programme; at the Summer Games, the gymnastics competition was expanded from seven to nine nights, and a Champions Gala was added to attract greater interest;[134] the events programmes were also expanded for swimming and diving, both popular sports with a broad base of television viewers.[134] Due to the substantial fees NBC has paid for rights to the Olympics, the IOC has allowed the network to influence the event scheduling to maximise U.S. television ratings when possible.[135][132][136][137] Notable examples of maximizing U.S. television viewership include scheduling the finals of the swimming events only during the mornings of the host cities Beijing (during the 2008 Summer Olympics) and Tokyo (during the 2020 Summer Olympics), which coincide with the evening prime time broadcast slots of the United States.[138][139][140][141][142] Olympic marketing The sale of the Olympic brand has been controversial. The argument is that the Games have become indistinguishable from any other commercialised sporting spectacle.[118][143][143] 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.[118] 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.[144] Research has shown that trade is around 30 percent higher for countries that have hosted the Olympics.[145] Symbols Main article: Olympic symbols The Olympic flag 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 (Africa, The Americas (is considered one continent), Asia, Europe, and Oceania). The coloured version of the rings—blue, yellow, black, green, and red—over a white field forms the Olympic flag. These colours 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.[146][147] The Olympic motto, Citius, Altius, Fortius, a Latin expression meaning "Faster, Higher, Stronger" was proposed by Pierre de Coubertin in 1894 and has been official since 1924. The motto was coined by Coubertin's friend, the Dominican priest Henri Didon OP, for a Paris youth gathering of 1891.[148] Coubertin's Olympic ideals are 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.[146] Months before each Games, the Olympic Flame is lit at the Temple of Hera in Olympia in a ceremony that reflects ancient Greek rituals. A female performer, acting as a priestess joined by ten female performers as Vestal Virgins, 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 (who also is a Greek athlete), 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.[149] Though the flame has been an Olympic symbol since 1928, the torch relay was only introduced at the 1936 Summer Games to promote the Third Reich.[146][150] 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 of the Games' identity promotion since the 1980 Summer Olympics, when the Soviet bear cub Misha reached international stardom. The mascot of the Summer Olympics in London was named Wenlock after the town of Much Wenlock in Shropshire. Much Wenlock still hosts the Wenlock Olympian Games, which were an inspiration to Pierre de Coubertin for the Olympic Games.[151] Ceremonies Main article: Olympic Games ceremony Opening ceremony Opening ceremony of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo As mandated by the Olympic Charter, various elements frame the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. This ceremony takes place on a Friday and is held prior to the commencement of the sporting events (apart from some group-stage football matches, softball games, and rowing heats).[152][153] Most of the rituals for the opening ceremony were established at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp.[154] The ceremony typically starts with the entrance of the president of the International Olympic Committee and a representative of the host country followed by the hoisting of the host country's flag and a performance of its national anthem.[152][153] The host nation then presents artistic displays of music, singing, dance, and theatre representative of its culture.[154] 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.[155] After the artistic portion of the ceremony, the athletes parade into the stadium grouped by nation. Greece is traditionally the first nation to enter and leads the parade in order to honour 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. Beginning with the 2020 Summer Olympics, the succeeding hosts of the respective Olympic Games (summer or winter) will enter immediately before the current host in descending order. Speeches are given by the President of the Organizing Committee, the IOC president, and the head of state/representative of the host country, 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 successful Olympic athlete from the host nation, who lights the Olympic flame in the stadium's cauldron.[152][153] Closing ceremony Athletes gather in the stadium during the closing ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. The closing ceremony of the Olympic Games takes place on a Sunday and 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.[156] Three national flags are hoisted while the corresponding national anthems are played: the flag of the current host country; the flag of Greece, to honour the birthplace of the Olympic Games; and the flag of the country hosting the next Summer or Winter Olympic Games.[156] The president of the organising committee and the IOC president make their closing speeches, the Games are officially closed, and the Olympic flame is extinguished.[157] In what is known as the Antwerp Ceremony, the current mayor of the city that organised the Games transfers a special Olympic flag to the president of the IOC, who then passes it on to the current mayor of the city hosting the next Olympic Games.[158] The next host nation then also briefly introduces itself with artistic displays of dance and theatre representative of its culture.[156] As is customary, the last medal presentation of the Games is held as part of the closing ceremony. Typically, the marathon medals are presented at the Summer Olympics,[156][159] while the cross-country skiing mass start medals are awarded at the Winter Olympics.[160] Medal presentation A medal ceremony at the 2008 Summer Olympics with (from left to right): the Danish flag, the Union Flag of the UK, and the New Zealand flag A medal ceremony is held after the conclusion of each Olympic event. The winner, and the second- and third-place competitors or teams, stand on top of a three-tiered rostrum to be awarded their respective medals by a member of the IOC.[161] After the medals have been received, the national flags of the three medallists are raised while the national anthem of the gold medallist's country is played.[162] Volunteering citizens of the host country also act as hosts during the medal ceremonies, assisting the officials who present the medals and acting as flag-bearers.[163] In the Summer Olympics, each medal ceremony is held at the venue where the event has taken place,[164] but the ceremonies at the Winter Olympics are usually held in a special "plaza".[165] Sports Main article: Olympic sports The Olympic Games programme consists of 35 sports, 30 disciplines and 408 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.[166] The Summer Olympics programme includes 26 sports, while the Winter Olympics programme features 15 sports.[167] Athletics, swimming, fencing, and artistic gymnastics are the only summer sports that have never been absent from the Olympic programme. Cross-country skiing, figure skating, ice hockey, Nordic combined, ski jumping, and speed skating have been featured at every Winter Olympics programme since its inception in 1924. Current Olympic sports, like badminton, basketball, and volleyball, first appeared on the programme as demonstration sports, and were later promoted to full Olympic sports. Some sports that were featured in earlier Games were later dropped from the programme.[168] Olympic sports are governed by international sports federations (IFs) recognised by the IOC as the global supervisors of those sports. There are 35 federations represented at the IOC.[169] There are sports recognised by the IOC that are not included in the Olympic programme. These sports are not considered Olympic sports, but they can be promoted to this status during a programme revision that occurs in the first IOC session following a celebration of the Olympic Games.[170][171] During such revisions, sports can be excluded or included in the programme on the basis of a two-thirds majority vote of the members of the IOC.[172] There are recognised sports that have never been on an Olympic programme in any capacity, for example, squash.[173] In October and November 2004, the IOC established an Olympic Programme Commission, which was tasked with reviewing the sports on the Olympic programme and all non-Olympic recognised sports. The goal was to apply a systematic approach to establishing the Olympic programme for each celebration of the Games.[174] The commission formulated seven criteria to judge whether a sport should be included on the Olympic programme.[174] 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.[174] From this study five recognised sports emerged as candidates for inclusion at the 2012 Summer Olympics: golf, karate, rugby sevens, roller sports and squash.[174] 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.[174] Neither sport attained the required two-thirds vote and consequently they were not promoted to the Olympic programme.[174] In October 2009 the IOC voted to instate golf and rugby sevens as Olympic sports for the 2016 and 2020 Summer Olympic Games.[175] The 114th IOC Session, in 2002, limited the Summer Games programme to a maximum of 28 sports, 301 events, and 10,500 athletes.[174] Three years later, at the 117th IOC Session, the first major programme revision was performed, which resulted in the exclusion of baseball and softball from the official programme of the 2012 London Games. Since there was no agreement in the promotion of two other sports, the 2012 programme featured just 26 sports.[174] The 2016 and 2020 Games will return to the maximum of 28 sports given the addition of rugby and golf.[175] Amateurism and professionalism Further information: Amateur sports 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 public school greatly influenced Pierre de Coubertin.[176] The public 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 practising or training was considered tantamount to cheating.[176] Those who practised a sport professionally were considered to have an unfair advantage over those who practised it merely as a hobby.[176] 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 baseball before the Olympics. His medals were posthumously restored by the IOC in 1983 on compassionate grounds.[177] 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.[178] The advent of the state-sponsored "full-time amateur athlete" of the Eastern Bloc countries eroded the ideology of the pure amateur, as it put the self-financed amateurs of the Western countries at a disadvantage. The Soviet Union entered teams of athletes who were all nominally students, soldiers, or working in a profession, but all of whom were in reality paid by the state to train on a full-time basis.[179][180][176] The situation greatly disadvantaged American and Western European athletes, and was a major factor in the decline of American medal hauls in the 1970s and 1980s. However, workarounds in Western countries also allowed individuals to focus full-time on sport while passing the amateur rules.[181] As a result, the Olympics shifted away from amateurism, as envisioned by Pierre de Coubertin, to allowing participation of professional athletes,[182] but only in the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its influence within the International Olympic Committee.[183][184][185] Team Canada ice hockey dispute Near the end of the 1960s, the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA) felt their amateur players could no longer be competitive against the Soviet team's full-time athletes and the other constantly improving European teams. They pushed for the ability to use players from professional leagues but met opposition from the IIHF and IOC. At the IIHF Congress in 1969, the IIHF decided to allow Canada to use nine non-NHL professional hockey players[186] at the 1970 World Championships in Montreal and Winnipeg, Canada.[187] The decision was reversed in January 1970 after Brundage said that ice hockey's status as an Olympic sport would be in jeopardy if the change was made.[186] In response, Canada withdrew from international ice hockey competition and officials stated that they would not return until "open competition" was instituted.[186][188] Günther Sabetzki became president of the IIHF in 1975 and helped to resolve the dispute with the CAHA. In 1976, the IIHF agreed to allow "open competition" between all players in the World Championships. However, NHL players were still not allowed to play in the Olympics until 1988, because of the IOC's amateur-only policy.[189] Controversies Main article: Olympic Games scandals and controversies Boycotts Main article: List of Olympic Games boycotts Countries that boycotted the 1956 Summer Olympics (shaded blue) Countries that boycotted the 1964 Summer Olympics (shaded red) Countries that boycotted the 1976 Summer Olympics (shaded blue) Countries that boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympics (shaded blue) Countries that boycotted the 1984 Summer Olympics (shaded blue) Greece, Australia, France, and United Kingdom are the only countries to be represented at every Olympic Games since their inception in 1896. While countries sometimes miss an Olympics due to a lack of qualified athletes, some choose to boycott a celebration of the Games for various reasons. The Olympic Council of Ireland boycotted the 1936 Berlin Games, because the IOC insisted its team needed to be restricted to the Irish Free State rather than representing the entire island of Ireland.[190] There were three boycotts of the 1956 Melbourne Olympics: the Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland refused to attend because of the repression of the Hungarian uprising by the Soviet Union, but did send an equestrian delegation to Stockholm; Cambodia, Egypt, Iraq, and Lebanon boycotted the Games because of the Suez Crisis; and the People's Republic of China boycotted the Games due to the participation of the Republic of China, composed of athletes coming from Taiwan.[191] In 1972 and 1976 a large number of African countries threatened the IOC with a boycott to force them to ban South Africa and Rhodesia, because of their segregationist rule. New Zealand was also one of the African boycott targets, because its national rugby union team had toured apartheid-ruled South Africa. The IOC conceded in the first two cases, but refused to ban New Zealand on the grounds that rugby was not an Olympic sport.[192] Fulfilling their threat, twenty African countries were joined by Guyana and Iraq in a withdrawal from the Montreal Games, after a few of their athletes had already competed.[192][193] The Republic of China (Taiwan) was excluded from the 1976 Games by order of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada. Trudeau's action was widely condemned as having brought shame on Canada for having succumbed to political pressure to keep the Chinese delegation from competing under its name.[194] The ROC refused a proposed compromise that would have still allowed them to use the ROC flag and anthem as long as the name was changed.[195] Athletes from Taiwan did not participate again until 1984, when they returned under the name of Chinese Taipei and with a special flag and anthem.[196] In 1980 and 1984, the Cold War opponents boycotted each other's Games. The United States and sixty-five other countries boycotted the Moscow Olympics in 1980 because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This boycott reduced the number of nations participating to 80, the lowest number since 1956.[197] The Soviet Union and 15 other nations countered by boycotting the Los Angeles Olympics of 1984. Although a boycott led by the Soviet Union depleted the field in certain sports, 140 National Olympic Committees took part, which was a record at the time.[3] The fact that Romania, a Warsaw Pact country, opted to compete despite Soviet demands led to a warm reception of the Romanian team by the United States. When the Romanian athletes entered during the opening ceremonies, they received a standing ovation from the spectators, which comprised mostly U.S. citizens. The boycotting nations of the Eastern Bloc staged their own alternate event, the Friendship Games, in July and August.[198][199] There had been growing calls for boycotts of Chinese goods and the 2008 Olympics in Beijing in protest of China's human rights record, and in response to Tibetan disturbances. Ultimately, no nation supported a boycott.[200][201] In August 2008, the government of Georgia called for a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics, set to be held in Sochi, Russia, in response to Russia's participation in the 2008 South Ossetia war.[202][203] Continuing human rights violations in China have led to "diplomatic boycotts", where athletes still compete at the Games but diplomats do not attend, of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing by several countries, most notably the United States.[204][205] Politics Jesse Owens on the podium after winning the long jump at the 1936 Summer Olympics The Olympic Games have been used as a platform to promote political ideologies almost from its inception. Nazi Germany wished to portray the National Socialist Party as benevolent and peace-loving when they hosted the 1936 Games, though they used the Games to display Aryan superiority.[206] Germany was the most successful nation at the Games, which did much to support their allegations of Aryan supremacy, but notable victories by African American Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals, and Hungarian Jew Ibolya Csák, blunted the message.[207] The Soviet Union did not participate until the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. Instead, starting in 1928, the Soviets organised an international sports event called Spartakiads. During the interwar period of the 1920s and 1930s, communist and socialist organisations in several countries, including the United States, attempted to counter what they called the "bourgeois" Olympics with the Workers Olympics.[208][209] It was not until the 1956 Summer Games that the Soviets emerged as a sporting superpower and, in doing so, took full advantage of the publicity that came with winning at the Olympics.[210] Soviet Union's success might be attributed to a heavy state's investment in sports to fulfill its political agenda on an international stage.[211][180] 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 field athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who finished first and third in the 200 metres, 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 ordered Smith and Carlos suspended from the US team and banned from the Olympic Village. When the US Olympic Committee refused, Brundage threatened to ban the entire US track team. This threat led to the expulsion of the two athletes from the Games.[212] In another notable incident in the gymnastics competition, while standing on the medal podium after the balance beam event final, in which Natalia Kuchinskaya of the Soviet Union had controversially taken the gold, Czechoslovakian gymnast Věra Čáslavská quietly turned her head down and away during the playing of the Soviet national anthem. The action was Čáslavská's silent protest against the recent Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Her protest was repeated when she accepted her medal for her floor exercise routine when the judges changed the preliminary scores of the Soviet Larisa Petrik to allow her to tie with Čáslavská for the gold. While Čáslavská's countrymen supported her actions and her outspoken opposition to Communism (she had publicly signed and supported Ludvik Vaculik's "Two Thousand Words" manifesto), the new regime responded by banning her from both sporting events and international travel for many years and made her an outcast from society until the fall of communism. Currently, the government of Iran has taken steps to avoid any competition between its athletes and those from Israel. An Iranian judoka, Arash Miresmaeili, 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.[213] In 2022, during 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis IOC Executive Board "recommends no participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials, urges International Sports Federations and organizers of sports events worldwide to do everything in their power to ensure that no athlete or sports official from Russia or Belarus be allowed to take part under the name of Russia or Belarus."[214] Use of performance-enhancing drugs Main article: Use of performance-enhancing drugs in the Olympic Games Thomas Hicks running the marathon at the 1904 Olympics In the early 20th century, many Olympic athletes began using drugs to improve their athletic abilities. For example, in 1904, Thomas Hicks, a gold medallist in the marathon, was given strychnine by his coach (at the time, taking different substances was allowed, as there was no data regarding the effect of these substances on a body of an athlete).[215] The only Olympic death linked to performance enhancing occurred at the 1960 Rome games. A 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.[216] By the mid-1960s, sports federations started to ban the use of performance-enhancing drugs; in 1967 the IOC followed suit.[217] According to British journalist Andrew Jennings, a KGB colonel stated that the agency's officers had posed as anti-doping authorities from the International Olympic Committee to undermine doping tests and that Soviet athletes were "rescued with [these] tremendous efforts".[218] On the topic of the 1980 Summer Olympics, a 1989 Australian study said "There is hardly a medal winner at the Moscow Games, certainly not a gold medal winner, who is not on one sort of drug or another: usually several kinds. The Moscow Games might as well have been called the Chemists' Games."[218] Documents obtained in 2016 revealed the Soviet Union's plans for a statewide doping system in track and field in preparation for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Dated prior to the country's decision to boycott the Games, the document detailed the existing steroids operations of the program, along with suggestions for further enhancements.[219] The communication, directed to the Soviet Union's head of track and field, was prepared by Dr. Sergei Portugalov of the Institute for Physical Culture. Portugalov was also one of the main figures involved in the implementation of the Russian doping programme prior to the 2016 Summer Olympics.[219] The first Olympic athlete to test positive for the use of performance-enhancing drugs was Hans-Gunnar Liljenwall, a Swedish pentathlete at the 1968 Summer Olympics, who lost his bronze medal for alcohol use.[220] One of the most publicised doping-related disqualifications occurred after the 1988 Summer Olympics where Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson (who won the 100-metre dash) tested positive for stanozolol.[221] In 1999, the IOC formed the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in an effort to systematise the research and detection of performance-enhancing drugs. There was a sharp increase in positive drug tests at the 2000 Summer Olympics and 2002 Winter Olympics due to improved testing conditions. Several medallists in weightlifting and cross-country skiing from post-Soviet states were disqualified because of doping offences. The IOC-established drug testing regimen (now known as the Olympic Standard) has set the worldwide benchmark that other sporting federations attempt to emulate.[222] 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.[216][223] In London over 6,000 Olympic and Paralympic athletes were tested. Prior to the Games 107 athletes tested positive for banned substances and were not allowed to compete.[224][225][226] Russian doping scandal Further information: Doping in Russia, McLaren Report, Russia at the 2012 Summer Olympics § Russian doping scandal, Russia at the 2014 Winter Olympics, Russia at the 2016 Summer Olympics, Olympic Athletes from Russia at the 2018 Winter Olympics, and Oswald Commission Doping in Russian sports has a systemic nature. Russia has had 44 Olympic medals stripped for doping violations – the most of any country, more than three times the number of the runner-up, and more than a quarter of the global total. From 2011 to 2015, more than a thousand Russian competitors in various sports, including summer, winter, and Paralympic sports, benefited from a cover-up.[227][228][229][230] Russia was partially banned from the 2016 Summer Olympics and was banned from the 2018 Winter Olympics (while being allowed to participate as the Olympic Athletes from Russia) due to the state-sponsored doping programme.[231][232] In December 2019, Russia was banned for four years from all major sporting events for systematic doping and lying to WADA.[233] The ban was issued by WADA on 9 December 2019, and the Russian anti-doping agency RUSADA had 21 days to make an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). The ban meant that Russian athletes would only be allowed to compete under the Olympic flag after passing anti-doping tests.[234] Russia appealed the decision to the CAS.[235] The CAS, on review of Russia's appeal of its case from WADA, ruled on December 17, 2020, to reduce the penalty that WADA had placed. Instead of banning Russia from sporting events, the ruling allowed Russia to participate at the Olympics and other international events, but for a period of two years, the team cannot use the Russian name, flag, or anthem and must present themselves as "Neutral Athlete" or "Neutral Team". The ruling does allow for team uniforms to display "Russia" on the uniform as well as the use of the Russian flag colors within the uniform's design, although the name should be up to equal predominance as the "Neutral Athlete/Team" designation.[236] In February 2022, during the Beijing Olympics, the international news media reported on 9 February that the issue of doping was again raised over a positive test for trimetazidine by the ROC's Kamila Valieva,[237][238] which was officially confirmed on 11 February.[239] Valieva's sample in question was taken by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) at the 2022 Russian Figure Skating Championships on 25 December, but the sample was not analyzed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) laboratory where it was sent for testing until 8 February, one day after the team event concluded.[240] The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is expected to hear the case on 13 February with a decision scheduled for announcement on 14 February ahead of her scheduled appearance in the women's singles event beginning 15 February.[241][242] Due to Valieva being a minor at the time, as well as being classified as a "protected person" under WADA guidelines, RUSADA and the IOC announced on 12 February that they would broaden the scope of their respective investigations to include members of her entourage (e.g. coaches, team doctors, etc.).[243] By the end of the Beijing Olympics, a total five athletes were reported for doping violations.[244] Sex discrimination Main article: Participation of women in the Olympics Charlotte Cooper of the United Kingdom was the first female Olympic champion, in the 1900 Games. Women were first allowed to compete at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris, but at the 1992 Summer Olympics 35 countries were still only fielding all-male delegations.[245] This number dropped rapidly over the following years. In 2000, Bahrain sent two women competitors for the first time: Fatema Hameed Gerashi and Mariam Mohamed Hadi Al Hilli.[246] In 2004, Robina Muqimyar and Fariba Rezayee became the first women to compete for Afghanistan at the Olympics.[247] In 2008, the United 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.[248] By 2010, only three countries had never sent female athletes to the Games: Brunei, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. 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 Olympics in London. 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.[249] 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 organisations 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."[245] 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".[250] At the 2012 Summer Olympics, every participating nation included female athletes for the first time in Olympic history.[251] Saudi Arabia included two female athletes in its delegation; Qatar, four; and Brunei, one (Maziah Mahusin, in the 400 m hurdles). Qatar made one of its first female Olympians, Bahiya al-Hamad (shooting), its flagbearer at the 2012 Games,[252] and runner Maryam Yusuf Jamal of Bahrain became the first Gulf female athlete to win a medal when she won a bronze for her showing in the 1500 m race.[253] 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 were able to compete in all the same sports as men.[254] In the winter Olympics, women are still unable to compete in the Nordic combined.[255] There are currently two Olympic events in which male athletes may not compete: synchronised swimming and rhythmic gymnastics.[256] War and terrorism The world wars caused three Olympiads to pass without a celebration of the Games: 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 Russo-Georgian War between Georgia 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 the Chinese president Hu Jintao.[257][258] Terrorism most directly affected 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 Palestinian terrorist group Black September in what is now known as the Munich massacre. The terrorists killed two of the athletes soon after taking them hostage and killed the other nine during a failed liberation attempt. A German police officer and five of the terrorists also died.[259] Following the selection of Barcelona, Spain, to host the 1992 Summer Olympics, the separatist ETA terrorist organisation launched attacks in the region, including the 1991 bombing in the Catalonian city of Vic that killed ten people.[260][261] Terrorism affected two Olympic Games held in the United States. During the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, a bomb was detonated at the Centennial Olympic Park, killing two people and injuring 111 others. The bomb was set by Eric Rudolph, an American domestic terrorist, who is serving a life sentence for the bombing.[262] The 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City took place just five months after the September 11 attacks, which meant a higher level of security than ever before provided for an Olympic Games. The opening ceremonies of the Games featured symbols relating to 9/11, including the flag that flew at Ground Zero and honour guards of NYPD and FDNY members.[263] Citizenship IOC rules for citizenship The Olympic Charter requires that an athlete be a national of the country for which they compete. Dual nationals may compete for either country, as long as three years have passed since the competitor competed for the former country. However, if the NOCs and IF involved agree, then the IOC Executive Board may reduce or cancel this period.[264] This waiting period exists only for athletes who previously competed for one nation and want to compete for another. If an athlete gains a new or second nationality, then they do not need 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.[265] Reasons for changing citizenship Occasionally, an athlete will become a citizen of a different country to enable them to compete in the Olympics. This is often because they are attracted to sponsorship deals or training facilities in the other country, or the athlete might be unable to qualify from within their country of birth. In preparation for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, the Russian Olympic Committee naturalised a South Korean-born short-track speed-skater, Ahn Hyun-soo, and an American-born snowboarder, Vic Wild. The two athletes won five gold medals and one bronze medal between them at the 2014 Games.[266] Citizenship changes and disputes One of the most famous cases of changing nationality for the Olympics was Zola Budd, a South African runner who emigrated 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 in Britain, but British citizens accused the government of expediting the citizenship process for her.[267] Other notable examples include Kenyan runner Bernard Lagat, who became a United States citizen in May 2004. The Kenyan constitution required that one renounce their Kenyan citizenship when they became 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, jeopardising his silver medal. Lagat said he started the citizenship process in late 2003 and did not expect to become an American citizen until after the Athens games. He was allowed to keep his medal by the IOC.[268] Champions and medallists Paavo Nurmi (1897–1973), a Finnish middle-distance and long-distance runner, nicknamed the "Flying Finn" or the "Phantom Finn", set 22 official world records at distances between 1500 m and 20 km, winning nine golds and three silvers in his 12 events at the Olympic Games. Further information: Lists of Olympic medalists and List of multiple Olympic gold medalists Medals are awarded to the athletes or teams who place first, second, and third in each event. The winners receive gold medals, which were solid gold until 1912, later made of gilded silver, and now gold-plated silver. Every gold medal must contain at least six grams of pure gold.[269] The runners-up are awarded silver medals and the third-place athletes receive bronze medals. In events contested by a single-elimination tournament (most notably boxing), third place might not be determined and the losers of both semi-finals each receive a bronze medal. At the 1896 Olympics, only the winner and runner-up of each event received medals—silver for first and bronze for second, with no gold medals awarded. The current three-medal format was introduced at the 1904 Olympics.[270] From 1948 onward, athletes placing fourth, fifth, and sixth have received certificates, which came to be known officially as Olympic diplomas; from 1984, these have also been awarded to the seventh- and eighth-place finishers. At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, the gold, silver, and bronze medal winners were also presented with olive wreaths.[271] The IOC does not keep statistics of medals won on a national level (except for team sports), but the NOCs and the media record medal statistics and use them as a measure of each nation's success.[272] Nations Nations at the Summer Olympics Main article: List of participating nations at the Summer Olympic Games As of the 2020 Games in Tokyo, all of the current 206 NOCs and 19 obsolete NOCs have participated in at least one edition of the Summer Olympics. Competitors from five nations—Australia, France,[d] Great Britain,[e] Greece, and Switzerland[f]—have competed in all 28 Summer Olympics. Athletes competing under the Olympic flag, Mixed Teams and the Refugee Team have competed at six Summer Games. Nations at the Winter Olympics Main article: List of participating nations at the Winter Olympic Games A total of 119 NOCs (110 of the current 206 NOCs and nine obsolete NOCs) have participated in at least one edition of the Winter Olympics. Competitors from 14 nations—Austria, Canada, Czech Republic,[g] Finland, France, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Poland, Slovakia,[g] Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States—have participated in all 23 Winter Games to date. Host nations and cities Main article: List of Olympic Games host cities See also: List of Olympic medals by host nation Map of Summer Olympics locations. Countries that have hosted one Summer Olympics are shaded green, while countries that have hosted two or more are shaded blue. Map of Winter Olympics locations. Countries that have hosted one Winter Olympics are shaded green, while countries that have hosted two or more are shaded blue. The host city for an Olympic Games had historically been chosen seven to eight years ahead of their celebration. Beginning with the 2024 and 2028 Olympics selection process in 2017, the IOC has proceeded to announce the winning bid with a longer lead-in time in order to provide time for the winning cities/regions to prepare.[279][280] The process of selection is carried out in two phases that span a two-year period. The prospective host city applies to its country's National Olympic Committee; if more than one city from the same country submits a proposal to its NOC, the national committee typically holds an internal selection, since only one city per NOC can be presented to the International Olympic Committee for consideration. Once the deadline for submission of proposals by the NOCs is reached, the first phase (Application) begins with the applicant cities asked to complete a questionnaire regarding several key criteria related to the organisation of the Olympic Games.[281] In this form, the applicants must give assurances that they will comply with the Olympic Charter and with any other regulations established by the IOC Executive Committee.[279] The evaluation of the filled questionnaires by a specialised group provides the IOC with an overview of each applicant's project and their potential to host the Games. On the basis of this technical evaluation, the IOC Executive Board selects the applicants that will proceed to the candidature stage.[281] Once the candidate cities are selected, they must submit to the IOC a bigger and more detailed presentation of their project as part of a candidature file. Each city is thoroughly analysed by an evaluation commission. This commission will also visit the candidate cities, interviewing local officials and inspecting prospective venue sites, and submit a report on its findings one month prior to the IOC's final decision. During the interview process the candidate city must also guarantee that it will be able to fund the Games.[279] After the work of the evaluation commission, a list of candidates is presented to the General Session of the IOC, which must assemble in a country that does not have a candidate city in the running. The IOC members gathered in the Session have the final vote on the host city. Once elected, the host city bid committee (together with the NOC of the respective country) signs a Host City Contract with the IOC, officially becoming an Olympic host nation and host city.[279] By 2032, the Olympic Games will have been hosted by 47 cities in 23 countries. As of 2021, since the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, the Olympics have been held in Asia or Oceania four times, a sharp increase compared to the previous 92 years of modern Olympic history. The 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro were the first Olympics for a South American country. No bids from countries in Africa have succeeded. The United States hosted four Winter Games, more than any other nation. The other nations hosting multiple Winter Games are France with three, while Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Japan, Canada and Italy have hosted twice. Among host cities, Lake Placid, Innsbruck and St. Moritz have played host to the Winter Olympic Games more than once, each holding that honour twice. The most recent Winter Games were held in Pyeongchang in 2018, South Korea's first Winter Olympics and second Olympics overall (after the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul). Beijing hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2022 Winter Olympics, which made it the first city to host both the Summer and Winter Games. A sports event unlike any other The Olympic Games are unique. Athletes from the entire world take part. Their achievements are watched from both near and far by hundreds of millions of spectators. The five rings on the Olympic flag represent the international nature of the Games. What makes the Olympic Games different from other sports events? The Games are held every four years. They are the largest sporting celebration in the number of sports on the programme, the number of athletes present and the number of people from different nations gathered together at the same time in the same place. The Games are held at intervals, but are part of a broader framework which is that of the Olympic Movement. The purpose of the Olympic Movement is to promote the practice of sport all over the world and disseminate the Olympic values. It is in this spirit that the Olympic Games are held and celebrated. The Summer Games and the Winter Games The Olympic Games include the Games of the Olympiad (i.e. the Summer Games) and the Olympic Winter Games. The first edition of the modern Summer Games was held in 1896 in Athens (Greece), and the first Olympic Winter Games in 1924 in Chamonix (France). The word Olympiad designates the four-year period that separates each edition of the Summer Games. Until 1992, the Summer and Winter Games were held in the same year, but since then, the Winter Games were moved two years from the Summer Games. The Summer and Winter Games continue to be organised once every four years. In the Summer Games, athletes compete in a wide variety of competitions on the track, on the road, on grass, in the water, on the water, in the open air and indoors, in a total of 28 sports. The Winter Games feature 7 sports practised on snow and ice, both indoors and outdoors. The Modern Olympic Games Introduction 3 The London 2012 Olympic Games were broadcast all over the world, via the traditional media as well as online and mobile platforms. They reached a record audience estimated at 4.8 billion people. © The Olympic Museum The Modern Olympic Games Introduction 4 History It was Pierre de Coubertin of France who dreamt up this ambitious project, although others before him had tried in vain to revive these Games. Drawing inspiration from the ancient Olympic Games, he decided to create the modern Olympic Games. With this purpose, he founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1894 in Paris. The new committee set itself the objective of organising the first Olympic Games of modern times. The date of the first Games, 1896, marked the beginning of an extraordinary adventure that has now lasted for over a century! 1 1. OG Athenes 1896. Athletics. Discus Men – Robert GARRETT (USA) 1st. © 1896 / International Olympic Committee (IOC) © The Olympic Museum The characteristics of the modern Olympic Games Elements of the past The roots of the Olympic Games are to be found in Ancient Greece [see sheet “The Olympic Games in Antiquity”], and the first modern Games, in 1896, featured many references to this legacy of Greek Antiquity: › The Games were held in Athens, in Greece, the country where the ancient Games were held. › Most of the competitions were held in the ancient stadium (the Panathinaiko Stadium), which had been restored for the occasion. › Most of the sports on the programme of the ancient Games were included in the first modern Games. › The organisers invented a race inspired by an event in antiquity: the marathon. Generally speaking, the modern Games strive towards a more peaceful world. The Olympic Truce calling for a halt to all conflicts recalls the concept of the truce observed during the Ancient Games. Sacred and respected throughout Ancient Greece, the Olympic Truce announced by messengers before the Games allowed spectators, athletes and officials to travel to and from Olympia in safety through the numerous battle zones. Today, the Olympic Truce is the subject of a United Nations resolution calling for a halt to hostilities during the period of the Games and the search for means of peaceful resolution in areas of tension. The athletes who support this initiative are invited to sign a “Truce Wall” in the Olympic Village. Innovations While the modern Games draw their inspiration from the past, they are also quite different. From the outset, Coubertin proposed: › Secular Games The modern Games are secular, unlike the ancient Games which were dedicated to the gods. The Modern Olympic Games The characteristics of the modern Olympic Games 5 In antiquity, the Panathinaiko Stadium in Athens hosted the sports competitions known as the Panathenaea. The marathon This race commemorates the exploit of a soldier who, in 490 BC, ran from Marathon to tell the people of Athens of their victory in the battle against the Persians, a distance of roughly 34.5 kilometres. © The Olympic Museum The Modern Olympic Games 6 › Games around the globe In contrast with the Olympic Games of Antiquity, each edition of the modern Games takes place in principle in a different city and country. › Longer Games In ancient times, the Games were held first on one day, and finally over five days. Today the official duration is no more than 16 days. The Games are also evolving constantly: › Since 1896, athletes from all over the world The ancient Olympic Games were the preserve of free male Greek citizens, whereas the modern Games have always been open to athletes from all over the world. The 245 participants in Athens in 1896 came from 14 different countries. The 1912 Games in Stockholm (Sweden) were the first to boast the presence of national delegations from the five continents. The universality of the modern Olympic Games was assured. Today, the Summer Games welcome athletes from every country of the world, without exception. › Since 1900, women join in As in Ancient Greece, there were no female athletes at the first edition of the modern Olympic Games. In Athens in 1896, only men competed. At that time, female athletes faced many prejudices. People worried that they would lose their femininity, over-develop their muscles or become sterile. They therefore had to overcome this kind of attitude and gradually take their place at the Games. Women made their Olympic debut at the 1900 Games in Paris (France), in tennis and golf. Subsequently, over the course of the century, they gained access to more and more sports (e.g. swimming in 1912, athletics in 1928, volleyball in 1964, rowing in 1976, cycling in 1984 and football in 1996), but it was not until the 2012 Games in London, with the introduction of women’s boxing, that women could compete in all the sports on the programme. Since the 2004 Games in Athens, more than 40 per cent of the athletes at the Games have been women. › Since 1924, Games for winter sports When Coubertin revived the Olympic Games, only summer sports were included. In the 1920s, however, snow and ice sports began to enjoy soaring popularity. A number of IOC members decided to react to this, and, in 1924, it was decided 1 1. OG Paris 1900. Tennis, singles Women – Hélène PREVOS © 1900 / International Olympic Committee (IOC) The characteristics of the modern Olympic Games © The Olympic Museum to hold an International Winter Sports Week in Chamonix (France): 258 athletes from 16 countries (mainly in Europe and North America) attended. This proved a great success and, two years later, this “Week” was officially recognised as the first Olympic Winter Games. The future of an Olympic event dedicated exclusively to snow and ice sports was assured. At the 2010 Games in Vancouver (Canada), a total of 2,566 athletes came together from 82 countries as diverse as Ghana, Brazil, New Zealand and Pakistan. › Since 1984, professional athletes at the Games The modern Olympic Games were long open only to amateur athletes, in line with Pierre de Coubertin’s wishes. The IOC abolished this rule in 1984 (for the Games in Los Angeles), and since then professional athletes have also been able to take part. The rituals of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies The Olympic Games begin and end with big celebrations, important ceremonies in which various rituals express the identity of the Games. Today, these rituals are part of the protocol of the Games. They include the following elements: The Modern Olympic Games Opening of the Games › the entry of the athletes into the stadium with their delegations (in alphabetical order, except for Greece which goes first, and the host country which brings up the rear) › the declaration of the opening of the Games by the Head of State of the host country › the address by the Games Organising Committee President › the speech by the IOC President › the entry of the Olympic flag into the stadium › the Olympic anthem › the symbolic release of doves (a symbol of peace) › the oath sworn by an athlete and an official from the host country (respect for the rules) › the entrance of the flame and lighting of the cauldron Closing of the Games › handing over of the Olympic flag to the next Olympic host city (continuity of the Games) › gathering of the athletes in the stadium (brotherhood) › the extinguishing of the flame › the declaration of the closing of the Games by the IOC President 7 Most of this protocol had been established by the time of the 1920 Games in Antwerp (Belgium). It has been added to over the years as the Games have evolved. 1. OG London 2012. Opening Ceremony. © 2012 / International Olympic Committee (IOC) / FURLONG, Christopher 1 The characteristics of the modern Olympic Games © The Olympic Museum The Modern Olympic Games 8 The protocol forms part of a much broader scenography and programme. The opening and closing ceremonies are an invitation to discover the culture of the country hosting the Games, through music, song, dance, etc. Sport, art and culture In Ancient Greece, art and sport were seen as perfect partners. The ideal was to achieve harmony by exercising both the body and the mind. Pierre de Coubertin adopted this ideal for the modern Olympic Games and proposed including art and culture in the programme of the Games. On his initiative, architecture, sculpture, painting, literature and music competitions were part of the Olympic Games from 1912 to 1948. Nowadays, the competitions have been replaced with cultural programmes that are completely separate from the sports competitions. Plays, concerts, ballets and exhibitions are held in the city, region and even the country hosting the Games. Numerous artists, designers, architects, choreographers and musicians play an active part in the success of the Games, be it through the construction of stadiums and other competition venues, the Look of the Games (logos, pictograms and mascots) or the opening and closing ceremonies. Whether through sport, art or culture, everyone can take part in the great celebration of the Olympic Games, which offer an opportunity to open up to and better understand other people. The characteristics of the modern Olympic Games © The Olympic Museum Olympic sports 9 Olympic sports The Olympic programme includes all the sports in the Olympic Games. The IOC sets the programme and decides which sports will be included. The IOC also has the right to add or remove any sport, discipline or event. Sport − For a sport to be made an Olympic sport it has to be governed by an International Federation recognised by the IOC Exemples: Swimming at the Games is governed by the International Swimming Federation (FINA); Skating by the International Skating Union (ISU). Discipline − An Olympic sport comprises one or several disciplines. Exemples: Water polo and diving are disciplines of swimming. Speed skating and figure skating are disciplines of skating. Event − A discipline includes one or more events or competitions. An event gives rise to a result for which medals and diplomas are awarded. Exemples: The 10m platform for women is a diving event. The men’s 500m is a speed skating event. Criteria for being an Olympic sport In order to be included in the Olympic programme, a sport must be governed by an International Federation which complies with the Olympic Charter and applies the World Anti-Doping Code. If it is widely practised around the world and satisfies a number of criteria established by the IOC Session, a recognised sport may be added to the Olympic programme. Since 2000, there has been little change to the number of sports on the programme of the Summer and Winter Games, but rather changes to events in order to limit the size of the Games. Summer Games sports In Athens in 1896, nine sports were on the programme: athletics, cycling, fencing, The Modern Olympic Games 1 1. OG Beijing 2008. Athletics, pole vault – final. Elena ISINBAEVA (RUS) 1st. © 2008 / International Olympic Committee (IOC) / KISHIMOTO, Tsutomu © The Olympic Museum 10 gymnastics, weightlifting, wrestling, swimming, tennis and shooting. The Olympic programme has come a long way since then: some sports have been discontinued (e.g. polo and baseball); others were dropped and then reintroduced (e.g. archery and tennis), while several new sports have been added (e.g. triathlon and taekwondo). At the 2004 Games in Athens, the programme included the nine original sports plus a further 19: rowing, badminton, baseball, basketball, boxing, canoe/kayak, equestrian sports, football, handball, hockey, judo, modern pentathlon, softball, taekwondo, table tennis, archery, triathlon, sailing and volleyball. This represented a total of 301 events! The two major sports on the programme of the Summer Games are athletics and swimming. These are the most widely followed Olympic sports in the world. They also have the largest number of events and greatest number of participants from different countries. Athletics consists of a wide range of events: jumping, throwing, and sprint, middle-distance and long-distance races. Some of these were performed at the ancient Olympic Games: foot races (varying distances), the javelin throw, the discus throw and the long jump. The first swimming competitions at the Olympic Games took place in the sea or in a river. Today competitions take place in a 50m swimming pool, usually indoors. The current programme includes the following disciplines: swimming (freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly), water polo, diving and synchronised swimming. Winter Games sports Winter sports made their Olympic debut at … the Summer Games in London in 1908! Figure skating competitions were organised for men, women and pairs. The experience was repeated at the Antwerp Games in 1920, along with an ice hockey tournament. It was in Chamonix in 1924 that winter sports finally got their own Olympic Games. Six sports were on the programme: bobsleigh, curling, ice hockey, figure and speed skating, skiing (cross-country and ski jumping) and the military patrol race. Some sports were missing from the official programme for several editions of the Games before being reintroduced. One example is skeleton, which featured at the 1928 and 1948 Games in St Moritz, before returning to the programme for the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City. The number of sports at the Winter Games has remained relatively stable over the years. At the Vancouver Games in 2010, there were seven sports – biathlon, bobsleigh, curling, ice hockey, luge, skating and skiing. However, the number The Modern Olympic Games Olympic sports 1. OG London 2012, Swimming – Michael PHELPS (USA), © 2012 / International Olympic Committee (IOC) / FURLONG, Christopher 2. OG Vancouver 2010, Men ice-hockey – Game for the bronze medal, Finland (FIN) 3rd – Slovakia (SLO) © 2010 / International Olympic Committee (IOC) / EVANS, Jason 1 2 © The Olympic Museum 11 of events has increased considerably: in 2010, there were 86 on the programme! Of the 15 disciplines in the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, only Nordic combined is not yet open to women. The three main sports on the Winter Games programme are skating, skiing and ice hockey. Skating has the longest Olympic history, having figured for the first time on the programme of the London Games in 1908. Women made their debut in figure skating at the Olympic Winter Games, but speed skating was not open to them until 1960. Held in the open air until 1956, the skating events now take place indoors. Skiing is the sport with the largest number of disciplines. Cross-country skiing is the oldest discipline and snowboarding is the newest one (1998 Games in Nagano, Japan). Alpine skiing appeared relatively late: it was on the programme of the 1936 Games, but it was not until the 1948 Games in St Moritz (Switzerland) that a more complete programme for men and women was organised. In 1952, giant slalom was added to the programme. Introduced in 1988, the super-G is the newest Olympic Alpine skiing event. Ice hockey, like skating and skiing, is one of the sports that helped launching the Olympic Winter Games. Hockey is very popular and attracts large audiences. It is a spectacular sport in which the puck travels at speeds up to 180km/h. Demonstration sports Thanks to their popularity, the Games have provided a showcase for a number of sports. These were known as demonstration sports, which featured as an addition to the Olympic programme until 1992, when this concept was abandoned. › At the 1956 Games in Melbourne, there was Australian football, one of the national sports; › At the 1988 Games in Seoul, it was bowling, a sport unknown in the host country, Korea. › At the 1992 Games in Barcelona, it was Basque pelota, roller hockey and taekwondo. There have been many different sports at the Winter Games. Some have been featured as demonstration sports (e.g. skijoring, bandy, winter pentathlon and freestyle skiing). For more information about the Olympic sports, go to the IOC website The Modern Olympic Games Olympic sports 1 1. OG Chamonix 1924, Figure skating. © 1924/ International Olympic Committee (IOC) © The Olympic Museum 12 1 1. OG Beijing 2008. Athletics, 100m Men – semi final, start. © 2008 / International Olympic Committee (IOC) / KISHIMOTO, Tsutomu © The Olympic Museum 13 The Modern Olympic Games Athletes at the Olympic Games Athletes atthe Olympic Games The challenge of the Games The prospect of being selected for the Olympic Games is the dream of the majority of athletes. Enormous reserves of willpower and many years of dedicated training are required to achieve such a goal. The athletes that qualify for the Games can consider themselves as being among the world’s best. They will become Olympians, whether or not they win a medal. Taking part in the Games is what matters to the majority of the competitors: having the honour of representing their country and marching behind their flag at the Opening Ceremony, mixing with elite athletes, and having the opportunity to give their best. That is what the spirit of the Olympic Games is all about! Pierre de Coubertin knew this already at the start of the 20th century: “ […] In these Olympiads, the important thing is not winning but taking part. […] What counts in life is not the victory but the struggle; the essential thing is not to conquer but to fight well.” 2 Almost a century later, at the Olympic Games in Sydney, the spirit was the same. Canadian athlete Perdita Felicien explains why taking part in the Games was so important to her: “Even though I was eliminated in the preliminary round of the 100m hurdles, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. Even though the months of religious training and the exhausting 30 hours of flight to Sydney only meant exactly 13.21 seconds of running on the hottest track in the world that day, it was beyond worth it.” 3 In order to participate in the Olympic Games, athletes have to abide by the Olympic Charter and the rules of the International Federation (IF) responsible for their sport. The IFs organise qualification events, while the National Olympic Committee (NOC) of the athlete’s country is responsible for entering athletes to the Games. Athletes with more than one nationality may compete for the country of their choice. However, if they have already represented one country either at the Games or another major sports event, they may not compete for a different country before three years have elapsed. There is no age limit for competing in the Olympic Games, except for the one What is the Olympic Charter? It is an official document containing all the rules to be followed and explaining the role and mission of each Olympic Movement stakeholder. 1. OG London 2012, Opening Ceremony, Athletes Parade of the Costa Rica delegation. © 2012 / International Olympic Committee (IOC) / EVANS, Jason 2. Olympic Review, July 1908, p. 110. (Extract from a speech given at the Olympic Games in London in 1908). 3. Comments made on her athletics team’s website, 27 November 2000. 1 © The Olympic Museum 14 The Modern Olympic Games Athletes at the Olympic Games imposed by individual IFs for health reasons. In some sports, such as equestrian, fencing and sailing, athletes can enjoy very long Olympic careers, sometimes as long as 40 years! By entering the Olympic Games, athletes are making a commitment to respect the Olympic values and agree to undergo doping tests. Throughout the Games, tests are carried out under the authority of the IOC and its Medical Commission. Tests may be conducted before or during the Games. For individual sports, tests are performed on each athlete who places among the top five in each event, plus two other athletes (in the heats or the final) chosen at random. For team sports, or other sports in which teams are rewarded, testing is performed throughout the period of the Olympic Games. Life in the Olympic Village Upon their arrival in the host city, athletes stay in the Olympic Village. While at the Games, their time is not devoted exclusively to competing: it is also an opportunity for them to meet other athletes from different countries and cultures. Communal life is good for encouraging contact between athletes from different sports or representatives from remote countries. All inhabitants of the Village agree: it is not about the comfort of the surroundings or the quality of services, what counts is the relationships created between athletes of the entire world. Anita L. De Frantz, Olympian and IOC member, said of her experience in the Village: “For two to four weeks, the Village becomes the home for the elite athletes of the world. It was there that I realised that excellence comes in every shape, size, race and sex. It was there that I realised that an Olympian is one who can respect every individual based on the effort that it takes to become an Olympian. It was there that I learned that each sport takes special skills and determination for a person to ascend to the top.” 2 Today’s Olympic Village is almost a city! It is usually located close to the competition venues and its construction is taken very seriously during preparations for the Games. In London in 2012, for example, the Village accommodated over 17,000 athletes and officials! Inhabitants of the village benefit from many advantages. They can eat in the Village restaurant 24 hours a day, have their hair cut, go clubbing or attend evening concerts. When the Games have finished, the Olympic Village becomes a new residential area for the city, and the housing is sold or rented to the local population. Athletes have not always benefitted from this type of accommodation. 1. OG London 2012, Athletes while jogging in the Olympic Village. © 2012 / International Olympic Committee (IOC) / EVANS, Jason 2. Olympic Message, no. 33, July 1992. 1 © The Olympic Museum 15 The Modern Olympic Games Athletes at the Olympic Games Before the Los Angeles Games in 1932 they stayed in a variety of places: Shipshape accommodation There was no Olympic Village for the athletes at the first few Olympic Games. Some of them stayed in hotels or hostels. Others chose cheaper accommodation in schools or barracks. And some slept in the boats they had taken to the Olympic city. This was the case at the Amsterdam Games in 1928, when the Americans, Italians and Finns stayed in the harbour! All in the same village The first true Olympic Village was built for the 1932 Games in Los Angeles. Athletes (men only) from 37 countries ate, slept and trained together. For the first time certain community services were provided: a hospital, a fire station and a post office. In the early days women stayed in hotels, not the Olympic Village. It was not until the 1956 Games in Melbourne that the Olympic Village was open to both sexes. © The Olympic Museum 16 The Modern Olympic Games VICTORY Victory The moment of victory is symbolised by the athlete stepping onto the podium to receive his or her medal. Yet this ceremony has not always existed! The various elements of the ceremony entered Olympic history at different times. THE MEDAL’S ICONOGRAPHY The Summer Games medals In the beginning, Olympic medals varied from one Olympiad to the next. At the first modern Games in Athens in 1896, winners were rewarded with an olive wreath and a silver medal, while the runners-up received a bronze medal and a laurel wreath. Gold, silver and bronze medals were not awarded until 1904. From the Amsterdam Games in 1928, when the medals were standardised, until the 2000 Games in Sydney, the medals remained almost unchanged. The obverse showed a seated, wingless figure of Victory holding a wreath in one hand and a palm frond in the other. In the background appeared an arena similar to the Coliseum in Rome. The reverse had to show a victorious athlete being borne upon the shoulders of the crowd. Since 1972, only the obverse of the medal remained the same. The reverse was modified for each Olympiad. Then, in 2004, the iconography changed dramatically. A representation of Nike from the Olympia Museum now features on the obverse of the summer Games medals. She appears to be descending from the sky to land in the Panathinaiko Stadium, recalling the place where the first modern Games were held in Athens in 1896. In the background the Acropolis can be seen. The Winter Games medals The Winter Games medals are not subject to the same constraints. There are no rules stipulating a particular shape or design. Even the materials may vary: the medals of the Albertville Games (France) included a crystal disc; the Lillehammer (Norway) medals had a granite element, and the medals of the Nagano Games (Japan) were partially worked in lacquer. In fact, every Olympic Winter Games has seen an original medal designed. Medal ceremonies Since the Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid (USA) in 1932, the medals have been awarded on a podium. The winner takes the centre spot, on the highest step. He or she receives a gold medal and the title of Olympic champion. The second placed athlete is to the winner’s right and receives a silver medal. The 1. Athenes 2004, winner’s medal (gold) © IOC 1 © The Olympic Museum 17 third placed athlete is to the winner’s left and receives a bronze medal. The national flags of the three winners are hoisted and the national anthem of the Olympic champion is played. The first eight in each event receive a diploma and their names are read out. Only the first three receive a medal in addition. Celebrity of the champions After the Olympic Games, the champions often become superstars and role models for many people. The Olympic Charter stipulates that the names of the athletes who win a gold medal must be engraved on the walls of the main stadium in the city hosting the Games. However, a medal is not always a guarantee of celebrity. If it is won in a little known sport with low media coverage, a medal alone will not suffice to attract the interest of the sponsors or the general public. But whether or not they are winners, everyone who takes part in the Games takes home with them the memory of an exceptional human experience. The Modern Olympic Games VICTORY 1 1. OG Vancouver 2010, Medal ceremony for crosscountry ski, 50km Men mass start free. © 2010 / International Olympic Committee (IOC) © The Olympic Museum 18 The Modern Olympic Games The Games and their era The Games and their era The Olympic Games are much more than just a series of sports competitions. Technological progress in the last century helped turn them into an international event eagerly awaited and followed by people all over the world. Everything that happens during the Games is reported and analysed by thousands of journalists and experts. So it is quite understandable that, at certain points in recent history, governments have exploited the Games for political or diplomatic ends (sometimes, sadly, to the detriment of sport). Developments in technology In little over a century, the Olympic Games have become a global event. Two major technological revolutions have contributed to this: in transport and the media. Improved transport – easier access to the Games Depending on the city and country hosting the Games, athletes are obliged to travel greater or lesser distances. For the 1904 Games in St Louis and the 1932 Games in Los Angeles, in the USA, the number of participants was much lower because many athletes were unable to make and afford such a long journey. The majority of host cities prior to World War II were European, and the athletes who took part in the Games were mostly Westerners. In 1956, the Games took place in Oceania (Australia). For the first time, most of the 3,178 competitors travelled by plane to Melbourne. This novel development, which was possible thanks to the growth of air transport, quickly became essential to the organisation of the Olympic Games. In 1964 it was the turn of the Asian continent to host the Games, which were held in the city of Tokyo in Japan; then, in 1968, it was Latin America, with the Games in Mexico City. The Olympic Games have now been held on every continent except Africa. Development of the media - Games accessible to everyone Television made an enormous contribution to the growing popularity of the Olympic Games. The first tests were carried out in 1936 and 1948. And the first live television broadcast of the competitions was in 1956, at the Winter Games in Cortina d’Ampezzo (Italy). Beginning with the 1960 Games in Rome (Italy), the majority of the European continent benefited from live broadcasts of the competitions. For the United States, Canada and Japan, a tape was flown out every day, which meant that the competitions could be screened with just a few hours’ delay. With a couple of weeks’ delay, the images were transferred onto A long journey − For the 1932 Games in Los Angeles, European athletes first had to travel to New York by boat. They then crossed the American continent by train to Los Angeles (a total travel time of three weeks!). They returned the same way. Some competitors had to save up their holiday entitlement for three years in order to have the 10 weeks’ leave they needed for the Olympic adventure! © The Olympic Museum 19 The Modern Olympic Games The Games and their era film and sent to Asia, Africa, Oceania and South America. The Olympic audience ended up being far larger than just the spectators present in the stadium. Since the 1964 Games in Tokyo (Japan), satellites have transmitted images with just a few seconds’ delay. Today, viewers all over the world can follow the champions’ achievements live. In 1968, the Olympic Winter Games in Grenoble (France) were the first to be broadcast live on colour television. Thanks to further technological developments, picture quality has improved enormously and has reached a high level of perfection. Slow motion shots mean that an athlete’s movements can be seen in great detail and underwater cameras even take the audience into the swimming pool with the competitors. Television networks buy broadcasting rights for the Games, thus providing approximately half of the Olympic Movement’s income. The IOC nonenetheless enables less well-off broadcasters to show coverage of the Olympic Games. This means that sports lovers all over the world can follow the performances of the champions. This has helped the Olympic Games to become one of the most watched sporting events in the world! Political and diplomatic exploitation of the Games Being at the forefront of the international stage, the Olympic Games have the potential to be used as a propaganda tool and an instrument of political interests. Here are some of the better-known examples › 1936 in Berlin (Germany): the Nazi regime appropriated the Games. In the years leading up to 1936, several governments and sports organisations expressed their concerns about the regime and its policies. The threat of a boycott hung over the Games. In the end, it was more individual convictions that prevented certain athletes from attending. › 1956 in Melbourne (Australia): the Suez crisis and Soviet oppression in Hungary provoked a strong reaction from some countries, which refused to send their athletes to the Games. › 1968 in Mexico City (Mexico): American athletes Tommy Smith and John Carlos demonstrated against the racism in the USA. As they stood on the podium to receive their medals for the 200m, they raised black-gloved fists and bowed their heads when the American flag was raised. This gesture was their way of showing their support for the “Black Power” movement which was fighting the discrimination against black people in the USA. As a result, they were disqualified. › 1972 in Munich (Germany): Palestinian terrorists took Israeli athletes hostage. What is a boycott? − It is the voluntary severing of relations with a person, country or other group in order to exert pressure. Boycotts at the Olympic Games occur when a government refuses to allow its athletes to attend the Games. 1 1. OG London 2012, Photographers at the Women Triathlon © 2012 / International Olympic Committee (IOC) / FURLONG, Christopher © The Olympic Museum 20 The Modern Olympic Games The Games and their era The event ended in tragedy, with nine hostages executed and the death of a policeman and two other members of the Israeli delegation. The terrorists were killed by the police. › 1976 in Montreal (Canada): 22 countries (mostly African) boycotted the Games to protest against a recent tour of South Africa, which imposed apartheid, by the New Zealand rugby team. › 1980 in Moscow (Soviet Union): the United States called for a global boycott in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. American athletes were forbidden to take part in the Games under threat of having their passports confiscated. Other countries followed the US example and stayed away from Moscow. › 1984 in Los Angeles (USA): in response to the American boycott of 1980, the Soviet Union refused to attend the Games. The official reasons given were the commercialisation of the Games and insufficient guarantees of athletes’ safety. The diplomatic role of the Games If the Games are used for political ends, the Olympic ideal is placed under threat. Nevertheless, the Olympic Games can be used to improve relations between countries and communities. › Since the 1950s, the Olympic Games have provided an opportunity for newly created countries to show the world they exist. Their appearance at the Games has often led to more widespread international recognition (e.g. certain African countries, republics of the former Soviet Union). It has even been the case that the participation of certain athletes in the Games has preceded the political creation of their country (e.g. Timor Leste, a small country located next to Indonesia, which has been independent since 2002). › The end of the apartheid regime allowed South Africa to participate again in the Olympic Games at the 1992 Games in Barcelona (Spain). The victory lap, hand-in-hand, of Ethiopia’s Derartu Tulu, who won the women’s 10,000 metres, and her South African rival Elana Meyer symbolised this change and became one of the highlights of these Games. › At the Opening Ceremony of the 2000 Games in Sydney (Australia), South Korea and North Korea paraded together under a single flag. This act was unprecedented since the breakdown in diplomatic relations between the two countries after the Korean War (1950-1953). › Also in Sydney, the status of the Aborigines was front page news, and several events were organised to make their claims known. The final stage of the torch relay was entrusted to Aboriginal athlete Cathy Freeman, and the culture of the Aboriginal people was a highlight of the Opening Ceremony. 1 1. OG Barcelona 1992 Athletics. 10000m Women – final, Derartu TULU (ETH) 1st and Elana MEYER (RSA) 2nd. © 1992 / IOPP / SASAHARA, Koji © The Olympic Museum 21 The Modern Olympic Games The Games and their era The Geography of the Games Games of the Olympiad (Summer Games) Olympiad Year City Country Continent I 1896 Athens Greece Europe II 1900 Paris France Europe III 1904 St Louis USA North America IV 1908 London United Kingdom Europe V 1912 Stockholm Sweden Europe VI 1916 World War I: The Olympiad was not celebrated VII 1920 Antwerp Belgium Europe VIII 1924 Paris France Europe IX 1928 Amsterdam The Netherlands Europe X 1932 Los Angeles USA North America XI 1936 Berlin Germany Europe XII 1940 World War II: The Olympiad was not celebrated XIII 1944 World War II: The Olympiad was not celebrated XIV 1948 London United Kingdom Europe XV 1952 Helsinki Finland Europe XVI 1956 Melbourne Stockholm (Equestrian Games Australia Sweden Oceania Europe XVII 1960 Rome Italy Europe XVIII 1964 Tokyo Japan Asia XIX 1968 Mexico City Mexico Latin America XX 1972 Munich Germany Europe XXI 1976 Montreal Canada North America XXII 1980 Moscow USSR Europe XXIII 1984 Los Angeles USA North America XXIV 1988 Seoul South Korea Asia XXV 1992 Barcelona Spain Europe XXVI 1996 Atlanta USA North America XXVII 2000 Sydney Australia Oceania XXVIII 2004 Athens Greece Europe XXIX 2008 Beijing China Asia XXX 2012 London United Kingdom Europe XXXI 2016 Rio de Janeiro Brazil Latin America 1. OG Helsinki 1952 Men’s 10km walk: medal ceremony © 1952 / International Olympic Committee (IOC) 1 © The Olympic Museum 22 The Modern Olympic Games The Games and their era Winter Games Number Year City Country Continent 1st 1924 Chamonix France Europe 2nd 1928 St Moritz Switzerland Europe 3rd 1932 Lake Placid USA North America 4th 1936 Garmisch-Partenkirchen Germany Europe 1940 World War II: The Olympiad was not celebrated 1944 World War II: The Olympiad was not celebrated 5th 1948 St Moritz Switzerland Europe 6th 1952 Oslo Norway Europe 7th 1956 Cortina d’Ampezzo Italy Europe 8th 1960 Squaw Valley USA North America 9th 1964 Innsbruck Austria Europe 10th 1968 Grenoble France Europe 11th 1972 Sapporo Japan Asia 12th 1976 Innsbruck Austria Europe 13th 1980 Lake Placid USA North America 14th 1984 Sarajevo Yugoslavia Europe 15th 1988 Calgary Canada North America 16th 1992 Albertville France Europe 17th 1994 Lillehammer Norway Europe 18th 1998 Nagano Japan Asia 19th 2002 Salt Lake City USA North America 20th 2006 Turin Italy Europe 21th 2010 Vancouver Canada North America 22th 2014 Sotchi Russia Europe 23th 2018 PyeongChang South Korea Asia 1. OG Sydney 2000, Closing Ceremony – Gathering of athletes in the stadium. © 2000 / Kishimoto / IOC / NAGAYA, Yo 1 The Olympiads are counted even if the Games do not take place! © The Olympic Museum 23 The Modern Olympic Games Activities - Selective Bibliography Activities Schools – subject area: human and social sciences Look at a globe or a map of the world and locate the Olympic Games host cities. Discuss the geographical distribution of the Summer and Winter Games. Write an article on an athlete who has taken part in the Games but who did not win a medal: describe his/her feelings, emotions and experience. Find out about an Olympic sport. Pick a sport you don’t know from the list of sports on the programme of the Summer or Winter Games. Do some research and prepare a fact sheet on it, including the names of some athletes who practise the sport. Imagine some costumes that could be used at the opening ceremony of the next Olympic Games. Choose a theme and sketch some designs. Identify some other major events that bring people together like the Olympic Games. Make a list of them and identify their similarities and differences. Find some other examples of the interplay between the Olympic Games and the historical, political or cultural situation of the time. Selective Bibliography Young readers › The Olympic Museum. How well do you know the Olympic Games? Lausanne: The Olympic Museum, 3rd edition, 2011 › Clive Gifford.Summer Olympics: the definitive guide to the world's greatest sports celebration Boston: Kingfisher, 2004 › David Fischer. The encyclopedia of the summer Olympics New York [etc.]: Franklin Watts, 2003 › Middleton, Haydn. Modern Olympic Games Chicago: Heinemann Library, 2000 © The Olympic Museum 24 The Modern Olympic Games Teachers › David Miller. The official history of the Olympic Games and the IOC: Athens to London 1984-2012 / by David Miller Edinburgh: Mainstream, 2012
Mikio Oda (織田 幹雄, Oda Mikio, March 30, 1905 – December 2, 1998) was a Japanese athlete and the first Japanese Olympic gold medalist. He was the first Asian Olympic champion in an individual event.[1][2] Biography Oda was born in Kaita, Hiroshima Prefecture. At the age of 17, he set a new Japanese record for the triple jump at the 1923 Far Eastern Championship Games held in Osaka, and also won the long jump and high jump events.[3] He was selected as a member of the Japanese Olympic team for the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, participating in all three events. However, he failed to reach the semifinals in the long jump and high jump, and placed sixth in the triple jump competition.[1] On his return to Japan, he enrolled at Waseda University, but returned to compete in the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. Although he again did not reach the semifinals in the long jump and high jump, he won the triple jump event with a result of 15.21 meters, becoming the first Japanese athlete to win an Olympic gold medal.[1] In 1931, Oda graduated from Waseda University and was employed by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. On October 27 of the same year, he established a new world record for the triple jump of 15.58 meters. Oda served as coach and captain of the Japanese athletics team at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.[1] Upon retirement from competitive athletics, he focused his efforts on sports administration, becoming a member of the Japanese Olympic Committee in 1948 and later taking part in the IAAF's technical committee. He also served as coach for the Japanese athletics team at the 1952 Summer Olympics at Helsinki and the 1954 Asian Games in Manila.[1] During the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, the Olympic flag was raised to a height of exactly 15.21 meters, to pay respect to Oda's achievement 36 years earlier. Oda field, a 400-meter running track in Yoyogi built for the 1964 Olympics, was named after Oda.[4] His sporting achievements were recognized with the creation of the Mikio Oda Memorial International Amateur Athletic Game, an annual track and field competition that has been held since 1967.[2] He became a professor at Waseda University from 1965. In 1976, Oda was awarded the Olympic Order, the highest award of the Olympic Movement. In 1988, Oda was honored by the government as a Person of Cultural Merit, and in 1989, he was named honorary chairman of the Japan Association of Athletics Federations. In the final years of his life, Oda moved from his home at Aburatsubo in Yokosuka, Kanagawa to a nursing home in Kugenuma (Fujisawa, Kanagawa). His grave is at the Buddhist temple of Tokei-ji in Kamakura. In 2000, Oda was posthumously chosen as the best Asian male athlete of the century by a panel of track and field experts. MIKIO ODA OF HIROSHIMA PREFECTURE IN JAPAN PLACED SIXTH IN THE TRIPLE JUMP AT THE 1924 OLYMPIC GAMES IN PARIS. 15.58 METRES Four years later, at the Olympic Games in Amsterdam, Oda edged Levi Casey of the United States by four centimetres to win the gold medal and become Asia's first Olympic champion in an individual event. He also competed in the long jump in both 1924 and 1928, and in 1928 he placed ninth in the high jump. In 1931, while still a student at Waseda University, Oda triple-jumped 15.58 metres to set a world record. 15.21 METRES When the Olympic Games were held in Tokyo in 1964, the Olympic flag was raised to a height of 15.21 metres to honour Oda's winning Olympic jump of 36 years earlier. Oda died 2 December 1998 at the age of 93. In 2000, a panel of track and field experts voted him the Male Asian Athlete of the Century. Few paid much attention when Mikio Oda won Japan’s first Olympic gold medal — and Asia’s first individual gold medal — way back at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics. There was no podium ceremony. That protocol was introduced in 1932 at the Winter Games in Lake Placid and the Summer Games in Los Angeles. The medals prior to this were handed over at the end of the games, in this case by Dutch Queen Wilhelmina. Oda missed out. He’d already left for Paris to compete in another international meet. Such was the stature of the Olympics back then. They did have a flag-raising ceremony when he won the triple jump, known then as the “hop, skip and jump” or “hop, step and jump.” Only one problem: officials, it seems, didn’t have a Japanese flag. ADVERTISEMENT The flag that went up was brought to the Netherlands by the Japanese delegation that included members from Waseda University, where Oda was a student. Few expected a Japanese victory. And there wasn’t much fuss back home. “My father was from Hiroshima, so there was a celebration in his hometown upon his return,” his 83-year-old son Kazuo Oda told The Associated Press in an interview. “But as there were no media possibilities like today, his achievements were not known by everybody in Japan.” Oda’s life and triumphs are preserved in a yellowed family album, captured perfectly by a tiny snapshot that Kazuo Oda cradled in his palms that shows his father in mid-air flight in the triple jump almost a century ago. “My father was very quiet and almost shy about telling about his achievements,” Kazuo Oda said. “So when he was in his prime as an athlete, his achievements were not known to everybody like they could have been today.” Mikio Oda was famous when he died at 93 in 1998 and was selected posthumously as the best Asian athlete of the century. The distance of his winning jump — 15.21 meters (49.9 feet) — is etched in stone outside the new headquarters of the Japanese Olympic Committee. He also once held the world record of 15.58 meters (51.11 ft.) and placed sixth in the 1924 Olympics in Paris. He was also a journalist, a promoter of Olympic sport, and Japan’s track and field coach for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. He was among the favorites to light the cauldron at the ’64 games. But that honor went to the-late Yoshinori Sakai, who was born in Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, the day the U.S. bomber Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb on the city. The era in which Oda competed — he got to Amsterdam via a two-week train ride across Siberia in which he complained about the food — puts next year’s Tokyo Olympics into sharp relief, where at least $20 billion is being spent to ready the city. Or the ambitious 1964 Tokyo Olympics, which signaled Japan’s recovery 19 years after the end of World War II. The early games focused almost entirely on Europe, the Americas, and some outposts of the old British Empire. Though Oda won the first individual gold medal for Asia, the first team gold medal went to the field hockey team from British India — also in 1928. That win came several months before Oda’s at a time when the games were spread out over many months. “I would vote for either Rome 1960 or Tokyo 1964 as when the Olympic became a show for the entire world and not just the West,” Bill Mallon, past-president and co-founder of the International Society of Olympic Historians, told AP. Mallon, who helped dig up the research on podiums and early medal ceremonies, credited the Olympics’ rise to television. Rome was the first to offer international TV coverage and Tokyo expanded the coverage via early satellites. Tokyo was officially designated by the IOC to hold the Olympics in 1940. But Japan withdrew in mid-1938, citing the war in China as the reason. Helsinki stepped in, but those games were eventually cancelled. Kazuo Oda, who worked in the international trading business, recalled a trip to China in which a university dean said he recognized the Oda family name. “I told him it was my father,” Kazuo Oda recalled. “He then said how proud and happy he felt about my father winning the gold medal as the first person from Asia, saying that people from Asia at that time were still often subjected to racial discrimination.” Kazuo Oda said his father was genuinely cosmopolitan; “a fan of the Burberry raincoat” who regularly bought overseas books and newspapers to keep up. “I found so many dictionaries, such as one in Swedish in my father’s study,” Kazuo said. “I was wondering why he had such dictionaries but later I found that he was reading newspapers from all over the world including those from Sweden or Spain so that he could check the world sport trends and the details of the athletes.” He said his father even rented a cafe across from the ’64 Olympic Village, a meeting place where coaches and athletes from all countries could chat and hang out. It took Japan two decades to rebuild after the war, but Mikio Oda recognized the psychological damage lingered. “When Japanese athletes were faced with the strong (foreign) athletes, they could be easily intimidated,” Kazuo said. “That’s what vexed my father so much. Even if the (Japanese) athletes had capabilities, when they heard their competitors’ names they were prone to become hesitant. Japan was still in that phase at that time. Even by 1964, Japanese people still held on to the belief that Japanese could not beat the athletes from overseas.” That’s changed. Japan has an ambitious goal of winning 30 gold medals next year, almost twice its best previous total of 16. That would probably put it among the top five, competing squarely with far more populous countries like China and the United States. “He would have been happy if he had seen Tokyo hosting the second Summer Olympics,” Kazuo said. “But he was such an old-school person and only knew the time when sports were largely amateur. He did not live to see when the boundary between amateurism and professionalism in sports is ambiguous. I doubt that he would have liked it.” ___ Shizuo Takada (高田 静雄, Takada Shizuo, 5 March 1909 – 10 December 1963) was a Japanese athlete. He competed in the men's shot put at the 1936 Summer Olympics.[1] He later made a name for himself as a photographer.[2] The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (French: Jeux olympiques)[a][1] are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games are considered the world's foremost sports competition with more than 200 nations participating.[2] The Olympic Games are normally held every four years, alternating between the Summer and Winter Olympics every two years in the four-year period. Their creation was inspired by the ancient Olympic Games (Ancient Greek: Ὀλυμπιακοί Ἀγῶνες), 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, leading to the first modern Games in Athens in 1896. The IOC is the governing body of the Olympic Movement,[definition needed] with the Olympic Charter defining its structure and authority. The Olympic Movement consists of international sports federations (IFs), National Olympic Committees (NOCs), and organising committees for each specific Olympic Games. As the decision-making body, the IOC is responsible for choosing the host city for each Games, and organises and funds the Games according to the Olympic Charter. The IOC also determines the Olympic programme, consisting of the sports to be contested at the Games. There are several Olympic rituals and symbols, such as the Olympic flag and torch, as well as the opening and closing ceremonies. Over 14,000 athletes competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics and 2018 Winter Olympics combined, in 35 different sports and over 400 events.[4][5] The first, second, and third-place finishers in each event receive Olympic medals: gold, silver, and bronze, respectively. The Games have grown so much that nearly every nation is now represented; colonies and overseas territories are allowed to field their own teams. This growth has created numerous challenges and controversies, including boycotts, doping, bribery, and terrorism. Every two years the Olympics and its media exposure provide athletes with the chance to attain national and sometimes international fame. The Games also provide an opportunity for the host city and country to showcase themselves to the world. Contents 1 Ancient Olympics 2 Modern Games 2.1 Forerunners 2.2 Revival 2.3 1896 Games 2.4 Changes and adaptations 2.5 21st-century Games 2.6 Cost of the Games 2.7 Economic and social impact on host cities and countries 3 International Olympic Committee 3.1 Criticism 4 Commercialisation 4.1 Under national organising committees 4.2 Under IOC control 4.3 Budget 4.4 Effect of television 4.5 Olympic marketing 5 Symbols 6 Ceremonies 6.1 Opening ceremony 6.2 Closing ceremony 6.3 Medal presentation 7 Sports 7.1 Amateurism and professionalism 8 Controversies 8.1 Boycotts 8.2 Politics 8.3 Use of performance-enhancing drugs 8.4 Sex discrimination 8.5 War and terrorism 9 Citizenship 9.1 IOC rules for citizenship 9.2 Reasons for changing citizenship 9.3 Citizenship changes and disputes 10 Champions and medallists 11 Nations 11.1 Nations at the Summer Olympics 11.2 Nations at the Winter Olympics 11.3 Host nations and cities 12 See also 13 Notes 14 References 15 Sources 16 Further reading 17 External links Ancient Olympics Main article: Ancient Olympic Games Stadium in Olympia, Greece The Ancient Olympic Games were religious and athletic festivals held every four years at the sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia, Greece. Competition was among representatives of several city-states and kingdoms of Ancient Greece. These Games featured mainly athletic but also combat sports such as wrestling and the pankration, horse and chariot racing events. It has been widely written that during the Games, all conflicts among the participating city-states were postponed until the Games were finished. This cessation of hostilities was known as the Olympic peace or truce.[6] This idea is a modern myth because the Greeks never suspended their wars. The truce did allow those religious pilgrims who were travelling to Olympia to pass through warring territories unmolested because they were protected by Zeus.[7] The origin of the Olympics is shrouded in mystery and legend;[8] one of the most popular myths identifies Heracles and his father Zeus as the progenitors of the Games.[9][10][11] According to legend, it was Heracles who first called the Games "Olympic" and established the custom of holding them every four years.[12] The myth continues that after Heracles completed his twelve labours, he built the Olympic Stadium as an honour to Zeus. Following its completion, he walked in a straight line for 200 steps and called this distance a "stadion" (Ancient Greek: στάδιον, Latin: stadium, "stage"), which later became a unit of distance. The most widely accepted inception date for the Ancient Olympics is 776 BC; this is based on inscriptions, found at Olympia, listing the winners of a footrace held every four years starting in 776 BC.[13] 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.[14][15] Tradition has it that Coroebus, a cook from the city of Elis, was the first Olympic champion.[16] The Olympics were of fundamental religious importance, featuring sporting events alongside ritual sacrifices honouring both Zeus (whose famous 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.[17] The winners of the events were admired and immortalised in poems and statues.[18] 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, the Nemean Games, and the Isthmian Games.[19] The Olympic Games reached the height of their success in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, but then gradually declined in importance as the Romans gained power and influence in Greece. While there is no scholarly consensus as to when the Games officially ended, the most commonly held date is 393 AD, when the emperor Theodosius I decreed that all pagan cults and practices be eliminated.[b] Another date commonly cited is 426 AD, when his successor, Theodosius II, ordered the destruction of all Greek temples.[21] Modern Games See also: List of Olympic Games host cities Forerunners Baron Pierre de Coubertin Various uses of the term "Olympic" to describe athletic events in the modern era have been documented since the 17th century. The first such event was the Cotswold Games or "Cotswold Olimpick Games", an annual meeting near Chipping Campden, England, involving various sports. It was first organised by the lawyer Robert Dover between 1612 and 1642, with several later celebrations leading up to the present day. The British Olympic Association, in its bid for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, mentioned these games as "the first stirrings of Britain's Olympic beginnings".[22] L'Olympiade de la République, a national Olympic festival held annually from 1796 to 1798 in Revolutionary France also attempted to emulate the ancient Olympic Games.[23] The competition included several disciplines from the ancient Greek Olympics. The 1796 Games also marked the introduction of the metric system into sport.[23] 1834 Handbill, written in phonetic vernacular, advertising "Ho-limpyc Gaymes" in Oswestry, Shropshire, England In 1834 and 1836, Olympic games were held in Ramlösa [sv] (Olympiska spelen i Ramlösa), and an additional in Stockholm, Sweden in 1843, all organised by Gustaf Johan Schartau and others. At most 25,000 spectators saw the games.[24] In 1850, an Olympian Class was started by William Penny Brookes at Much Wenlock, in Shropshire, England. In 1859, Brookes changed the name to the Wenlock Olympian Games. This annual sports festival continues to this day.[25] The Wenlock Olympian Society was founded by Brookes on 15 November 1860.[26] Between 1862 and 1867, Liverpool held an annual Grand Olympic Festival. Devised by John Hulley and Charles Melly, these games were the first to be wholly amateur in nature and international in outlook, although only 'gentlemen amateurs' could compete.[27][28] The programme of the first modern Olympiad in Athens in 1896 was almost identical to that of the Liverpool Olympics.[29] In 1865 Hulley, 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.[30] In 1866, a national Olympic Games in Great Britain was organised at London's Crystal Palace.[31] Revival Evangelos Zappas Greek interest in reviving the Olympic Games began with the Greek War of Independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1821. It was first proposed by poet and newspaper editor Panagiotis Soutsos in his poem "Dialogue of the Dead", published in 1833.[32] Evangelos 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.[33] 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.[33] The stadium hosted Olympics in 1870 and 1875.[34] Thirty thousand spectators attended that Games in 1870, though no official attendance records are available for the 1875 Games.[35] 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).[36] 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.[36] He presented these ideas during the first Olympic Congress of the newly created International Olympic Committee. This meeting was held from 16 to 23 June 1894, at the University of 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.[37] The IOC elected the Greek writer Demetrius Vikelas as its first president.[38] 1896 Games Main article: 1896 Summer Olympics Opening ceremony in the Panathinaiko Stadium, 6 April 1896 The first Games held under the auspices of the IOC was hosted in the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens in 1896. The Games brought together 14 nations and 241 athletes who competed in 43 events.[39] 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.[40][41][42] George Averoff contributed generously for the refurbishment of the stadium in preparation for the Games.[43] The Greek government also provided funding, which was expected to be recouped through the sale of tickets and from the sale of the first Olympic commemorative stamp set.[43] Greek officials and the public were enthusiastic about the experience of hosting an Olympic Games. This feeling was shared by many of the athletes, who even demanded that Athens be the permanent Olympic host city. The IOC intended for subsequent Games to be rotated to various host cities around the world. The second Olympics was held in Paris.[44] Changes and adaptations Main article: Summer Olympic Games Francis Field of Washington University in St. Louis during the 1904 Summer Olympics After the success of the 1896 Games, the Olympics entered a period of stagnation which threatened its survival. The Olympic Games held at the Paris Exposition in 1900 and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis in 1904 failed to attract much participation or notice. Of the 650 athletes in the 1904 Olympics, 580 were American; the winner of the marathon was later disqualified upon discovery of a photograph of him riding in a car during the race.[45] The Games rebounded with the 1906 Intercalated Games (so-called because they were the second Olympics to take place within the third Olympiad), which were held in Athens. These Games attracted a broad international field of participants and generated a great deal of public interest, marking the beginning of a rise in both the popularity and the size of the Olympics. The 1906 Games were officially recognised by the IOC at the time (although not any longer), and no Intercalated Games have been held since.[46] Winter Games Main article: Winter Olympic Games Ice hockey game during the 1928 Winter Olympics at St. Moritz The Winter Olympics was 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 in 1924 in Chamonix, France, in connection with the Paris Games held three months later; this event became the first Winter Olympic Games.[47] Although it was intended that the same country host both the Winter and Summer Games in a given year, this idea was quickly abandoned. The IOC mandated that the Winter Games be celebrated every four years in the same year as their summer counterpart.[48] This tradition was upheld through the 1992 Games in Albertville, France; after that, beginning with the 1994 Games, the Winter Olympics were held every four years, two years after each Summer Olympics.[49] Paralympics Main article: Paralympic Games 1964 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo In 1948, Sir Ludwig Guttmann, determined to promote the rehabilitation of soldiers after World War II, organised a multi-sport event between several hospitals to coincide with the 1948 London Olympics. Originally known as the Stoke Mandeville Games, Guttmann's event became an annual sports festival. Over the next 12 years, Guttmann and others continued their efforts to use sports as an avenue to healing. In 1960, Guttmann brought 400 athletes to Rome to compete in the "Parallel Olympics", which ran in parallel with the Summer Olympics and came to be known as the first Paralympics. Since then, the Paralympics have been held in every Olympic year and, starting with the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul, the host city for the Olympics has also played host to the Paralympics.[50][c] The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) signed an agreement in 2001 which guaranteed that host cities would be contracted to manage both the Olympic and Paralympic Games.[52][53] The agreement came into effect at the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, and at the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver. Two years before the 2012 Games, the LOCOG chairman Lord Coe made the following statement about the Paralympics and Olympics in London:[54] 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. Youth Games Main article: Youth Olympic Games In 2010, the Olympic Games were complemented by the Youth Games, which give 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.[55][56] The first Summer Youth Games were held in Singapore from 14 to 26 August 2010, while the inaugural Winter Games were hosted in Innsbruck, Austria, two years later.[57] These Games will be shorter than the senior Games; the summer version will last twelve days, while the winter version will last nine days.[58] 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.[59][60] 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.[61] 21st-century Games The Summer Olympics have grown from 241 participants representing 14 nations in 1896, to more than 11,200 competitors representing 207 nations in 2016.[62] The scope and scale of the Winter Olympics is smaller; for example, Pyeongchang hosted 2,922 athletes from 92 nations in 2018. Most of the athletes and officials are housed in the Olympic Village for the duration of the Games. This accommodation centre is designed to be a self-contained home for all Olympic participants, and is furnished with cafeterias, health clinics, and locations for religious expression.[63] The IOC has allowed the formation of National Olympic Committees (NOCs) to represent individual nations. These do not meet the strict requirements for political sovereignty that other international organisations demand. As a result, colonies and dependencies are permitted to compete at Olympic Games, examples being territories such as Puerto Rico, Bermuda, and Hong Kong, all of which compete as separate nations despite being legally a part of another country.[64] The current version of the Olympic Charter allows for the establishment of new NOCs to represent nations that qualify as "an independent State recognised by the international community".[65] Consequently, the IOC did not allow the formation of NOCs for Sint Maarten and Curaçao when they gained the same constitutional status as Aruba in 2010, although the IOC had recognised the Aruban Olympic Committee in 1986.[66][67] Since 2012, athletes from the former Netherlands Antilles have had the option to represent either the Netherlands or Aruba.[68] Cost of the Games See also: Cost of the Olympic Games The Oxford Olympics Study 2016 found that, since 1960, sports-related costs for the Summer Games were on average US$5.2 billion and for the Winter Games $3.1 billion. These figures do not include wider infrastructure costs like roads, urban rail, and airports, which often cost as much or more than the sports-related costs. The most expensive Summer Games were Beijing 2008 at US$40–44 billion,[69] and the most expensive Winter Games were Sochi 2014 at US$51 billion.[70][71] As of 2016, costs per athlete were, on average, US$599,000 for the Summer Games and $1.3 million for the Winter Games; for London 2012, the cost per athlete was $1.4 million, and the figure was $7.9 million for Sochi 2014.[71] Where ambitious construction for the 1976 Games in Montreal and the 1980 Games in Moscow had burdened organisers with expenses greatly in excess of revenues, Los Angeles strictly controlled expenses for the 1984 Games by using existing facilities that were paid for by corporate sponsors. The Olympic Committee led by Peter Ueberroth used some of the profits to endow the LA84 Foundation to promote youth sports in Southern California, educate coaches and maintain a sports library. The 1984 Summer Olympics are often considered the most financially successful modern Olympics and a model for future Games.[72] Budget overruns are common for the Games. Average overrun for Games since 1960 is 156% in real terms,[73] which means that actual costs turned out to be on average 2.56 times the budget that was estimated at the time of winning the bid to host the Games. Montreal 1976 had the highest cost overrun for Summer Games, and for any Games, at 720%; Lake Placid 1980 had the highest cost overrun for Winter Games, at 324%. London 2012 had a cost overrun of 76%, Sochi 2014 of 289%.[71] It has been documented that cost and cost overrun for the Games follow a power-law distribution, which means that, first, the Games are prone to large cost overruns and, second, it is only a matter of time until an overrun occurs that is larger than the largest to date. In short, hosting the Games is economically and financially extremely risky.[74] Economic and social impact on host cities and countries This section has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This section contains weasel words: vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information. (May 2021) This section relies too much on references to primary sources. (May 2021) Many economists[who?] are sceptical about the economic benefits of hosting the Olympic Games, emphasising that such "mega-events" often have large costs while yielding relatively few tangible benefits in the long run.[75] Conversely hosting (or even bidding for) the Olympics appears to increase the host country's exports, as the host or candidate country sends a signal about trade openness when bidding to host the Games.[76] Moreover, research suggests that hosting the Summer Olympics has a strong positive effect on the philanthropic contributions of corporations headquartered in the host city, which seems to benefit the local nonprofit sector. This positive effect begins in the years leading up to the Games and might persist for several years afterwards, although not permanently. This finding suggests that hosting the Olympics might create opportunities for cities to influence local corporations in ways that benefit the local nonprofit sector and civil society.[77] The Games have also had significant negative effects on host communities; for example, the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions reports that the Olympics displaced more than two million people over two decades, often disproportionately affecting disadvantaged groups.[78] The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi were the most expensive Olympic Games in history, costing in excess of US$50 billion. According to a report by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development that was released at the time of the games, this cost will not boost Russia's national economy, but may attract business to Sochi and the southern Krasnodar region of Russia in the future as a result of improved services.[79] But by December 2014, The Guardian stated that Sochi "now feels like a ghost town", citing the spread-out nature of the stadiums and arenas, the still-unfinished construction, and the overall effects of Russia's political and economic turmoil.[80] Furthermore, at least four cities withdrew their bids for the 2022 Winter Olympics, citing the high costs or the lack of local support,[81] resulting in only a two-city race between Almaty, Kazakhstan and Beijing, China. Thus in July 2016, The Guardian stated that the biggest threat to the future of the Olympics is that very few cities want to host them.[82] Bidding for the 2024 Summer Olympics also became a two-city race between Paris and Los Angeles, so the IOC took the unusual step of simultaneously awarding both the 2024 Games to Paris and the 2028 Games to Los Angeles. Both the bids were praised for planning to use a record-breaking number of existing and temporary facilities.[83] International Olympic Committee See also: International Olympic Committee The Olympic Movement encompasses a large number of national and international sporting organisations and federations, recognised media partners, as well as athletes, officials, judges, and every other person and institution that agrees to abide by the rules of the Olympic Charter.[84] As the umbrella organisation of the Olympic Movement, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is responsible for selecting the host city, overseeing the planning of the Olympic Games, updating and approving the Olympic sports programme, and negotiating sponsorship and broadcasting rights.[85] 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 association football, and the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball is the international governing body for volleyball. There are currently 35 IFs in the Olympic Movement, representing each of the Olympic sports.[86] National Olympic Committees (NOCs) represent and regulate the Olympic Movement within each country. For example, the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) is the NOC of the Russian Federation. There are currently 206 NOCs recognised by the IOC.[87][88] Organising Committees for the Olympic Games (OCOGs) are temporary committees responsible for the organisation of each Olympic Games. OCOGs are dissolved after each Games once the final report is delivered to the IOC.[89] 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 (or languages, if a country has more than one official language apart from French or English). Every proclamation (such as the announcement of each country during the parade of nations in the opening ceremony) is spoken in these three (or more) languages, or the main two depending on whether the host country is an English or French speaking country: French is always spoken first, followed by an English translation, and then the dominant language of the host nation (when this is not English or French).[90] Criticism The IOC has often been accused of being an intractable organisation, with several life members on the committee. The presidential terms of Avery Brundage and Juan Antonio Samaranch were especially controversial. Brundage fought strongly for amateurism and against the commercialisation of the Olympic Games, even as these attitudes came to be seen as incongruous with the realities of modern sports. The advent of state-sponsored athletes from the Eastern Bloc countries further eroded the ideology of the pure amateur, as it placed self-financed amateurs of Western countries at a disadvantage.[91] Brundage was accused of racism—for resisting the exclusion of apartheid South Africa—and antisemitism.[92] Under the Samaranch presidency, the office was accused of both nepotism and corruption.[93] Samaranch's ties with the Franco regime in Spain were also a source of criticism.[94] In 1998, it was reported that several IOC members had taken gifts from members of the Salt Lake City bid committee for the hosting of the 2002 Winter Olympics. There were soon four independent investigations underway: by the IOC, the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), the Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC), and the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). Although nothing strictly illegal had occurred, it was felt that the acceptance of the gifts was morally dubious. As a result of the investigation, ten members of the IOC were expelled and a further ten sanctioned.[95] Stricter rules were adopted for future bids, and caps were introduced to define how much IOC members could accept from bid cities. Additionally, new term and age limits were put into place for IOC membership, and fifteen former Olympic athletes were added to the committee. Nevertheless, from sporting and business standpoints, the 2002 Olympics were one of the most successful Winter Games in history; records were set in both the broadcasting and marketing programs. Over 2 billion viewers watched more than 13 billion viewer-hours.[96] The 2002 Games were also a financial success, raising more money with fewer sponsors than any prior Olympic Games, leaving SLOC with a surplus of $40 million. This excess revenue was used to create the Utah Athletic Foundation (also known as the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation), which maintains and operates many of the surviving Olympic venues.[96] It was reported in 1999 that the Nagano Olympic bid committee had spent approximately $14 million on entertaining the 62 IOC members and many of their associates. The precise figures are unknown since Nagano destroyed the financial records after the IOC requested that the entertainment expenditures should not be made public.[97][98] A BBC documentary entitled Panorama: Buying the Games, which aired in August 2004, investigated the taking of bribes in the bidding process for the 2012 Summer Olympics.[99] The documentary claimed that it was possible to bribe IOC members into voting for a particular candidate city. After being narrowly defeated in their bid for the 2012 Games,[100] 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 concerning his involvement[101] but the allegation was never fully explored. Turin's 2006 Winter Olympic bid was also clouded by controversy. A prominent IOC member, Marc Hodler, closely connected to the rival bid of Sion, alleged bribery of IOC officials by members of the Turin Organising Committee. These accusations led to a wide-ranging investigation, and also served to sour many IOC members against Sion's bid which potentially helped Turin to capture the host city nomination.[102] The continued refusal by the IOC to hold a moment of silence at the opening ceremony for the eleven Israeli athletes killed by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics was criticised by the victims' families and Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League and B'nai B'rith International.[103][104] Ultimately, such a remembrance was held at the opening ceremony of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.[105] In April 2018, Norwegian track and field athletics manager Håkon Lutdal argued for abolishing the Olympic Games, arguing against the concept of gathering many sports in a single town, city or region no matter how popular or unpopular those sports are there. Instead, he argued for elevating the status of various world championships in different sports, usually at locations attracting more interested spectators.[106] In 2020, a group of Oxford University scholars documented high costs and cost overruns for the Games and criticised the IOC for not taking enough responsibility for controlling increasing costs.[74] The IOC criticised the study and the Oxford scholars countered the criticism, point by point, in an open letter to IOC President Thomas Bach.[107] Commercialisation Under national organising committees The Olympic Games have been commercialised to various degrees since the inaugural 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens, when a number of companies paid for advertising,[108] including Kodak.[109][110] In 1908, Oxo, Odol [de] mouthwash, and Indian Foot Powder became official sponsors of the London Olympic Games.[111][112][113] Coca-Cola first sponsored the Summer Olympics in 1928, and has remained an Olympic sponsor ever since.[108] Before the IOC took control of sponsorship, the NOCs had responsibility for negotiating their own contracts for sponsorship and use of the Olympic symbols.[114] Under IOC control 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.[114] 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.[115] Budget During the first half of the 20th century, the IOC ran on a small budget.[115][116] As president of the IOC from 1952 to 1972, Avery Brundage rejected all attempts to link the Olympics with commercial interest.[114] Brundage believed the lobby of corporate interests would unduly impact the IOC's decision-making.[114] Brundage's resistance to this revenue stream meant the IOC left organising committees to negotiate their own sponsorship contracts and use the Olympic symbols.[114] When Brundage retired the IOC had US$2 million in assets; eight years later the IOC coffers had swelled to US$45 million.[114] This was primarily due to a shift in ideology toward expansion of the Games through corporate sponsorship and the sale of television rights.[114] When Juan Antonio Samaranch was elected IOC president in 1980 his desire was to make the IOC financially independent.[116] The 1984 Summer Olympics became a watershed moment in Olympic history. The Los Angeles-based organising committee, led by Peter Ueberroth, was able to generate a surplus of US$225 million, which was an unprecedented amount at that time.[117] The organising committee had been able to create such a surplus in part by selling exclusive sponsorship rights to select companies.[117] The IOC sought to gain control of these sponsorship rights. Samaranch helped to establish The Olympic Programme (TOP) in 1985, in order to create an Olympic brand.[115] Membership in TOP was, and is, very exclusive and expensive. Fees cost US$50 million for a four-year membership.[116] 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.[118] Effect of television A cartoon from the 1936 Olympics imagines the year 2000 when spectators will have been replaced by television and radio, their cheers coming from loudspeakers. The 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin were the first Games to be broadcast on television, though only to local audiences.[119] The 1956 Winter Olympics in Italy were the first internationally televised Olympic Games,[120] and the broadcasting rights for the following Winter Games in California were sold for the first time to specialised television broadcasting networks—CBS paid US$394,000 for the American rights.[121][115] In the following decades, the Olympics became one of the ideological fronts of the Cold War, and the International Olympic Committee wanted to take advantage of this heightened interest via the broadcast medium.[121] The sale of broadcast rights enabled the IOC to increase the exposure of the Olympic Games, thereby generating more interest, which in turn enhanced the appeal of TV air time to the advertisers. This cycle allowed the IOC to charge ever-increasing fees for those rights.[121] For example, CBS paid US$375 million for the American broadcast rights for the 1998 Nagano Games,[122] while NBC spent US$3.5 billion for the American rights to air every Olympic Games from 2000 to 2012.[115] In 2011, NBC agreed to a $4.38 billion contract with the IOC to broadcast the Olympics through the 2020 Games, the most expensive television rights deal in Olympic history.[123] NBC then agreed to a $7.75 billion contract extension on 7 May 2014, to air the Olympics through the 2032 Games.[124] NBC also acquired the American television rights to the Youth Olympic Games, beginning in 2014,[125] and the Paralympic Games.[126] More than half of the Olympic Committee's global sponsors are American companies,[127] and NBC is one of the major sources of revenue for the IOC.[127] Viewership increased exponentially from the 1960s until the end of the 20th century. This was due to the advent of satellites for broadcasting live television worldwide starting in 1964, and the introduction of colour television in 1968.[128] The global audience for the 1968 Mexico City Games was estimated to be 600 million, whereas the audience numbers at the Los Angeles Games of 1984 had increased to 900 million; this number had swelled to 3.5 billion by the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.[129][130][131][132][133] 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. The IOC responded by making a number of changes to the Olympic programme; at the Summer Games, the gymnastics competition was expanded from seven to nine nights, and a Champions Gala was added to attract greater interest;[134] the events programmes were also expanded for swimming and diving, both popular sports with a broad base of television viewers.[134] Due to the substantial fees NBC has paid for rights to the Olympics, the IOC has allowed the network to influence the event scheduling to maximise U.S. television ratings when possible.[135][132][136][137] Notable examples of maximizing U.S. television viewership include scheduling the finals of the swimming events only during the mornings of the host cities Beijing (during the 2008 Summer Olympics) and Tokyo (during the 2020 Summer Olympics), which coincide with the evening prime time broadcast slots of the United States.[138][139][140][141][142] Olympic marketing The sale of the Olympic brand has been controversial. The argument is that the Games have become indistinguishable from any other commercialised sporting spectacle.[118][143][143] 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.[118] 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.[144] Research has shown that trade is around 30 percent higher for countries that have hosted the Olympics.[145] Symbols Main article: Olympic symbols The Olympic flag 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 (Africa, The Americas (is considered one continent), Asia, Europe, and Oceania). The coloured version of the rings—blue, yellow, black, green, and red—over a white field forms the Olympic flag. These colours 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.[146][147] The Olympic motto, Citius, Altius, Fortius, a Latin expression meaning "Faster, Higher, Stronger" was proposed by Pierre de Coubertin in 1894 and has been official since 1924. The motto was coined by Coubertin's friend, the Dominican priest Henri Didon OP, for a Paris youth gathering of 1891.[148] Coubertin's Olympic ideals are 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.[146] Months before each Games, the Olympic Flame is lit at the Temple of Hera in Olympia in a ceremony that reflects ancient Greek rituals. A female performer, acting as a priestess joined by ten female performers as Vestal Virgins, 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 (who also is a Greek athlete), 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.[149] Though the flame has been an Olympic symbol since 1928, the torch relay was only introduced at the 1936 Summer Games to promote the Third Reich.[146][150] 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 of the Games' identity promotion since the 1980 Summer Olympics, when the Soviet bear cub Misha reached international stardom. The mascot of the Summer Olympics in London was named Wenlock after the town of Much Wenlock in Shropshire. Much Wenlock still hosts the Wenlock Olympian Games, which were an inspiration to Pierre de Coubertin for the Olympic Games.[151] Ceremonies Main article: Olympic Games ceremony Opening ceremony Opening ceremony of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo As mandated by the Olympic Charter, various elements frame the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. This ceremony takes place on a Friday and is held prior to the commencement of the sporting events (apart from some group-stage football matches, softball games, and rowing heats).[152][153] Most of the rituals for the opening ceremony were established at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp.[154] The ceremony typically starts with the entrance of the president of the International Olympic Committee and a representative of the host country followed by the hoisting of the host country's flag and a performance of its national anthem.[152][153] The host nation then presents artistic displays of music, singing, dance, and theatre representative of its culture.[154] 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.[155] After the artistic portion of the ceremony, the athletes parade into the stadium grouped by nation. Greece is traditionally the first nation to enter and leads the parade in order to honour 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. Beginning with the 2020 Summer Olympics, the succeeding hosts of the respective Olympic Games (summer or winter) will enter immediately before the current host in descending order. Speeches are given by the President of the Organizing Committee, the IOC president, and the head of state/representative of the host country, 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 successful Olympic athlete from the host nation, who lights the Olympic flame in the stadium's cauldron.[152][153] Closing ceremony Athletes gather in the stadium during the closing ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. The closing ceremony of the Olympic Games takes place on a Sunday and 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.[156] Three national flags are hoisted while the corresponding national anthems are played: the flag of the current host country; the flag of Greece, to honour the birthplace of the Olympic Games; and the flag of the country hosting the next Summer or Winter Olympic Games.[156] The president of the organising committee and the IOC president make their closing speeches, the Games are officially closed, and the Olympic flame is extinguished.[157] In what is known as the Antwerp Ceremony, the current mayor of the city that organised the Games transfers a special Olympic flag to the president of the IOC, who then passes it on to the current mayor of the city hosting the next Olympic Games.[158] The next host nation then also briefly introduces itself with artistic displays of dance and theatre representative of its culture.[156] As is customary, the last medal presentation of the Games is held as part of the closing ceremony. Typically, the marathon medals are presented at the Summer Olympics,[156][159] while the cross-country skiing mass start medals are awarded at the Winter Olympics.[160] Medal presentation A medal ceremony at the 2008 Summer Olympics with (from left to right): the Danish flag, the Union Flag of the UK, and the New Zealand flag A medal ceremony is held after the conclusion of each Olympic event. The winner, and the second- and third-place competitors or teams, stand on top of a three-tiered rostrum to be awarded their respective medals by a member of the IOC.[161] After the medals have been received, the national flags of the three medallists are raised while the national anthem of the gold medallist's country is played.[162] Volunteering citizens of the host country also act as hosts during the medal ceremonies, assisting the officials who present the medals and acting as flag-bearers.[163] In the Summer Olympics, each medal ceremony is held at the venue where the event has taken place,[164] but the ceremonies at the Winter Olympics are usually held in a special "plaza".[165] Sports Main article: Olympic sports The Olympic Games programme consists of 35 sports, 30 disciplines and 408 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.[166] The Summer Olympics programme includes 26 sports, while the Winter Olympics programme features 15 sports.[167] Athletics, swimming, fencing, and artistic gymnastics are the only summer sports that have never been absent from the Olympic programme. Cross-country skiing, figure skating, ice hockey, Nordic combined, ski jumping, and speed skating have been featured at every Winter Olympics programme since its inception in 1924. Current Olympic sports, like badminton, basketball, and volleyball, first appeared on the programme as demonstration sports, and were later promoted to full Olympic sports. Some sports that were featured in earlier Games were later dropped from the programme.[168] Olympic sports are governed by international sports federations (IFs) recognised by the IOC as the global supervisors of those sports. There are 35 federations represented at the IOC.[169] There are sports recognised by the IOC that are not included in the Olympic programme. These sports are not considered Olympic sports, but they can be promoted to this status during a programme revision that occurs in the first IOC session following a celebration of the Olympic Games.[170][171] During such revisions, sports can be excluded or included in the programme on the basis of a two-thirds majority vote of the members of the IOC.[172] There are recognised sports that have never been on an Olympic programme in any capacity, for example, squash.[173] In October and November 2004, the IOC established an Olympic Programme Commission, which was tasked with reviewing the sports on the Olympic programme and all non-Olympic recognised sports. The goal was to apply a systematic approach to establishing the Olympic programme for each celebration of the Games.[174] The commission formulated seven criteria to judge whether a sport should be included on the Olympic programme.[174] 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.[174] From this study five recognised sports emerged as candidates for inclusion at the 2012 Summer Olympics: golf, karate, rugby sevens, roller sports and squash.[174] 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.[174] Neither sport attained the required two-thirds vote and consequently they were not promoted to the Olympic programme.[174] In October 2009 the IOC voted to instate golf and rugby sevens as Olympic sports for the 2016 and 2020 Summer Olympic Games.[175] The 114th IOC Session, in 2002, limited the Summer Games programme to a maximum of 28 sports, 301 events, and 10,500 athletes.[174] Three years later, at the 117th IOC Session, the first major programme revision was performed, which resulted in the exclusion of baseball and softball from the official programme of the 2012 London Games. Since there was no agreement in the promotion of two other sports, the 2012 programme featured just 26 sports.[174] The 2016 and 2020 Games will return to the maximum of 28 sports given the addition of rugby and golf.[175] Amateurism and professionalism Further information: Amateur sports 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 public school greatly influenced Pierre de Coubertin.[176] The public 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 practising or training was considered tantamount to cheating.[176] Those who practised a sport professionally were considered to have an unfair advantage over those who practised it merely as a hobby.[176] 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 baseball before the Olympics. His medals were posthumously restored by the IOC in 1983 on compassionate grounds.[177] 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.[178] The advent of the state-sponsored "full-time amateur athlete" of the Eastern Bloc countries eroded the ideology of the pure amateur, as it put the self-financed amateurs of the Western countries at a disadvantage. The Soviet Union entered teams of athletes who were all nominally students, soldiers, or working in a profession, but all of whom were in reality paid by the state to train on a full-time basis.[179][180][176] The situation greatly disadvantaged American and Western European athletes, and was a major factor in the decline of American medal hauls in the 1970s and 1980s. However, workarounds in Western countries also allowed individuals to focus full-time on sport while passing the amateur rules.[181] As a result, the Olympics shifted away from amateurism, as envisioned by Pierre de Coubertin, to allowing participation of professional athletes,[182] but only in the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its influence within the International Olympic Committee.[183][184][185] Team Canada ice hockey dispute Near the end of the 1960s, the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA) felt their amateur players could no longer be competitive against the Soviet team's full-time athletes and the other constantly improving European teams. They pushed for the ability to use players from professional leagues but met opposition from the IIHF and IOC. At the IIHF Congress in 1969, the IIHF decided to allow Canada to use nine non-NHL professional hockey players[186] at the 1970 World Championships in Montreal and Winnipeg, Canada.[187] The decision was reversed in January 1970 after Brundage said that ice hockey's status as an Olympic sport would be in jeopardy if the change was made.[186] In response, Canada withdrew from international ice hockey competition and officials stated that they would not return until "open competition" was instituted.[186][188] Günther Sabetzki became president of the IIHF in 1975 and helped to resolve the dispute with the CAHA. In 1976, the IIHF agreed to allow "open competition" between all players in the World Championships. However, NHL players were still not allowed to play in the Olympics until 1988, because of the IOC's amateur-only policy.[189] Controversies Main article: Olympic Games scandals and controversies Boycotts Main article: List of Olympic Games boycotts Countries that boycotted the 1956 Summer Olympics (shaded blue) Countries that boycotted the 1964 Summer Olympics (shaded red) Countries that boycotted the 1976 Summer Olympics (shaded blue) Countries that boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympics (shaded blue) Countries that boycotted the 1984 Summer Olympics (shaded blue) Greece, Australia, France, and United Kingdom are the only countries to be represented at every Olympic Games since their inception in 1896. While countries sometimes miss an Olympics due to a lack of qualified athletes, some choose to boycott a celebration of the Games for various reasons. The Olympic Council of Ireland boycotted the 1936 Berlin Games, because the IOC insisted its team needed to be restricted to the Irish Free State rather than representing the entire island of Ireland.[190] There were three boycotts of the 1956 Melbourne Olympics: the Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland refused to attend because of the repression of the Hungarian uprising by the Soviet Union, but did send an equestrian delegation to Stockholm; Cambodia, Egypt, Iraq, and Lebanon boycotted the Games because of the Suez Crisis; and the People's Republic of China boycotted the Games due to the participation of the Republic of China, composed of athletes coming from Taiwan.[191] In 1972 and 1976 a large number of African countries threatened the IOC with a boycott to force them to ban South Africa and Rhodesia, because of their segregationist rule. New Zealand was also one of the African boycott targets, because its national rugby union team had toured apartheid-ruled South Africa. The IOC conceded in the first two cases, but refused to ban New Zealand on the grounds that rugby was not an Olympic sport.[192] Fulfilling their threat, twenty African countries were joined by Guyana and Iraq in a withdrawal from the Montreal Games, after a few of their athletes had already competed.[192][193] The Republic of China (Taiwan) was excluded from the 1976 Games by order of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada. Trudeau's action was widely condemned as having brought shame on Canada for having succumbed to political pressure to keep the Chinese delegation from competing under its name.[194] The ROC refused a proposed compromise that would have still allowed them to use the ROC flag and anthem as long as the name was changed.[195] Athletes from Taiwan did not participate again until 1984, when they returned under the name of Chinese Taipei and with a special flag and anthem.[196] In 1980 and 1984, the Cold War opponents boycotted each other's Games. The United States and sixty-five other countries boycotted the Moscow Olympics in 1980 because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This boycott reduced the number of nations participating to 80, the lowest number since 1956.[197] The Soviet Union and 15 other nations countered by boycotting the Los Angeles Olympics of 1984. Although a boycott led by the Soviet Union depleted the field in certain sports, 140 National Olympic Committees took part, which was a record at the time.[3] The fact that Romania, a Warsaw Pact country, opted to compete despite Soviet demands led to a warm reception of the Romanian team by the United States. When the Romanian athletes entered during the opening ceremonies, they received a standing ovation from the spectators, which comprised mostly U.S. citizens. The boycotting nations of the Eastern Bloc staged their own alternate event, the Friendship Games, in July and August.[198][199] There had been growing calls for boycotts of Chinese goods and the 2008 Olympics in Beijing in protest of China's human rights record, and in response to Tibetan disturbances. Ultimately, no nation supported a boycott.[200][201] In August 2008, the government of Georgia called for a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics, set to be held in Sochi, Russia, in response to Russia's participation in the 2008 South Ossetia war.[202][203] Continuing human rights violations in China have led to "diplomatic boycotts", where athletes still compete at the Games but diplomats do not attend, of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing by several countries, most notably the United States.[204][205] Politics Jesse Owens on the podium after winning the long jump at the 1936 Summer Olympics The Olympic Games have been used as a platform to promote political ideologies almost from its inception. Nazi Germany wished to portray the National Socialist Party as benevolent and peace-loving when they hosted the 1936 Games, though they used the Games to display Aryan superiority.[206] Germany was the most successful nation at the Games, which did much to support their allegations of Aryan supremacy, but notable victories by African American Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals, and Hungarian Jew Ibolya Csák, blunted the message.[207] The Soviet Union did not participate until the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. Instead, starting in 1928, the Soviets organised an international sports event called Spartakiads. During the interwar period of the 1920s and 1930s, communist and socialist organisations in several countries, including the United States, attempted to counter what they called the "bourgeois" Olympics with the Workers Olympics.[208][209] It was not until the 1956 Summer Games that the Soviets emerged as a sporting superpower and, in doing so, took full advantage of the publicity that came with winning at the Olympics.[210] Soviet Union's success might be attributed to a heavy state's investment in sports to fulfill its political agenda on an international stage.[211][180] 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 field athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who finished first and third in the 200 metres, 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 ordered Smith and Carlos suspended from the US team and banned from the Olympic Village. When the US Olympic Committee refused, Brundage threatened to ban the entire US track team. This threat led to the expulsion of the two athletes from the Games.[212] In another notable incident in the gymnastics competition, while standing on the medal podium after the balance beam event final, in which Natalia Kuchinskaya of the Soviet Union had controversially taken the gold, Czechoslovakian gymnast Věra Čáslavská quietly turned her head down and away during the playing of the Soviet national anthem. The action was Čáslavská's silent protest against the recent Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Her protest was repeated when she accepted her medal for her floor exercise routine when the judges changed the preliminary scores of the Soviet Larisa Petrik to allow her to tie with Čáslavská for the gold. While Čáslavská's countrymen supported her actions and her outspoken opposition to Communism (she had publicly signed and supported Ludvik Vaculik's "Two Thousand Words" manifesto), the new regime responded by banning her from both sporting events and international travel for many years and made her an outcast from society until the fall of communism. Currently, the government of Iran has taken steps to avoid any competition between its athletes and those from Israel. An Iranian judoka, Arash Miresmaeili, 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.[213] In 2022, during 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis IOC Executive Board "recommends no participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials, urges International Sports Federations and organizers of sports events worldwide to do everything in their power to ensure that no athlete or sports official from Russia or Belarus be allowed to take part under the name of Russia or Belarus."[214] Use of performance-enhancing drugs Main article: Use of performance-enhancing drugs in the Olympic Games Thomas Hicks running the marathon at the 1904 Olympics In the early 20th century, many Olympic athletes began using drugs to improve their athletic abilities. For example, in 1904, Thomas Hicks, a gold medallist in the marathon, was given strychnine by his coach (at the time, taking different substances was allowed, as there was no data regarding the effect of these substances on a body of an athlete).[215] The only Olympic death linked to performance enhancing occurred at the 1960 Rome games. A 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.[216] By the mid-1960s, sports federations started to ban the use of performance-enhancing drugs; in 1967 the IOC followed suit.[217] According to British journalist Andrew Jennings, a KGB colonel stated that the agency's officers had posed as anti-doping authorities from the International Olympic Committee to undermine doping tests and that Soviet athletes were "rescued with [these] tremendous efforts".[218] On the topic of the 1980 Summer Olympics, a 1989 Australian study said "There is hardly a medal winner at the Moscow Games, certainly not a gold medal winner, who is not on one sort of drug or another: usually several kinds. The Moscow Games might as well have been called the Chemists' Games."[218] Documents obtained in 2016 revealed the Soviet Union's plans for a statewide doping system in track and field in preparation for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Dated prior to the country's decision to boycott the Games, the document detailed the existing steroids operations of the program, along with suggestions for further enhancements.[219] The communication, directed to the Soviet Union's head of track and field, was prepared by Dr. Sergei Portugalov of the Institute for Physical Culture. Portugalov was also one of the main figures involved in the implementation of the Russian doping programme prior to the 2016 Summer Olympics.[219] The first Olympic athlete to test positive for the use of performance-enhancing drugs was Hans-Gunnar Liljenwall, a Swedish pentathlete at the 1968 Summer Olympics, who lost his bronze medal for alcohol use.[220] One of the most publicised doping-related disqualifications occurred after the 1988 Summer Olympics where Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson (who won the 100-metre dash) tested positive for stanozolol.[221] In 1999, the IOC formed the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in an effort to systematise the research and detection of performance-enhancing drugs. There was a sharp increase in positive drug tests at the 2000 Summer Olympics and 2002 Winter Olympics due to improved testing conditions. Several medallists in weightlifting and cross-country skiing from post-Soviet states were disqualified because of doping offences. The IOC-established drug testing regimen (now known as the Olympic Standard) has set the worldwide benchmark that other sporting federations attempt to emulate.[222] 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.[216][223] In London over 6,000 Olympic and Paralympic athletes were tested. Prior to the Games 107 athletes tested positive for banned substances and were not allowed to compete.[224][225][226] Russian doping scandal Further information: Doping in Russia, McLaren Report, Russia at the 2012 Summer Olympics § Russian doping scandal, Russia at the 2014 Winter Olympics, Russia at the 2016 Summer Olympics, Olympic Athletes from Russia at the 2018 Winter Olympics, and Oswald Commission Doping in Russian sports has a systemic nature. Russia has had 44 Olympic medals stripped for doping violations – the most of any country, more than three times the number of the runner-up, and more than a quarter of the global total. From 2011 to 2015, more than a thousand Russian competitors in various sports, including summer, winter, and Paralympic sports, benefited from a cover-up.[227][228][229][230] Russia was partially banned from the 2016 Summer Olympics and was banned from the 2018 Winter Olympics (while being allowed to participate as the Olympic Athletes from Russia) due to the state-sponsored doping programme.[231][232] In December 2019, Russia was banned for four years from all major sporting events for systematic doping and lying to WADA.[233] The ban was issued by WADA on 9 December 2019, and the Russian anti-doping agency RUSADA had 21 days to make an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). The ban meant that Russian athletes would only be allowed to compete under the Olympic flag after passing anti-doping tests.[234] Russia appealed the decision to the CAS.[235] The CAS, on review of Russia's appeal of its case from WADA, ruled on December 17, 2020, to reduce the penalty that WADA had placed. Instead of banning Russia from sporting events, the ruling allowed Russia to participate at the Olympics and other international events, but for a period of two years, the team cannot use the Russian name, flag, or anthem and must present themselves as "Neutral Athlete" or "Neutral Team". The ruling does allow for team uniforms to display "Russia" on the uniform as well as the use of the Russian flag colors within the uniform's design, although the name should be up to equal predominance as the "Neutral Athlete/Team" designation.[236] In February 2022, during the Beijing Olympics, the international news media reported on 9 February that the issue of doping was again raised over a positive test for trimetazidine by the ROC's Kamila Valieva,[237][238] which was officially confirmed on 11 February.[239] Valieva's sample in question was taken by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) at the 2022 Russian Figure Skating Championships on 25 December, but the sample was not analyzed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) laboratory where it was sent for testing until 8 February, one day after the team event concluded.[240] The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is expected to hear the case on 13 February with a decision scheduled for announcement on 14 February ahead of her scheduled appearance in the women's singles event beginning 15 February.[241][242] Due to Valieva being a minor at the time, as well as being classified as a "protected person" under WADA guidelines, RUSADA and the IOC announced on 12 February that they would broaden the scope of their respective investigations to include members of her entourage (e.g. coaches, team doctors, etc.).[243] By the end of the Beijing Olympics, a total five athletes were reported for doping violations.[244] Sex discrimination Main article: Participation of women in the Olympics Charlotte Cooper of the United Kingdom was the first female Olympic champion, in the 1900 Games. Women were first allowed to compete at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris, but at the 1992 Summer Olympics 35 countries were still only fielding all-male delegations.[245] This number dropped rapidly over the following years. In 2000, Bahrain sent two women competitors for the first time: Fatema Hameed Gerashi and Mariam Mohamed Hadi Al Hilli.[246] In 2004, Robina Muqimyar and Fariba Rezayee became the first women to compete for Afghanistan at the Olympics.[247] In 2008, the United 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.[248] By 2010, only three countries had never sent female athletes to the Games: Brunei, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. 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 Olympics in London. 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.[249] 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 organisations 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."[245] 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".[250] At the 2012 Summer Olympics, every participating nation included female athletes for the first time in Olympic history.[251] Saudi Arabia included two female athletes in its delegation; Qatar, four; and Brunei, one (Maziah Mahusin, in the 400 m hurdles). Qatar made one of its first female Olympians, Bahiya al-Hamad (shooting), its flagbearer at the 2012 Games,[252] and runner Maryam Yusuf Jamal of Bahrain became the first Gulf female athlete to win a medal when she won a bronze for her showing in the 1500 m race.[253] 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 were able to compete in all the same sports as men.[254] In the winter Olympics, women are still unable to compete in the Nordic combined.[255] There are currently two Olympic events in which male athletes may not compete: synchronised swimming and rhythmic gymnastics.[256] War and terrorism The world wars caused three Olympiads to pass without a celebration of the Games: 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 Russo-Georgian War between Georgia 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 the Chinese president Hu Jintao.[257][258] Terrorism most directly affected 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 Palestinian terrorist group Black September in what is now known as the Munich massacre. The terrorists killed two of the athletes soon after taking them hostage and killed the other nine during a failed liberation attempt. A German police officer and five of the terrorists also died.[259] Following the selection of Barcelona, Spain, to host the 1992 Summer Olympics, the separatist ETA terrorist organisation launched attacks in the region, including the 1991 bombing in the Catalonian city of Vic that killed ten people.[260][261] Terrorism affected two Olympic Games held in the United States. During the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, a bomb was detonated at the Centennial Olympic Park, killing two people and injuring 111 others. The bomb was set by Eric Rudolph, an American domestic terrorist, who is serving a life sentence for the bombing.[262] The 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City took place just five months after the September 11 attacks, which meant a higher level of security than ever before provided for an Olympic Games. The opening ceremonies of the Games featured symbols relating to 9/11, including the flag that flew at Ground Zero and honour guards of NYPD and FDNY members.[263] Citizenship IOC rules for citizenship The Olympic Charter requires that an athlete be a national of the country for which they compete. Dual nationals may compete for either country, as long as three years have passed since the competitor competed for the former country. However, if the NOCs and IF involved agree, then the IOC Executive Board may reduce or cancel this period.[264] This waiting period exists only for athletes who previously competed for one nation and want to compete for another. If an athlete gains a new or second nationality, then they do not need 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.[265] Reasons for changing citizenship Occasionally, an athlete will become a citizen of a different country to enable them to compete in the Olympics. This is often because they are attracted to sponsorship deals or training facilities in the other country, or the athlete might be unable to qualify from within their country of birth. In preparation for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, the Russian Olympic Committee naturalised a South Korean-born short-track speed-skater, Ahn Hyun-soo, and an American-born snowboarder, Vic Wild. The two athletes won five gold medals and one bronze medal between them at the 2014 Games.[266] Citizenship changes and disputes One of the most famous cases of changing nationality for the Olympics was Zola Budd, a South African runner who emigrated 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 in Britain, but British citizens accused the government of expediting the citizenship process for her.[267] Other notable examples include Kenyan runner Bernard Lagat, who became a United States citizen in May 2004. The Kenyan constitution required that one renounce their Kenyan citizenship when they became 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, jeopardising his silver medal. Lagat said he started the citizenship process in late 2003 and did not expect to become an American citizen until after the Athens games. He was allowed to keep his medal by the IOC.[268] Champions and medallists Paavo Nurmi (1897–1973), a Finnish middle-distance and long-distance runner, nicknamed the "Flying Finn" or the "Phantom Finn", set 22 official world records at distances between 1500 m and 20 km, winning nine golds and three silvers in his 12 events at the Olympic Games. Further information: Lists of Olympic medalists and List of multiple Olympic gold medalists Medals are awarded to the athletes or teams who place first, second, and third in each event. The winners receive gold medals, which were solid gold until 1912, later made of gilded silver, and now gold-plated silver. Every gold medal must contain at least six grams of pure gold.[269] The runners-up are awarded silver medals and the third-place athletes receive bronze medals. In events contested by a single-elimination tournament (most notably boxing), third place might not be determined and the losers of both semi-finals each receive a bronze medal. At the 1896 Olympics, only the winner and runner-up of each event received medals—silver for first and bronze for second, with no gold medals awarded. The current three-medal format was introduced at the 1904 Olympics.[270] From 1948 onward, athletes placing fourth, fifth, and sixth have received certificates, which came to be known officially as Olympic diplomas; from 1984, these have also been awarded to the seventh- and eighth-place finishers. At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, the gold, silver, and bronze medal winners were also presented with olive wreaths.[271] The IOC does not keep statistics of medals won on a national level (except for team sports), but the NOCs and the media record medal statistics and use them as a measure of each nation's success.[272] Nations Nations at the Summer Olympics Main article: List of participating nations at the Summer Olympic Games As of the 2020 Games in Tokyo, all of the current 206 NOCs and 19 obsolete NOCs have participated in at least one edition of the Summer Olympics. Competitors from five nations—Australia, France,[d] Great Britain,[e] Greece, and Switzerland[f]—have competed in all 28 Summer Olympics. Athletes competing under the Olympic flag, Mixed Teams and the Refugee Team have competed at six Summer Games. Nations at the Winter Olympics Main article: List of participating nations at the Winter Olympic Games A total of 119 NOCs (110 of the current 206 NOCs and nine obsolete NOCs) have participated in at least one edition of the Winter Olympics. Competitors from 14 nations—Austria, Canada, Czech Republic,[g] Finland, France, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Poland, Slovakia,[g] Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States—have participated in all 23 Winter Games to date. Host nations and cities Main article: List of Olympic Games host cities See also: List of Olympic medals by host nation Map of Summer Olympics locations. Countries that have hosted one Summer Olympics are shaded green, while countries that have hosted two or more are shaded blue. Map of Winter Olympics locations. Countries that have hosted one Winter Olympics are shaded green, while countries that have hosted two or more are shaded blue. The host city for an Olympic Games had historically been chosen seven to eight years ahead of their celebration. Beginning with the 2024 and 2028 Olympics selection process in 2017, the IOC has proceeded to announce the winning bid with a longer lead-in time in order to provide time for the winning cities/regions to prepare.[279][280] The process of selection is carried out in two phases that span a two-year period. The prospective host city applies to its country's National Olympic Committee; if more than one city from the same country submits a proposal to its NOC, the national committee typically holds an internal selection, since only one city per NOC can be presented to the International Olympic Committee for consideration. Once the deadline for submission of proposals by the NOCs is reached, the first phase (Application) begins with the applicant cities asked to complete a questionnaire regarding several key criteria related to the organisation of the Olympic Games.[281] In this form, the applicants must give assurances that they will comply with the Olympic Charter and with any other regulations established by the IOC Executive Committee.[279] The evaluation of the filled questionnaires by a specialised group provides the IOC with an overview of each applicant's project and their potential to host the Games. On the basis of this technical evaluation, the IOC Executive Board selects the applicants that will proceed to the candidature stage.[281] Once the candidate cities are selected, they must submit to the IOC a bigger and more detailed presentation of their project as part of a candidature file. Each city is thoroughly analysed by an evaluation commission. This commission will also visit the candidate cities, interviewing local officials and inspecting prospective venue sites, and submit a report on its findings one month prior to the IOC's final decision. During the interview process the candidate city must also guarantee that it will be able to fund the Games.[279] After the work of the evaluation commission, a list of candidates is presented to the General Session of the IOC, which must assemble in a country that does not have a candidate city in the running. The IOC members gathered in the Session have the final vote on the host city. Once elected, the host city bid committee (together with the NOC of the respective country) signs a Host City Contract with the IOC, officially becoming an Olympic host nation and host city.[279] By 2032, the Olympic Games will have been hosted by 47 cities in 23 countries. As of 2021, since the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, the Olympics have been held in Asia or Oceania four times, a sharp increase compared to the previous 92 years of modern Olympic history. The 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro were the first Olympics for a South American country. No bids from countries in Africa have succeeded. The United States hosted four Winter Games, more than any other nation. The other nations hosting multiple Winter Games are France with three, while Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Japan, Canada and Italy have hosted twice. Among host cities, Lake Placid, Innsbruck and St. Moritz have played host to the Winter Olympic Games more than once, each holding that honour twice. The most recent Winter Games were held in Pyeongchang in 2018, South Korea's first Winter Olympics and second Olympics overall (after the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul). Beijing hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2022 Winter Olympics, which made it the first city to host both the Summer and Winter Games. A sports event unlike any other The Olympic Games are unique. Athletes from the entire world take part. Their achievements are watched from both near and far by hundreds of millions of spectators. The five rings on the Olympic flag represent the international nature of the Games. What makes the Olympic Games different from other sports events? The Games are held every four years. They are the largest sporting celebration in the number of sports on the programme, the number of athletes present and the number of people from different nations gathered together at the same time in the same place. The Games are held at intervals, but are part of a broader framework which is that of the Olympic Movement. The purpose of the Olympic Movement is to promote the practice of sport all over the world and disseminate the Olympic values. It is in this spirit that the Olympic Games are held and celebrated. The Summer Games and the Winter Games The Olympic Games include the Games of the Olympiad (i.e. the Summer Games) and the Olympic Winter Games. The first edition of the modern Summer Games was held in 1896 in Athens (Greece), and the first Olympic Winter Games in 1924 in Chamonix (France). The word Olympiad designates the four-year period that separates each edition of the Summer Games. Until 1992, the Summer and Winter Games were held in the same year, but since then, the Winter Games were moved two years from the Summer Games. The Summer and Winter Games continue to be organised once every four years. In the Summer Games, athletes compete in a wide variety of competitions on the track, on the road, on grass, in the water, on the water, in the open air and indoors, in a total of 28 sports. The Winter Games feature 7 sports practised on snow and ice, both indoors and outdoors. The Modern Olympic Games Introduction 3 The London 2012 Olympic Games were broadcast all over the world, via the traditional media as well as online and mobile platforms. They reached a record audience estimated at 4.8 billion people. © The Olympic Museum The Modern Olympic Games Introduction 4 History It was Pierre de Coubertin of France who dreamt up this ambitious project, although others before him had tried in vain to revive these Games. Drawing inspiration from the ancient Olympic Games, he decided to create the modern Olympic Games. With this purpose, he founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1894 in Paris. The new committee set itself the objective of organising the first Olympic Games of modern times. The date of the first Games, 1896, marked the beginning of an extraordinary adventure that has now lasted for over a century! 1 1. OG Athenes 1896. Athletics. Discus Men – Robert GARRETT (USA) 1st. © 1896 / International Olympic Committee (IOC) © The Olympic Museum The characteristics of the modern Olympic Games Elements of the past The roots of the Olympic Games are to be found in Ancient Greece [see sheet “The Olympic Games in Antiquity”], and the first modern Games, in 1896, featured many references to this legacy of Greek Antiquity: › The Games were held in Athens, in Greece, the country where the ancient Games were held. › Most of the competitions were held in the ancient stadium (the Panathinaiko Stadium), which had been restored for the occasion. › Most of the sports on the programme of the ancient Games were included in the first modern Games. › The organisers invented a race inspired by an event in antiquity: the marathon. Generally speaking, the modern Games strive towards a more peaceful world. The Olympic Truce calling for a halt to all conflicts recalls the concept of the truce observed during the Ancient Games. Sacred and respected throughout Ancient Greece, the Olympic Truce announced by messengers before the Games allowed spectators, athletes and officials to travel to and from Olympia in safety through the numerous battle zones. Today, the Olympic Truce is the subject of a United Nations resolution calling for a halt to hostilities during the period of the Games and the search for means of peaceful resolution in areas of tension. The athletes who support this initiative are invited to sign a “Truce Wall” in the Olympic Village. Innovations While the modern Games draw their inspiration from the past, they are also quite different. From the outset, Coubertin proposed: › Secular Games The modern Games are secular, unlike the ancient Games which were dedicated to the gods. The Modern Olympic Games The characteristics of the modern Olympic Games 5 In antiquity, the Panathinaiko Stadium in Athens hosted the sports competitions known as the Panathenaea. The marathon This race commemorates the exploit of a soldier who, in 490 BC, ran from Marathon to tell the people of Athens of their victory in the battle against the Persians, a distance of roughly 34.5 kilometres. © The Olympic Museum The Modern Olympic Games 6 › Games around the globe In contrast with the Olympic Games of Antiquity, each edition of the modern Games takes place in principle in a different city and country. › Longer Games In ancient times, the Games were held first on one day, and finally over five days. Today the official duration is no more than 16 days. The Games are also evolving constantly: › Since 1896, athletes from all over the world The ancient Olympic Games were the preserve of free male Greek citizens, whereas the modern Games have always been open to athletes from all over the world. The 245 participants in Athens in 1896 came from 14 different countries. The 1912 Games in Stockholm (Sweden) were the first to boast the presence of national delegations from the five continents. The universality of the modern Olympic Games was assured. Today, the Summer Games welcome athletes from every country of the world, without exception. › Since 1900, women join in As in Ancient Greece, there were no female athletes at the first edition of the modern Olympic Games. In Athens in 1896, only men competed. At that time, female athletes faced many prejudices. People worried that they would lose their femininity, over-develop their muscles or become sterile. They therefore had to overcome this kind of attitude and gradually take their place at the Games. Women made their Olympic debut at the 1900 Games in Paris (France), in tennis and golf. Subsequently, over the course of the century, they gained access to more and more sports (e.g. swimming in 1912, athletics in 1928, volleyball in 1964, rowing in 1976, cycling in 1984 and football in 1996), but it was not until the 2012 Games in London, with the introduction of women’s boxing, that women could compete in all the sports on the programme. Since the 2004 Games in Athens, more than 40 per cent of the athletes at the Games have been women. › Since 1924, Games for winter sports When Coubertin revived the Olympic Games, only summer sports were included. In the 1920s, however, snow and ice sports began to enjoy soaring popularity. A number of IOC members decided to react to this, and, in 1924, it was decided 1 1. OG Paris 1900. Tennis, singles Women – Hélène PREVOS © 1900 / International Olympic Committee (IOC) The characteristics of the modern Olympic Games © The Olympic Museum to hold an International Winter Sports Week in Chamonix (France): 258 athletes from 16 countries (mainly in Europe and North America) attended. This proved a great success and, two years later, this “Week” was officially recognised as the first Olympic Winter Games. The future of an Olympic event dedicated exclusively to snow and ice sports was assured. At the 2010 Games in Vancouver (Canada), a total of 2,566 athletes came together from 82 countries as diverse as Ghana, Brazil, New Zealand and Pakistan. › Since 1984, professional athletes at the Games The modern Olympic Games were long open only to amateur athletes, in line with Pierre de Coubertin’s wishes. The IOC abolished this rule in 1984 (for the Games in Los Angeles), and since then professional athletes have also been able to take part. The rituals of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies The Olympic Games begin and end with big celebrations, important ceremonies in which various rituals express the identity of the Games. Today, these rituals are part of the protocol of the Games. They include the following elements: The Modern Olympic Games Opening of the Games › the entry of the athletes into the stadium with their delegations (in alphabetical order, except for Greece which goes first, and the host country which brings up the rear) › the declaration of the opening of the Games by the Head of State of the host country › the address by the Games Organising Committee President › the speech by the IOC President › the entry of the Olympic flag into the stadium › the Olympic anthem › the symbolic release of doves (a symbol of peace) › the oath sworn by an athlete and an official from the host country (respect for the rules) › the entrance of the flame and lighting of the cauldron Closing of the Games › handing over of the Olympic flag to the next Olympic host city (continuity of the Games) › gathering of the athletes in the stadium (brotherhood) › the extinguishing of the flame › the declaration of the closing of the Games by the IOC President 7 Most of this protocol had been established by the time of the 1920 Games in Antwerp (Belgium). It has been added to over the years as the Games have evolved. 1. OG London 2012. Opening Ceremony. © 2012 / International Olympic Committee (IOC) / FURLONG, Christopher 1 The characteristics of the modern Olympic Games © The Olympic Museum The Modern Olympic Games 8 The protocol forms part of a much broader scenography and programme. The opening and closing ceremonies are an invitation to discover the culture of the country hosting the Games, through music, song, dance, etc. Sport, art and culture In Ancient Greece, art and sport were seen as perfect partners. The ideal was to achieve harmony by exercising both the body and the mind. Pierre de Coubertin adopted this ideal for the modern Olympic Games and proposed including art and culture in the programme of the Games. On his initiative, architecture, sculpture, painting, literature and music competitions were part of the Olympic Games from 1912 to 1948. Nowadays, the competitions have been replaced with cultural programmes that are completely separate from the sports competitions. Plays, concerts, ballets and exhibitions are held in the city, region and even the country hosting the Games. Numerous artists, designers, architects, choreographers and musicians play an active part in the success of the Games, be it through the construction of stadiums and other competition venues, the Look of the Games (logos, pictograms and mascots) or the opening and closing ceremonies. Whether through sport, art or culture, everyone can take part in the great celebration of the Olympic Games, which offer an opportunity to open up to and better understand other people. The characteristics of the modern Olympic Games © The Olympic Museum Olympic sports 9 Olympic sports The Olympic programme includes all the sports in the Olympic Games. The IOC sets the programme and decides which sports will be included. The IOC also has the right to add or remove any sport, discipline or event. Sport − For a sport to be made an Olympic sport it has to be governed by an International Federation recognised by the IOC Exemples: Swimming at the Games is governed by the International Swimming Federation (FINA); Skating by the International Skating Union (ISU). Discipline − An Olympic sport comprises one or several disciplines. Exemples: Water polo and diving are disciplines of swimming. Speed skating and figure skating are disciplines of skating. Event − A discipline includes one or more events or competitions. An event gives rise to a result for which medals and diplomas are awarded. Exemples: The 10m platform for women is a diving event. The men’s 500m is a speed skating event. Criteria for being an Olympic sport In order to be included in the Olympic programme, a sport must be governed by an International Federation which complies with the Olympic Charter and applies the World Anti-Doping Code. If it is widely practised around the world and satisfies a number of criteria established by the IOC Session, a recognised sport may be added to the Olympic programme. Since 2000, there has been little change to the number of sports on the programme of the Summer and Winter Games, but rather changes to events in order to limit the size of the Games. Summer Games sports In Athens in 1896, nine sports were on the programme: athletics, cycling, fencing, The Modern Olympic Games 1 1. OG Beijing 2008. Athletics, pole vault – final. Elena ISINBAEVA (RUS) 1st. © 2008 / International Olympic Committee (IOC) / KISHIMOTO, Tsutomu © The Olympic Museum 10 gymnastics, weightlifting, wrestling, swimming, tennis and shooting. The Olympic programme has come a long way since then: some sports have been discontinued (e.g. polo and baseball); others were dropped and then reintroduced (e.g. archery and tennis), while several new sports have been added (e.g. triathlon and taekwondo). At the 2004 Games in Athens, the programme included the nine original sports plus a further 19: rowing, badminton, baseball, basketball, boxing, canoe/kayak, equestrian sports, football, handball, hockey, judo, modern pentathlon, softball, taekwondo, table tennis, archery, triathlon, sailing and volleyball. This represented a total of 301 events! The two major sports on the programme of the Summer Games are athletics and swimming. These are the most widely followed Olympic sports in the world. They also have the largest number of events and greatest number of participants from different countries. Athletics consists of a wide range of events: jumping, throwing, and sprint, middle-distance and long-distance races. Some of these were performed at the ancient Olympic Games: foot races (varying distances), the javelin throw, the discus throw and the long jump. The first swimming competitions at the Olympic Games took place in the sea or in a river. Today competitions take place in a 50m swimming pool, usually indoors. The current programme includes the following disciplines: swimming (freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly), water polo, diving and synchronised swimming. Winter Games sports Winter sports made their Olympic debut at … the Summer Games in London in 1908! Figure skating competitions were organised for men, women and pairs. The experience was repeated at the Antwerp Games in 1920, along with an ice hockey tournament. It was in Chamonix in 1924 that winter sports finally got their own Olympic Games. Six sports were on the programme: bobsleigh, curling, ice hockey, figure and speed skating, skiing (cross-country and ski jumping) and the military patrol race. Some sports were missing from the official programme for several editions of the Games before being reintroduced. One example is skeleton, which featured at the 1928 and 1948 Games in St Moritz, before returning to the programme for the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City. The number of sports at the Winter Games has remained relatively stable over the years. At the Vancouver Games in 2010, there were seven sports – biathlon, bobsleigh, curling, ice hockey, luge, skating and skiing. However, the number The Modern Olympic Games Olympic sports 1. OG London 2012, Swimming – Michael PHELPS (USA), © 2012 / International Olympic Committee (IOC) / FURLONG, Christopher 2. OG Vancouver 2010, Men ice-hockey – Game for the bronze medal, Finland (FIN) 3rd – Slovakia (SLO) © 2010 / International Olympic Committee (IOC) / EVANS, Jason 1 2 © The Olympic Museum 11 of events has increased considerably: in 2010, there were 86 on the programme! Of the 15 disciplines in the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, only Nordic combined is not yet open to women. The three main sports on the Winter Games programme are skating, skiing and ice hockey. Skating has the longest Olympic history, having figured for the first time on the programme of the London Games in 1908. Women made their debut in figure skating at the Olympic Winter Games, but speed skating was not open to them until 1960. Held in the open air until 1956, the skating events now take place indoors. Skiing is the sport with the largest number of disciplines. Cross-country skiing is the oldest discipline and snowboarding is the newest one (1998 Games in Nagano, Japan). Alpine skiing appeared relatively late: it was on the programme of the 1936 Games, but it was not until the 1948 Games in St Moritz (Switzerland) that a more complete programme for men and women was organised. In 1952, giant slalom was added to the programme. Introduced in 1988, the super-G is the newest Olympic Alpine skiing event. Ice hockey, like skating and skiing, is one of the sports that helped launching the Olympic Winter Games. Hockey is very popular and attracts large audiences. It is a spectacular sport in which the puck travels at speeds up to 180km/h. Demonstration sports Thanks to their popularity, the Games have provided a showcase for a number of sports. These were known as demonstration sports, which featured as an addition to the Olympic programme until 1992, when this concept was abandoned. › At the 1956 Games in Melbourne, there was Australian football, one of the national sports; › At the 1988 Games in Seoul, it was bowling, a sport unknown in the host country, Korea. › At the 1992 Games in Barcelona, it was Basque pelota, roller hockey and taekwondo. There have been many different sports at the Winter Games. Some have been featured as demonstration sports (e.g. skijoring, bandy, winter pentathlon and freestyle skiing). For more information about the Olympic sports, go to the IOC website The Modern Olympic Games Olympic sports 1 1. OG Chamonix 1924, Figure skating. © 1924/ International Olympic Committee (IOC) © The Olympic Museum 12 1 1. OG Beijing 2008. Athletics, 100m Men – semi final, start. © 2008 / International Olympic Committee (IOC) / KISHIMOTO, Tsutomu © The Olympic Museum 13 The Modern Olympic Games Athletes at the Olympic Games Athletes atthe Olympic Games The challenge of the Games The prospect of being selected for the Olympic Games is the dream of the majority of athletes. Enormous reserves of willpower and many years of dedicated training are required to achieve such a goal. The athletes that qualify for the Games can consider themselves as being among the world’s best. They will become Olympians, whether or not they win a medal. Taking part in the Games is what matters to the majority of the competitors: having the honour of representing their country and marching behind their flag at the Opening Ceremony, mixing with elite athletes, and having the opportunity to give their best. That is what the spirit of the Olympic Games is all about! Pierre de Coubertin knew this already at the start of the 20th century: “ […] In these Olympiads, the important thing is not winning but taking part. […] What counts in life is not the victory but the struggle; the essential thing is not to conquer but to fight well.” 2 Almost a century later, at the Olympic Games in Sydney, the spirit was the same. Canadian athlete Perdita Felicien explains why taking part in the Games was so important to her: “Even though I was eliminated in the preliminary round of the 100m hurdles, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. Even though the months of religious training and the exhausting 30 hours of flight to Sydney only meant exactly 13.21 seconds of running on the hottest track in the world that day, it was beyond worth it.” 3 In order to participate in the Olympic Games, athletes have to abide by the Olympic Charter and the rules of the International Federation (IF) responsible for their sport. The IFs organise qualification events, while the National Olympic Committee (NOC) of the athlete’s country is responsible for entering athletes to the Games. Athletes with more than one nationality may compete for the country of their choice. However, if they have already represented one country either at the Games or another major sports event, they may not compete for a different country before three years have elapsed. There is no age limit for competing in the Olympic Games, except for the one What is the Olympic Charter? It is an official document containing all the rules to be followed and explaining the role and mission of each Olympic Movement stakeholder. 1. OG London 2012, Opening Ceremony, Athletes Parade of the Costa Rica delegation. © 2012 / International Olympic Committee (IOC) / EVANS, Jason 2. Olympic Review, July 1908, p. 110. (Extract from a speech given at the Olympic Games in London in 1908). 3. Comments made on her athletics team’s website, 27 November 2000. 1 © The Olympic Museum 14 The Modern Olympic Games Athletes at the Olympic Games imposed by individual IFs for health reasons. In some sports, such as equestrian, fencing and sailing, athletes can enjoy very long Olympic careers, sometimes as long as 40 years! By entering the Olympic Games, athletes are making a commitment to respect the Olympic values and agree to undergo doping tests. Throughout the Games, tests are carried out under the authority of the IOC and its Medical Commission. Tests may be conducted before or during the Games. For individual sports, tests are performed on each athlete who places among the top five in each event, plus two other athletes (in the heats or the final) chosen at random. For team sports, or other sports in which teams are rewarded, testing is performed throughout the period of the Olympic Games. Life in the Olympic Village Upon their arrival in the host city, athletes stay in the Olympic Village. While at the Games, their time is not devoted exclusively to competing: it is also an opportunity for them to meet other athletes from different countries and cultures. Communal life is good for encouraging contact between athletes from different sports or representatives from remote countries. All inhabitants of the Village agree: it is not about the comfort of the surroundings or the quality of services, what counts is the relationships created between athletes of the entire world. Anita L. De Frantz, Olympian and IOC member, said of her experience in the Village: “For two to four weeks, the Village becomes the home for the elite athletes of the world. It was there that I realised that excellence comes in every shape, size, race and sex. It was there that I realised that an Olympian is one who can respect every individual based on the effort that it takes to become an Olympian. It was there that I learned that each sport takes special skills and determination for a person to ascend to the top.” 2 Today’s Olympic Village is almost a city! It is usually located close to the competition venues and its construction is taken very seriously during preparations for the Games. In London in 2012, for example, the Village accommodated over 17,000 athletes and officials! Inhabitants of the village benefit from many advantages. They can eat in the Village restaurant 24 hours a day, have their hair cut, go clubbing or attend evening concerts. When the Games have finished, the Olympic Village becomes a new residential area for the city, and the housing is sold or rented to the local population. Athletes have not always benefitted from this type of accommodation. 1. OG London 2012, Athletes while jogging in the Olympic Village. © 2012 / International Olympic Committee (IOC) / EVANS, Jason 2. Olympic Message, no. 33, July 1992. 1 © The Olympic Museum 15 The Modern Olympic Games Athletes at the Olympic Games Before the Los Angeles Games in 1932 they stayed in a variety of places: Shipshape accommodation There was no Olympic Village for the athletes at the first few Olympic Games. Some of them stayed in hotels or hostels. Others chose cheaper accommodation in schools or barracks. And some slept in the boats they had taken to the Olympic city. This was the case at the Amsterdam Games in 1928, when the Americans, Italians and Finns stayed in the harbour! All in the same village The first true Olympic Village was built for the 1932 Games in Los Angeles. Athletes (men only) from 37 countries ate, slept and trained together. For the first time certain community services were provided: a hospital, a fire station and a post office. In the early days women stayed in hotels, not the Olympic Village. It was not until the 1956 Games in Melbourne that the Olympic Village was open to both sexes. © The Olympic Museum 16 The Modern Olympic Games VICTORY Victory The moment of victory is symbolised by the athlete stepping onto the podium to receive his or her medal. Yet this ceremony has not always existed! The various elements of the ceremony entered Olympic history at different times. THE MEDAL’S ICONOGRAPHY The Summer Games medals In the beginning, Olympic medals varied from one Olympiad to the next. At the first modern Games in Athens in 1896, winners were rewarded with an olive wreath and a silver medal, while the runners-up received a bronze medal and a laurel wreath. Gold, silver and bronze medals were not awarded until 1904. From the Amsterdam Games in 1928, when the medals were standardised, until the 2000 Games in Sydney, the medals remained almost unchanged. The obverse showed a seated, wingless figure of Victory holding a wreath in one hand and a palm frond in the other. In the background appeared an arena similar to the Coliseum in Rome. The reverse had to show a victorious athlete being borne upon the shoulders of the crowd. Since 1972, only the obverse of the medal remained the same. The reverse was modified for each Olympiad. Then, in 2004, the iconography changed dramatically. A representation of Nike from the Olympia Museum now features on the obverse of the summer Games medals. She appears to be descending from the sky to land in the Panathinaiko Stadium, recalling the place where the first modern Games were held in Athens in 1896. In the background the Acropolis can be seen. The Winter Games medals The Winter Games medals are not subject to the same constraints. There are no rules stipulating a particular shape or design. Even the materials may vary: the medals of the Albertville Games (France) included a crystal disc; the Lillehammer (Norway) medals had a granite element, and the medals of the Nagano Games (Japan) were partially worked in lacquer. In fact, every Olympic Winter Games has seen an original medal designed. Medal ceremonies Since the Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid (USA) in 1932, the medals have been awarded on a podium. The winner takes the centre spot, on the highest step. He or she receives a gold medal and the title of Olympic champion. The second placed athlete is to the winner’s right and receives a silver medal. The 1. Athenes 2004, winner’s medal (gold) © IOC 1 © The Olympic Museum 17 third placed athlete is to the winner’s left and receives a bronze medal. The national flags of the three winners are hoisted and the national anthem of the Olympic champion is played. The first eight in each event receive a diploma and their names are read out. Only the first three receive a medal in addition. Celebrity of the champions After the Olympic Games, the champions often become superstars and role models for many people. The Olympic Charter stipulates that the names of the athletes who win a gold medal must be engraved on the walls of the main stadium in the city hosting the Games. However, a medal is not always a guarantee of celebrity. If it is won in a little known sport with low media coverage, a medal alone will not suffice to attract the interest of the sponsors or the general public. But whether or not they are winners, everyone who takes part in the Games takes home with them the memory of an exceptional human experience. The Modern Olympic Games VICTORY 1 1. OG Vancouver 2010, Medal ceremony for crosscountry ski, 50km Men mass start free. © 2010 / International Olympic Committee (IOC) © The Olympic Museum 18 The Modern Olympic Games The Games and their era The Games and their era The Olympic Games are much more than just a series of sports competitions. Technological progress in the last century helped turn them into an international event eagerly awaited and followed by people all over the world. Everything that happens during the Games is reported and analysed by thousands of journalists and experts. So it is quite understandable that, at certain points in recent history, governments have exploited the Games for political or diplomatic ends (sometimes, sadly, to the detriment of sport). Developments in technology In little over a century, the Olympic Games have become a global event. Two major technological revolutions have contributed to this: in transport and the media. Improved transport – easier access to the Games Depending on the city and country hosting the Games, athletes are obliged to travel greater or lesser distances. For the 1904 Games in St Louis and the 1932 Games in Los Angeles, in the USA, the number of participants was much lower because many athletes were unable to make and afford such a long journey. The majority of host cities prior to World War II were European, and the athletes who took part in the Games were mostly Westerners. In 1956, the Games took place in Oceania (Australia). For the first time, most of the 3,178 competitors travelled by plane to Melbourne. This novel development, which was possible thanks to the growth of air transport, quickly became essential to the organisation of the Olympic Games. In 1964 it was the turn of the Asian continent to host the Games, which were held in the city of Tokyo in Japan; then, in 1968, it was Latin America, with the Games in Mexico City. The Olympic Games have now been held on every continent except Africa. Development of the media - Games accessible to everyone Television made an enormous contribution to the growing popularity of the Olympic Games. The first tests were carried out in 1936 and 1948. And the first live television broadcast of the competitions was in 1956, at the Winter Games in Cortina d’Ampezzo (Italy). Beginning with the 1960 Games in Rome (Italy), the majority of the European continent benefited from live broadcasts of the competitions. For the United States, Canada and Japan, a tape was flown out every day, which meant that the competitions could be screened with just a few hours’ delay. With a couple of weeks’ delay, the images were transferred onto A long journey − For the 1932 Games in Los Angeles, European athletes first had to travel to New York by boat. They then crossed the American continent by train to Los Angeles (a total travel time of three weeks!). They returned the same way. Some competitors had to save up their holiday entitlement for three years in order to have the 10 weeks’ leave they needed for the Olympic adventure! © The Olympic Museum 19 The Modern Olympic Games The Games and their era film and sent to Asia, Africa, Oceania and South America. The Olympic audience ended up being far larger than just the spectators present in the stadium. Since the 1964 Games in Tokyo (Japan), satellites have transmitted images with just a few seconds’ delay. Today, viewers all over the world can follow the champions’ achievements live. In 1968, the Olympic Winter Games in Grenoble (France) were the first to be broadcast live on colour television. Thanks to further technological developments, picture quality has improved enormously and has reached a high level of perfection. Slow motion shots mean that an athlete’s movements can be seen in great detail and underwater cameras even take the audience into the swimming pool with the competitors. Television networks buy broadcasting rights for the Games, thus providing approximately half of the Olympic Movement’s income. The IOC nonenetheless enables less well-off broadcasters to show coverage of the Olympic Games. This means that sports lovers all over the world can follow the performances of the champions. This has helped the Olympic Games to become one of the most watched sporting events in the world! Political and diplomatic exploitation of the Games Being at the forefront of the international stage, the Olympic Games have the potential to be used as a propaganda tool and an instrument of political interests. Here are some of the better-known examples › 1936 in Berlin (Germany): the Nazi regime appropriated the Games. In the years leading up to 1936, several governments and sports organisations expressed their concerns about the regime and its policies. The threat of a boycott hung over the Games. In the end, it was more individual convictions that prevented certain athletes from attending. › 1956 in Melbourne (Australia): the Suez crisis and Soviet oppression in Hungary provoked a strong reaction from some countries, which refused to send their athletes to the Games. › 1968 in Mexico City (Mexico): American athletes Tommy Smith and John Carlos demonstrated against the racism in the USA. As they stood on the podium to receive their medals for the 200m, they raised black-gloved fists and bowed their heads when the American flag was raised. This gesture was their way of showing their support for the “Black Power” movement which was fighting the discrimination against black people in the USA. As a result, they were disqualified. › 1972 in Munich (Germany): Palestinian terrorists took Israeli athletes hostage. What is a boycott? − It is the voluntary severing of relations with a person, country or other group in order to exert pressure. Boycotts at the Olympic Games occur when a government refuses to allow its athletes to attend the Games. 1 1. OG London 2012, Photographers at the Women Triathlon © 2012 / International Olympic Committee (IOC) / FURLONG, Christopher © The Olympic Museum 20 The Modern Olympic Games The Games and their era The event ended in tragedy, with nine hostages executed and the death of a policeman and two other members of the Israeli delegation. The terrorists were killed by the police. › 1976 in Montreal (Canada): 22 countries (mostly African) boycotted the Games to protest against a recent tour of South Africa, which imposed apartheid, by the New Zealand rugby team. › 1980 in Moscow (Soviet Union): the United States called for a global boycott in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. American athletes were forbidden to take part in the Games under threat of having their passports confiscated. Other countries followed the US example and stayed away from Moscow. › 1984 in Los Angeles (USA): in response to the American boycott of 1980, the Soviet Union refused to attend the Games. The official reasons given were the commercialisation of the Games and insufficient guarantees of athletes’ safety. The diplomatic role of the Games If the Games are used for political ends, the Olympic ideal is placed under threat. Nevertheless, the Olympic Games can be used to improve relations between countries and communities. › Since the 1950s, the Olympic Games have provided an opportunity for newly created countries to show the world they exist. Their appearance at the Games has often led to more widespread international recognition (e.g. certain African countries, republics of the former Soviet Union). It has even been the case that the participation of certain athletes in the Games has preceded the political creation of their country (e.g. Timor Leste, a small country located next to Indonesia, which has been independent since 2002). › The end of the apartheid regime allowed South Africa to participate again in the Olympic Games at the 1992 Games in Barcelona (Spain). The victory lap, hand-in-hand, of Ethiopia’s Derartu Tulu, who won the women’s 10,000 metres, and her South African rival Elana Meyer symbolised this change and became one of the highlights of these Games. › At the Opening Ceremony of the 2000 Games in Sydney (Australia), South Korea and North Korea paraded together under a single flag. This act was unprecedented since the breakdown in diplomatic relations between the two countries after the Korean War (1950-1953). › Also in Sydney, the status of the Aborigines was front page news, and several events were organised to make their claims known. The final stage of the torch relay was entrusted to Aboriginal athlete Cathy Freeman, and the culture of the Aboriginal people was a highlight of the Opening Ceremony. 1 1. OG Barcelona 1992 Athletics. 10000m Women – final, Derartu TULU (ETH) 1st and Elana MEYER (RSA) 2nd. © 1992 / IOPP / SASAHARA, Koji © The Olympic Museum 21 The Modern Olympic Games The Games and their era The Geography of the Games Games of the Olympiad (Summer Games) Olympiad Year City Country Continent I 1896 Athens Greece Europe II 1900 Paris France Europe III 1904 St Louis USA North America IV 1908 London United Kingdom Europe V 1912 Stockholm Sweden Europe VI 1916 World War I: The Olympiad was not celebrated VII 1920 Antwerp Belgium Europe VIII 1924 Paris France Europe IX 1928 Amsterdam The Netherlands Europe X 1932 Los Angeles USA North America XI 1936 Berlin Germany Europe XII 1940 World War II: The Olympiad was not celebrated XIII 1944 World War II: The Olympiad was not celebrated XIV 1948 London United Kingdom Europe XV 1952 Helsinki Finland Europe XVI 1956 Melbourne Stockholm (Equestrian Games Australia Sweden Oceania Europe XVII 1960 Rome Italy Europe XVIII 1964 Tokyo Japan Asia XIX 1968 Mexico City Mexico Latin America XX 1972 Munich Germany Europe XXI 1976 Montreal Canada North America XXII 1980 Moscow USSR Europe XXIII 1984 Los Angeles USA North America XXIV 1988 Seoul South Korea Asia XXV 1992 Barcelona Spain Europe XXVI 1996 Atlanta USA North America XXVII 2000 Sydney Australia Oceania XXVIII 2004 Athens Greece Europe XXIX 2008 Beijing China Asia XXX 2012 London United Kingdom Europe XXXI 2016 Rio de Janeiro Brazil Latin America 1. OG Helsinki 1952 Men’s 10km walk: medal ceremony © 1952 / International Olympic Committee (IOC) 1 © The Olympic Museum 22 The Modern Olympic Games The Games and their era Winter Games Number Year City Country Continent 1st 1924 Chamonix France Europe 2nd 1928 St Moritz Switzerland Europe 3rd 1932 Lake Placid USA North America 4th 1936 Garmisch-Partenkirchen Germany Europe 1940 World War II: The Olympiad was not celebrated 1944 World War II: The Olympiad was not celebrated 5th 1948 St Moritz Switzerland Europe 6th 1952 Oslo Norway Europe 7th 1956 Cortina d’Ampezzo Italy Europe 8th 1960 Squaw Valley USA North America 9th 1964 Innsbruck Austria Europe 10th 1968 Grenoble France Europe 11th 1972 Sapporo Japan Asia 12th 1976 Innsbruck Austria Europe 13th 1980 Lake Placid USA North America 14th 1984 Sarajevo Yugoslavia Europe 15th 1988 Calgary Canada North America 16th 1992 Albertville France Europe 17th 1994 Lillehammer Norway Europe 18th 1998 Nagano Japan Asia 19th 2002 Salt Lake City USA North America 20th 2006 Turin Italy Europe 21th 2010 Vancouver Canada North America 22th 2014 Sotchi Russia Europe 23th 2018 PyeongChang South Korea Asia 1. OG Sydney 2000, Closing Ceremony – Gathering of athletes in the stadium. © 2000 / Kishimoto / IOC / NAGAYA, Yo 1 The Olympiads are counted even if the Games do not take place! © The Olympic Museum 23 The Modern Olympic Games Activities - Selective Bibliography Activities Schools – subject area: human and social sciences Look at a globe or a map of the world and locate the Olympic Games host cities. Discuss the geographical distribution of the Summer and Winter Games. Write an article on an athlete who has taken part in the Games but who did not win a medal: describe his/her feelings, emotions and experience. Find out about an Olympic sport. Pick a sport you don’t know from the list of sports on the programme of the Summer or Winter Games. Do some research and prepare a fact sheet on it, including the names of some athletes who practise the sport. Imagine some costumes that could be used at the opening ceremony of the next Olympic Games. Choose a theme and sketch some designs. Identify some other major events that bring people together like the Olympic Games. Make a list of them and identify their similarities and differences. Find some other examples of the interplay between the Olympic Games and the historical, political or cultural situation of the time. Selective Bibliography Young readers › The Olympic Museum. How well do you know the Olympic Games? Lausanne: The Olympic Museum, 3rd edition, 2011 › Clive Gifford.Summer Olympics: the definitive guide to the world's greatest sports celebration Boston: Kingfisher, 2004 › David Fischer. The encyclopedia of the summer Olympics New York [etc.]: Franklin Watts, 2003 › Middleton, Haydn. Modern Olympic Games Chicago: Heinemann Library, 2000 © The Olympic Museum 24 The Modern Olympic Games Teachers › David Miller. The official history of the Olympic Games and the IOC: Athens to London 1984-2012 / by David Miller Edinburgh: Mainstream, 2012
- Country/Region of Manufacture: Japan
- Type: Photograph
- Original/Licensed Reprint: Original
- Year of Production: 1932
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