The Olympics Games
Citius - Altius - Fortius
Founder of the Olympics

Baron Pierre de Coubertin, born in 1863 to an affluent & artistic Parisian family, is credited with creating the modern Olympics. He was passionate about harnessing education and sport to improve society, and believed that reviving the ancient Greek tradition of Olympic games would bring about such an improvement.

The Baron founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1984 and began organising the first Games in Athens. He was in the business of "making men"; to "adhere to an ideal of a higher life, to strive for perfection"; to create "a four-yearly festival of the springtime of mankind". Sadly, this vision did not extend to the fairer sex. Female athletes first participated in the Olympic games in 1900 in Paris when Charlotte Cooper (Britain) was the first female gold medalist in the tennis singles. Medals were not awarded to winners until the 1908 games in London.

After the first successful Olympics in 1896, de Coubertin became president of the IOC, a post he held until 1925. He died of a stroke in 1937 and in accordance with his last wishes, the Baron was buried in Lausanne but his heart was interred in a monument at the ruins of Olympia.

Olympic Motto

The Olympic motto is:

* citius - altius - fortius
* swifter - higher - stronger

Olympic Oath

The Olympic Oath, instituted in 1920 and updated in 2000, is taken on behalf of all athletes by a member of the host team. While holding a corner of his national flag, the athlete proclaims from the rostrum, the following:

"In the name of all the competitors, I promise that we shall take part in these Olympic Games, respecting and abiding by the rules which govern them, committing ourselves to a sport without doping and without drugs, in the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of sport and the honour of our teams."
Olympic Flag

The five interlaced rings represent the five continents of the world and the six colours are those that appear on all the national flags of the world at the present time. The Olympic flag was first flown at the Antwerp Olympic stadium in 1920.

Summer Sports

The summer sports have included: Aquatics, Archery, Athletics, Badminton, Baseball, Basketball, Boxing, Canoeing, Cycling, Equestrian, Fencing, Football, Gymnastics, Handball, Hockey, Judo, Pentathlon, Rowing, Sailing, Shooting, Softball, Table tennis, Taekwando, Tennis, Triathlon, Volleyball, Weight Lifting and Wrestling.

Only five sports have been contested at every summer Olympic games since 1896 and they are:

* Athletics, Cycling, Fencing, Gymnastics and Swimming

Only three countries have competed at every summer Olympics and they are:

* Australia, Greece and Great Britain

Impact of politics on the games

* 1948 London - The first Olympics since the war and Europe was still recovering from the devastation. Food shortages meant that each country was asked to bring food for its own athletes. Japan and Germany were not invited.
* 1952 Helsinki - USSR rejoined the Games, having absented itself since 1912 due to the capitalist and bourgeois nature of the Games. A cold-war atmosphere dominated the games as the Soviets set up a rival Olympic village for Eastern Bloc countries.
* 1964 Tokyo - South Africa was banned by the IOC from taking part due to its oppressive apartheid regime. This ban lasted until 1992.
* 1968 Mexico City - 10 days before the Olympics began, students protesting against the government were surrounded by the army who opened fire, killing 267 and injuring more than 1,000. During the Games, American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos were expelled for raising their fists in a "black power" salute on the winners' podium.
* 1972 Munich - 11 Israeli athletes were taken hostage by Palestinian terrorists "Black September", to protest against the holding of 234 Palestinian prisoners in Israel. The terrorists murdered two of their captives, then, as the result of a bungled rescue attempt by the authorities, the remaining nine captives were killed alongside three of their captors.
* 1976 Montreal - 26 African countries boycotted the Games in response to New Zealand's inclusion. Earlier that year the Kiwis had undertaken a three-month rugby tour of segregated South Africa, but the IOC refused to ban them.
* 1980 Moscow - The biggest boycott in Olympic history blighted the Games when 62 countries including USA, West Germany and Japan refused to attend in protest at the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan. The USSR won 195 medals, but allegations of cheating tainted this astonishing result.
* 1984 Los Angeles - 14 countries, including the USSR, boycotted the Games in what was widely seen as revenge for the Moscow Games four years earlier. Ironically, China chose this year to return to the Games after a 32-year absence.
* 1988 Seoul - After failing to be recognised as co-host of the Games, North Korea (which was still technically at war with the South) boycotted the event, taking Cuba and Ethiopia with it.
* 1992 Barcelona - A rare Olympic games with no boycotts. The Soviet Union had broken up, and the new Russian republics competed under one banner. The Berlin Wall had been torn down - so East and West Germany competed together as a united country. South Africa returned to the Games after the end of apartheid and 32 years of sporting isolation.

Paralympics

The idea for the Paralympic Games was developed from the work of Sir Ludwig Guttman who, in 1948, organised a competition in Stoke Mandeville (UK) for Second World War veterans with spinal injuries. He believed that sport was good for both morale and rehabilitation. The success of this competition meant that by 1960 an Olympic-style Games with international participation had evolved.

Nowadays, athletes compete in one of six categories: spinal cord injury; amputee; visually impaired; cerebral palsy; mentally handicapped; and les duties (athletes with motor disability). Disabilities are graded by severity, and individuals compete against those with a similar degree of impairment. In 1952, only two countries and 130 athletes took part. In Sydney 2000, 123 countries and 3,843 athletes participated.

Although there has always been close ties between the Olympics and Paralympics, in 2001 an agreement between IOC and International Paralympic Committee (IPC) ensured that from 2012 onwards the city chosen to host the Olympic Games will also be obliged to host the Paralympics.
 
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