|
|
Amazon.com International Sites :
USA, United Kingdom, Germany, France
Books about Olympic Games :
The Olympic Games: Athens 1896-Sydney 2000
Olympic Games, Past, Present & Future : Passing the Torch to a New Millennium
The best amateur athletes in the world match skill and endurance in a series of contests called the Olympic
Games. Almost every nation sends teams of selected athletes to take part. The purposes of the Olympic Games are
to foster the ideal of a "sound mind in a sound body" and to promote friendship among nations.
The Olympic Games are named for athletic contests held in ancient Greece for almost 12 centuries. They were banned
in AD 394 but were revived and made international in 1896. The Winter Games were added in 1924. World War I and
World War II forced cancellation of the Olympics in 1916, 1940, and 1944, but they resumed in 1948 and are held
every four years. After 1992 the Winter and Summer Games were no longer held within the same calendar year. Winter
Games were scheduled for 1994, after only a two-year interval, and every four years thereafter. The Summer Games
were scheduled for 1996, and every four years thereafter.
Summer sports include archery, basketball, boxing, canoeing, cycling, equestrian events (horseback riding), fencing,
field hockey, gymnastics, handball, judo, rowing, shooting, soccer, swimming, tennis, track and field, volleyball,
water polo, weight lifting, wrestling, and yachting. Winter events include skating, skiing, bobsledding, luge,
tobogganing, ice hockey, and the biathlon (skiing-shooting).
The most exacting track and field event is the decathlon (from the Greek words deka, meaning "ten," and
athlon, "contest"). Contestants compete in ten different running, jumping, and throwing events. The athlete
scoring the greatest total number of points is the winner. The pentathlon, consisting of five such events, was
discontinued after 1924. It was restored in the 1948 games as the modern pentathlon, based upon five military skills--fencing,
riding, running, shooting, and swimming. The marathon race, covering 26 miles 385 yards, honors the ancient Greek
runner Pheidippides (see Marathon).
Women take part in separate summer and winter events. Ten new women's summer competitions added in 1984 included
the marathon and a 49-mile cycling event. The pentathlon, introduced in 1964, was replaced by the heptathlon, which
consists of 100-meter hurdles, shot put, high jump, long jump, javelin throw, and 200- and 800-meter races. Additional
events for women in the 1992 Winter and Summer Games included the biathlon, 10-kilometer walk, baseball, and judo.
The Olympic Games are thought to have begun in Greece in 776 BC. The Greek calendar was based on the Olympiad,
the four-year period between games. The games were staged in the wooded valley of Olympia in Elis. Here the Greeks
erected statues and built temples in a grove dedicated to Zeus, supreme among the gods. The greatest shrine was
an ivory and gold statue of Zeus. Created by the sculptor Phidias, it was considered one of the Seven Wonders of
the World (see Seven Wonders of the World). At first the only Olympic event was
a 200-yard dash, called a stadium. This was the only event until 724 BC, when a two-stadia race was added. Two
years later the 24-stadia event began, and in 708 the pentathlon was added and wrestling became part of the games.
This pentathlon, a five-event match consisted of running, wrestling, leaping, throwing the discus, and hurling
the javelin. In time boxing, a chariot race, and other events were included.
Art work on a Greek archaic red-figure vase shows a torch race scene. The torch-bearer passes the torch to the next runner. The goal of the race was an altar dedicated to the patron deity of the city hosting the games. This event was the origin for the modern relay race and for the lighting of the Olympic Flame before the start of the modern games. --Giraudon/Art Resource
The victors of these early games were crowned with wreaths from a sacred olive tree that grew behind the temple
of Zeus. According to tradition this tree was planted by Hercules (Heracles), founder of the games. The winners
marched around the grove to the accompaniment of a flute while admirers chanted songs written by a prominent poet.
Under Roman rule the Olympic Games continued to be held, but relations between the Romans and the Greeks became
so bitter that Emperor Theodosius abolished the Olympic Games in AD 394. The successful campaign to revive the
Olympics was started in France by Baron Pierre de Coubertin late in the 19th century. The first of the modern Summer
Games opened on Sunday, March 24, 1896, in Athens, Greece. The first race was won by an American college student
named James Connolly.
One of the most dramatic feats of the Olympics was the triumph of the United States track and field team in 1896.
Competing as unofficial representatives, the ten-man squad reached Athens barely in time to participate. They won
nine out of 12 events.
In 1912 Jim Thorpe, a Native American, became the only man to win both the decathlon and pentathlon in one year.
Officials canceled his record and took back his medals when they learned that he had played professional baseball.
His medals were restored posthumously in 1982. In track and field, Jesse Owens, a black American, won four gold
medals including a team medal in 1936. The first woman to win three individual gold medals was Fanny Blankers-Koen
of The Netherlands. The first athletes to win the decathlon twice were Bob Mathias of the United States, in 1948
and 1952, and Daley Thompson of Great Britain, in 1980 and 1984. The first perfect 10.0 in Olympic gymnastics was
scored by Nadia Comaneci of Romania, who received seven perfect scores and three gold medals in 1976.
In the 1964 Winter Games the Soviet speed skater Lidya Skoblikova was the first athlete to win four individual
gold medals. Her feat was duplicated in the 1968 Summer Games by the Czech gymnast Vera Caslavska. In 1972 the
United States swimmer Mark Spitz won a record seven gold medals at a single Olympics. Swimmers John Naber of the
United States and Kornelia Ender of East Germany each won four gold medals in the Summer Games in 1976. The all-time
individual medal winner was the American track athlete Ray C. Ewry, who won eight events in the 1900, 1904, and
1908 Games.
The 1972 Summer Games in Munich, West Germany, became a tragedy when Palestinian terrorists murdered 11 Olympic
team members from Israel. In a protest against a New Zealand rugby tour of South Africa about 30 African nations
boycotted the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal, Que. To protest the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan more than
60 countries, led by the United States, withdrew from the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow. The Soviet Union, which
first participated in 1952, withdrew from the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles.
Scandals rocked the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul. Ten athletes were disqualified after drug tests revealed steroid
abuse. Charges of bias and incompetence in the officiating at the boxing events led to two-year suspensions for
five Korean boxers and officials and several other judges and referees.
The 1992 games were unusual in that there were no more Soviet teams; the Soviet Union had split up in December
1991. The teams that participated from its former republics, sometimes still wearing the old Soviet uniforms, represented
either now-independent Baltic states or the Commonwealth of Independent States, which had been formed from 11 of
the former Soviet republics. Nevertheless, at the Winter Games in Albertville the Commonwealth's United Team came
in second, after Germany, in number of medals won.
In the 1896 Olympic Games there were fewer than 500 athletes representing 13 nations. In 1988 the Seoul games drew
entries from a record total of 160 countries. While the number of athletes who competed in Los Angeles did not
surpass the high of 10,000 set at Munich in 1972, the 1984 games set records for the largest total attendance--almost
5.8 million people--and the most gold medals for one country--83 for the United States.
The development and governance of the modern games are vested in the International Olympic Committee (IOC), founded
in Paris in 1894. Its headquarters are in Lausanne, Switzerland. The original committee had 14 members; today there
are about 70. These individuals are considered ambassadors from the committee to their national sports organizations
and are dedicated to promoting amateur athletics. Normally there is only one member from each country. Presidents
of the IOC are elected for an eight-year term and eligible for succeeding four-year terms.
Each country sending teams to the games must have its own National Olympic Committee. By 1988 there were 167 such
committees. One responsibility of a national committee is arranging for its team's participation in the games,
providing equipment, and getting the team to the game site and into specially arranged housing.
Amazon.com International Sites :