History
of Olympic
Today
we are going to discuss about the most famous sport competition Olympic and its
history. How it is evolved, upgraded into modern version and its journey till
now. We will pass by glories as well as dark-side of Olympic also.
Ancient
Olympics:
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.
The origin
of the Olympics is shrouded in mystery and legend; one of the most popular myths identifies Heracles and
his father Zeus as
the progenitors of the Games. According to legend, it was Heracles who
first called the Games "Olympic" and established the custom of
holding them every four years. The
myth continues that after Heracles completed his twelve labours, he built the Olympic Stadium as
an honour to Zeus. The most widely accepted inception date for the
Ancient Olympics is in 776 BC . The Ancient Games featured running events, a pentathlon, boxing,
wrestling, pankration, and equestrian events.
Tradition has it that Coroebus, a
cook from the city of Elis, was
the first Olympic champion.
The Olympics were of
fundamental religious importance, featuring sporting events alongside ritual
sacrifices honouring both Zeus and Pelops,
divine hero and mythical king of Olympia. Pelops was famous for his chariot
race with King Oenomaus of Pisatis. The winners of the events were admired and
immortalised in poems and statues.
# 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".
# 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. The competition included several disciplines from the
ancient Greek Olympics. The 1796 Games also marked the introduction of the metric system into
sport.
# In 1834 and 1836,
Olympic games were held in 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.
# 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. The Wenlock Olympian Society was founded
by Brookes on 15 November 1860.
# 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.
Modern Games:
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics are
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. It is
normally held every four years (called Olympiad), alternating between the Summer and Winter Games every
two years in the four-year period.
Baron Pierre de Coubertin
Their creation was inspired by the ancient Olympic Games, which were
held in Olympia, Greece (from the 8th century BC to the 4th century AD). Baron Pierre de Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1894, leading
to the first modern Games in Athens in 1896. The IOC is the governing body of the Olympic Movement, with the Olympic Charter defining its structure and authority.
The evolution of the Olympic Movement during the 20th and 21st centuries
has resulted in several changes to the Olympic Games. Some of these adjustments
include: -
·
Winter Olympic Games: for snow
and ice sports
·
Paralympic Games: for athletes with a disability
·
Youth Olympic: Games for
athletes aged 14 to 18
·
World Games: for sports
that are not contested in the Olympic Games
·
Deaflympics and Special Olympics are also
endorsed by the IOC.
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,
International Olympic Committee (IOC) is responsible for
ü
Choosing the host city for each Games
ü
It organizes and funds the Games according to the
Olympic Charter.
ü
It determines the Olympic program, 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. 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. This growth has created numerous challenges and controversies, including boycotts, doping, bribery, and
a terrorist
attack in 1972. Every two years the Olympics and its media exposure provide athletes
with the chance to attain national and sometimes international fame. The Games
also constitute an opportunity for the host city and country to showcase
themselves to the world.
The Oxford Olympics Study 2016 found that sports-related costs for the Summer Games since 1960 were on average US$5.2
billion and for the Winter Games $3.1 billion. This does 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 and
* The most expensive Winter Games were Sochi
2014 at US$51 billion.
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,
cost per athlete was $1.4 million; for Sochi 2014, $7.9 million.
* The 1984 Summer Olympics are often considered the most financially
successful modern Olympics and a model for future Games.
Dark Side of
Olympic:
The Olympic games are a great sports
event, featuring amazing athletes. Sadly, the games also have a terrible
dark side. Most of what I wrote about it in this post, written about the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Host cities routinely lose enormous amounts of money on the games, and end up with decaying stadiums that
have little or no value. Even worse, governments often forcibly
displaced large numbers of people from their homes and businesses in order to make room for Olympic venues. Over 1 million people lost their homes for the 2008 Beijing games
alone. Brazil has similarly evicted large
numbers of people for the Rio
Olympics, and even more to build
stadiums for the 2014 World Cup.
Most of those evicted are the poor and people lacking in political power. The
Olympics also often
become propaganda showcases for authoritarian regimes, as happened with the 2008 Olympics in China, and
the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
These problems are not inevitable
results of holding a major international sports competition. I outlined some
ways to eliminate, or at least cut back on them:
We can reform the Olympics to put an
end to it. The forcible evictions are perhaps
the easiest problem to fix. The International Olympic Committee and the
international community more generally should insist that organizers commit to
building the necessary venues without forcibly displacing residents. If
a city cannot or will not do that, it should not be allowed to host the games.
No sports event is worth the forcible displacement
of innocent people from their homes.
But God knows how much Govt. and Olympic committee is serious about these
people.
Brazil didn’t learn its lesson, apparently, because more
violence followed in advance of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de
Janeiro. About 70,000
people were displaced by the Olympics, and almost
a thousand poor people — mostly black men — were killed during
“pacification” efforts to clean up the city’s image between 2015 and summer
2016.
A lot of queries strike our mind when we think about Olympic
is that how sports and games are being added to Olympic family? Who decided
which games and sports will be held in upcoming Olympics and which will be
excluded?
When come across these questions, the hot potatoes are
a) Why baseball is excluded ?
b) why cricket is not a part
of Olympic?
Why baseball is no longer an Olympic game?
As we know Olympic games is
governed by International Olympic Committee (IOC), henceforth selection of sports
and games also decided by this committee.
At the IOC meeting on July 7,
2005, baseball and softball were voted out of the 2012 Summer Olympics in
London, United Kingdom, becoming the first sports voted out of the Olympics
since polo was eliminated from the 1936 Olympics. The elimination excised 16
teams and more than 300 athletes from the 2012 Olympics.
Baseball and softball suffered from the
regional nature of the sports — softball more than baseball.
Each sport is popular in North and South America and east Asia. Neither has much interest in Europe,
where a large amount of the IOC’s influence comes from.
Baseball and softball were voted out of the Olympics by the IOC in 2005.
They didn’t give a single reason, but some of those are following:
·
The relatively small number of
countries that could field a team, and the even smaller number of countries
that were actually competitive.
·
MLB’s unwillingness to let its
players go to the Olympics. Compare that to hockey, where the NHL has taken a
break in some years to make the Winter Olympics hockey tournament a major event
with the world’s best. Instead, the Olympic baseball tournament was largely
amateurs (sport which is for pleasure not for money), and didn’t generate much
buzz. It is not economical for the country.
That last one is probably the real killer. As with so many things,
follow the money. The IOC saw a chance to make a big splash and generate
revenue, but when MLB wouldn’t play along… well, move on to the next thing.
Why cricket is not included in Olympic?
It is surprise
to know that Cricket was played for the first
and the last time at the Olympics way back in 1900. Due to the lack
of following for cricket in associate nations and also the reluctance from the
cricket boards of different countries, the gentleman's game has not featured in any
edition since.
Cricket is the
longest format sports in the world. Shortest format of cricket, T20 takes 3.5
hours to complete which doesn’t fit with motto of Olympic. Although cricket is
most popular sport in specific regions but still it is not earn fame across the
globe.
Slow Pacing
You
will never see a cricket World Cup, let
alone a four- or five-day Olympic tournament. Even Twenty20 cricket, currently
the shortest type of cricket and the likely format for an Olympic
competition, takes at least three-and-a-half hours for a single match. If the
tournament followed the same format as Olympic football (soccer), with 16
teams in four groups, that would make for over 100 hours of cricket, far too
long for the Games, which feature around 300 events, all of which would be cricket's
rivals for viewer attention.
Lack of Global Interest
The
Olympic Games is about representation as much as anything—about bringing all
parts of the world together under the banner of sports. Cricket is one of
the most popular sports in the world, with an estimated one billion-plus people
counted as fans, but that doesn't make it a global game. Top-level
international cricket is played by only a handful of nations, and many
residents in ICC associate and affiliate nations would have only a passing
interest at most.
Logistics and Cost
Cricket
demands a high level of expertise in administration and preparation
of the cricket pitch—which would be difficult and potentially very expensive for a
non-cricket-playing host. No nation is interested spent more on cricket which
has less viewers as compared to other.
Unfit in the Olympic
Motto
The
Olympic motto is "Faster, Higher, Stronger," but cricket could more
accurately be described as "Longer, Savvier, More Consistent."
Cricket may only enter into Olympic
with T10 format (Takes 2hr for completion). Undoubtedly cricket
lovers are increasing like anything nowadays, but ICC should share a
major part of broadcasting income with IOC.
Facts:
v v Though Brazil was ranked 12th globally in social inequality, the government managed to find $14 billion to host the games, money that could've been spent to benefit poor and working Brazilians.
v The most expensive Summer Games were Beijing 2008 at US$40–44 billion and
v
The most expensive Winter Games were
Sochi 2014 at US$51 billion.
v 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.
