Last reviewed on: 31st July, 2021
The modern Olympic Games (Olympics) are foremost global sporting events costarring summer and winter sports rivalries in which thousands of athletes from around the world partake in a variety of competitions. These games are cogitated the world's most sports competition which involve more than 200 countries. The Olympic Games occurs every four years, meaning the summer and Winter Games alternating after every four years but two years apart.
These games were initiated in ancient Greece about 3,000 years ago, were resumed in the late 19th century and have become the world’s famous sporting competition. Since 8th century B.C. to the 4th century A.D. the games were held every 4 years in Olympia, situated in the western Peloponnese peninsula. The first Olympic Games occurred in 1896 in Athens, and contained 280 members from 13 nations, competing in 43 occasions.
The resumption of the Olympic Games commenced with a French educator and historian Mr. Baron Pierre de Coubertin from 1863 to1937. Coubertin was highly interested in education, and he confidently believed that the best way to improve the minds of young people was to grow their bodies as well, learning and athletics have to go together.
French patrician, Pierre Fredy the Baron de Coubertin, born in 1863, when he was young, Coubertin was an extremely keen sportsman. As he grew up older he established an impassioned belief that sport could inspire peace throughout the world and take along people from all over the world together.
Coubertin was enthused by the primordial Olympic Games and voyaged around the world, expending his own money, trying to convince people to revive them. Finally he succeeded to bring together delegates of many dissimilar countries in Paris, and then the Olympic Movement was begun in 1894.
When Coubertin visited the devastations of primordial (ancient) Olympia, Coubertin realize that the best way to generate extensive acceptance of his theory was to revive the Olympic Games. He expected the new Games would take along back the standards of physical, mental, and spiritual excellence showed in the ancient Games, along with building courage, endurance, and a sense of fair play in all participated people. Furthermore, he wished the Games would turn the flow, he saw universal of the growing commercialism of sports. From 1994, the summer and Winter Olympic Games have been held discretely and have rotated every two years.
Once Baron de Coubertin established the Olympic Movement he founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to oversee it, in 1894. Coubertin himself served as its president for about 29 years, and since then, there have been 8 presidents. There were initially 14 memberships but the Committee has now grown-up to over 130 members, all of whom should speak either French or English. Current members elect new memberships as required. The Headquarter of IOC is from Lausanne, Switzerland.
The following are notable things you should know about Olympic Games;
1. Olympic rings
These were embraced by Baron Pierre de Coubertin (instigator of the modern Olympic Movement) in 1913 after he saw a comparable design on an artifact from primordial Greece. The five rings symbolize the five major zones of the world, Africa, America, Asia, Oceania and Europe. Each national flag in the world comprises at least one of the five colors, which are blue, yellow, black, green, and red respectively. It is necessary to note that Mr. Coubertin never spoken nor wrote about the relation of different continents colors of the rings were associated with the different continents.
2. The Olympic flag
These contain five interrelated rings on a white background. The five rings represent the five substantial continents and are intersected to denote the friendship to be obtained from these global competitions. The colors of the rings are blue, yellow, red, black and green. These colors were elected because at least one color take part on the flag of each country in the world. The Olympic flag was initially flown during the 1920 Olympic Games.
3. The Olympic flame
It is a practice sustained from the primordial Olympic Games. In Greece (Olympia), a flame was kindled by the sun and then kept burning until the finishing of the Olympic Games. The flame first emerged in the modern Olympics in 1928 in Amsterdam. The flame itself symbolizes a number of stuffs, comprising transparency and the venture for faultlessness. In 1936, the chairman of the managing committee of the Olympic Games in 1936, Carl Diem, proposed what is now the modern Olympic Torch spread.
The Olympic flame symbolizes the positive principles that Man has normally related with fire. The cleanliness of the flame is assured by the way it is ignited using the sun’s rays. The selection of Olympia as a departure point accentuates the relation between the Ancient and Modern Olympic Games and underlines the deep connection between these two events.
4. The Olympic medals
They are designed particularly for each distinct Olympic Games by the emcee city's organizing committee. There are three types of medals used including Gold, Silver and Bronze. Every kind of medal must be not less than 3 millimeters thick and 6 centimeters in diameter. Likewise, the gold and silver Olympic medals should be constructed beyond 92.5 % silver, with the gold medal roofed in 6 grams of gold.
The objective of the Olympic Games is to donate for creating a peaceful and better world by teaching youth through sport performed without inequity of any kind and in the Olympic games spirit that needs communal sympathetic with a spirit of friendship, unity and fair play.
Posted by: Lusubilo A. Mwaijengo
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