Encyclopedia
The
Summer Olympic Games or the
Games of the Olympiad are an international multi-sport event held every four years, organised by the International Olympic Committee. The Olympics are the most prestigious of such events in the world. Olympic victory is widely considered to be the most prestigious achievement in sports. Medals are awarded in each event, with
gold medals for first place, silver for second and bronze for third, a tradition which started in 1904.
The Games have expanded from a 43-event competition with fewer than 250 men competing to including over 10,000 competitors of both genders from 202 nations. Organisers for the
2008 Summer Olympics in
Beijing expect approximately 10,500 athletes to take part in the 302 events on the programme for the Games. The
2004 Summer Olympics, for which organisers had also expected 10,500 competitors, drew a total of 11,099 in the 301 events offered.
Competitors are entered by a National Olympic Committee to represent their country of citizenship. National anthems and
flags accompany the medal ceremonies, and tables showing the number of medals won by each country are widely used. In general only recognised nations are represented, but a few sovereign-disputed countries are allowed to take part. The country of the
Republic of China has been required by the International Olympic Committee to compete using the name "
Chinese Taipei" in order to avoid provoking the
People's Republic of China .
Qualification
Qualification rules for each of the Olympic sports are set by the International Federation that governs that sport's international competition.
For individual sports, competitors typically qualify through attaining a certain place in a major international event or on the IF's ranking list. National Olympic Committees may enter a limited number of qualified competitors in each event , and the NOC decides which qualified competitors to select as representatives in each event if more have attained the benchmark than can be entered. Many events provide for a certain number of wildcard entries, given to athletes from developing nations.
Nations qualify teams for team sports through continental qualifying tournaments, in which each continental association is given a certain number of spots in the Olympic tournament. The host nation is generally given an automatic qualification.
History
The early years
The modern
Olympic Games were founded in 1894 when
Pierre Fredi, Baron de Coubertin sought to promote international understanding through sporting competition. He based his Olympics on the Wenlock Olympian Society Annual Games, which had been contested in Much Wenlock since 1850. The first edition of de Coubertin's games, held in
Athens in 1896, attracted just 245 competitors, of whom more than 200 were Greek, and only 14 countries were represented. Nevertheless, no international events of this magnitude had been organised before. Female athletes were not allowed to compete, though one woman, Stamata Revithi, ran the marathon course on her own, saying "[i]f the committee doesn’t let me compete I will go after them regardless" .
Four years later the
1900 Summer Olympics in
Paris attracted more than four times as many athletes, including 11 women, who were allowed to officially compete for the first time, in
croquet,
golf,
sailing, and
tennis. The Games were integrated with the Paris
World's Fair and lasted over 5 months. It is still disputed which events exactly were
Olympic, since few or maybe even none of the events were advertised as such at the time.
Numbers declined again for the
1904 Games in
St. Louis,
Missouri,
USA, due in part to the lengthy transatlantic boat trip required of the European competitors, and the integration with the
Louisiana Purchase Exposition World's Fair, which again spread the event out over an extended period. In contrast with Paris 1900, the word Olympic was used for practically every contest, including those exclusively for school boys or for Irish-Americans.
A series of smaller games were held in Athens in 1906. These were to be the first of an alternating series of games to be held in Athens, but the series failed to materialise. The games were held in 1906 to celebrate the "tenth birthday" of the games. The IOC does not currently recognise these games as being official Olympic Games, although many historians do. The 1906 Athens games, which had over 900 athletes competing, were more successful than the 1900 and 1904 games and contributed positively to the success of future games.
The
1908 London Games saw numbers rise again, as well as the first running of the
marathon over its now-standard distance of 42.195 km . This distance was chosen to ensure that the race finished in front of the box occupied by the British royal family. The marathon had been 40 km for the first games in 1896, but was subsequently varied by up to 2 km due to local conditions such as street and stadium layout. At the six Olympic games between 1900 and 1920, the marathon was raced over six different distances.
At the end of the 1908 marathon the
Italian runner Dorando Pietri was first to enter the stadium, but he was clearly in distress, and collapsed of exhaustion before he could complete the event. He was helped over the finish line by concerned race officials, but later he was disqualified and the gold medal was awarded to John Hayes, who had trailed him by around 30 seconds.
The Games continued to grow, attracting 2,500 competitors to
Stockholm in 1912, including the great all-rounder
Jim Thorpe, who won both the decathlon and pentathlon. Thorpe had previously played a few games of baseball for a fee, and saw his medals stripped for this breach of amateurism. They were reinstated in 1983, 30 years after his death.
The scheduled
Berlin Games of 1916 were cancelled following the onset of
World War I.
The interwar era
The 1920
Antwerp games in war-ravaged
Belgium were a subdued affair, but again drew a record number of competitors. This record only stood until 1924, when the
Paris Games would involve 3,000 competitors, the greatest of whom was Finnish runner
Paavo Nurmi. "The Flying Finn", won three team gold medals and the individual 1,500 and 5,000 metre runs, the latter two on the same day.
The 1928
Amsterdam games were notable for being the first games which allowed females to compete at track & field athletics, and benefited greatly from the general prosperity of the times alongside the first appearance of sponsorship of the games, from
Coca-Cola. This was in stark contrast to 1932 when the Los Angeles games were affected by the
Great Depression, which contributed to the fewest competitors since the St. Louis games.
The
1936 Berlin Games were seen by the German government as a golden opportunity to promote their ideology. The ruling
Nazi Party commissioned film-maker
Leni Riefenstahl to film the games. The result,
Olympia, was a masterpiece, despite
Hitler's theories of Aryan racial superiority being repeatedly shown up by non-Aryan athletes. In particular, the black sprinter and long jumper
Jesse Owens won 4 gold medals. The tale of Hitler snubbing Owens at the ensuing medal ceremony is a fabrication.
Due to
World War II, the Games of 1940 were cancelled; no Games were planned for 1944.
After WWII
The first post-war Games were held in 1948 in
London, with both
Germany and
Japan excluded.
Dutch sprinter
Fanny Blankers-Koen won four gold medals on the track, emulating Owens' achievement in Berlin.
At the 1952 Games in
Helsinki the
USSR team competed for the first time and at once became one of the dominant teams. Finland made a legend of an amiable Czech army lieutenant named
Emil Zátopek, who was intent on improving on his single gold and silver medals from 1948. Having first won both the 10,000 and 5,000 metre races, he also entered the marathon, despite having never previously raced at that distance. Pacing himself by chatting with the other leaders, Zátopek led from about half way, slowly dropping the remaining contenders to win by two and a half minutes, and completed a trio of wins.
The 1956
Melbourne Games were largely successful, barring a
water polo match between
Hungary and the Soviet Union, which political tensions caused to end as a pitched battle between the teams.
The 1960
Rome Games saw the arrival on the world scene of a young light-heavyweight boxer named Cassius Clay, later known as
Muhammad Ali, who would later throw his gold medal away in disgust after being refused service in a
whites-only restaurant in his home town. Soviet women's
artistic gymnastics team members won 15 of 16 possible medals. Other performers of note in 1960 included
Wilma Rudolph, a gold medallist in the 100 metres, 200 metres and 4x100 metre relay events.
The 1964 Games held in
Tokyo are notable for heralding the modern age of telecommunications. These games were the first to be broadcast worldwide on television, enabled by the recent advent of communication satellites. The 1964 Games were thus a turning point in the global visibility and popularity of the Olympics.
Performances at the 1968
Mexico City games were affected by the altitude of the host city. No event was affected more than the long jump.
American athlete Bob Beamon jumped 8.90 metres, setting a new world record and, in the words of fellow competitor and then-reigning champion Lynn Davies, "making the rest of us look silly." Beamon's world record would stand for 23 years. The 1968 Games also saw the introduction of the now-universal
Fosbury flop, a technique which won American high jumper Dick Fosbury the gold medal. Politics took centre stage in the medal ceremony for the men's 200 metre dash, where
Tommie Smith and
John Carlos made a protest gesture on the podium against the segregation in the United States; their political act was condemned within the Olympic Movement, but was praised in the
American Civil Rights Movement.
Politics again intervened at
Munich in 1972, with lethal consequences. A Palestinian terrorist group named Black September invaded the Olympic village and broke into the apartment of the Israeli delegation. They killed two Israelis and held 9 others as hostages. The terrorists demanded that Israel release numerous prisoners. When the Israeli government refused their demand, a tense stand-off ensued while negotiations continued. Eventually the captors, still holding their hostages, were offered safe passage and taken to an airport, where they were ambushed by German security forces. In the firefight that followed, 15 people, including the nine Israeli athletes and five of the terrorists, were killed. After much debate, it was decided that the Games would continue, but proceedings were obviously dominated by these events. Some memorable athletic achievements did occur during these Games, notably the winning of a record seven gold medals by
United States swimmer
Mark Spitz, and the winning of three gold medals by 16-year-old Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut, who, however failed to win the all-around to her teammate Ludmilla Tourischeva.
There was no such tragedy in
Montreal in 1976, but bad planning led to the Games' cost far exceeding the budget. The Montreal Games are the most expensive in Olympic history, costing over $5 billion . For a time, it seemed that the Olympics might no longer be a viable financial proposition. There was also a boycott by African nations to protest against a recent tour of
apartheid-run
South Africa by a
New Zealand rugby side. The Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci won the women's individual all around gold medal with two of four possible perfect scores, thus giving birth to a gymnastics dynasty in Romania. Another female gymnast to earn the perfect score and three gold medals there was
Nellie Kim of the USSR.
1980s and beyond
Following the
Soviet Union's invasion of
Afghanistan, 66 nations, including the United States, Canada, West Germany and Japan, boycotted the 1980 games held in
Moscow. Notably, Greece, Great Britain and Australia did not withdraw, and remain the only nations to have competed in all summer games. The boycott contributed to the 1980 Games being a less publicised and less competitive affair, which was dominated by the host country.
In 1984 the Soviet Union, and 14
Eastern Bloc countries, reciprocated by boycotting the
Los Angeles games. These games were perhaps the first games of a new era. The games were again viable, but had become more commercial. Again, the games lost a measure of their appeal by the absence of one of the superpowers.
The 1988
Seoul games were very well planned but the games were sadly tainted when many of the athletes failed mandatory drug tests. Despite splendid drug-free performances by many individuals, the number of people who failed screenings for performance-enhancing chemicals overshadowed the games. The outcry reached its zenith when Ben Johnson, the
Canadian winner of the men's 100 metre sprint, was discovered to be a steroid user and disqualified.
On the bright side, drug testing and regulation authorities were catching up with the cheating that had been endemic in athletics for some years. The 1992
Barcelona Games were cleaner, although not without incident. In evidence there was increased professionalism amongst Olympic athletes, exemplified by US basketball's "Dream Team". 1992 also saw the reintroduction to the Games of several smaller European states which had been incorporated into the
Soviet Union since World War II.
By then the process of choosing a location for the Games had itself become a commercial concern; allegations of corruption rocked the International Olympic Committee, in particular with reference to
Salt Lake City's bid to host the
2002 Winter Olympics. It was also widely rumoured that the
Coca-Cola company was highly influential in the
1996 Summer Olympics being hosted by their home city of
Atlanta, Georgia. In the stadium in 1996, the highlight was 200 metres runner Michael Johnson annihilating the world record in front of a home crowd.
Canadians savoured Donovan Bailey's record-breaking gold medal run in the 100-metre dash. This was popularly felt to be an appropriate recompense for the previous national disgrace involving Ben Johnson. There were also emotional scenes, such as when
Muhammad Ali, clearly affected by
Parkinson's disease, lit the Olympic torch and received a replacement medal for the one he had discarded in 1960. The latter event took place not at the boxing ring but in the basketball arena, at the demand of US television. The atmosphere at the Games was marred however when a
bomb exploded during the celebration in Centennial Park. In June 2003, the principal suspect in this bombing,
Eric Robert Rudolph, was captured.
A new millennium
The 2000 Games were held in
Sydney,
Australia, and showcased individual performances by local favourite
Ian Thorpe in the pool, Briton Steve Redgrave who won a rowing gold medal in an unprecedented fifth consecutive Olympics, and Cathy Freeman, whose triumph in the 400 metres united a packed stadium and provided a bridge between white and aboriginal Australians. Eric "the Eel" Moussambani, a swimmer from
Equatorial Guinea, had a memorably slow 100 metre freestyle swim that showed that, even in the commercial world of the twentieth century, some of de Coubertin's original vision still remained.
2004 saw the Games return to their birthplace in
Athens,
Greece. Many doubted the city would be ready to host the games in time. Greece spent at least $7.2 billion on the Games, including $1.5 billion on security alone—an enormous sum that will take many years, if not decades, to pay off. Yet, none of those fears became a reality. The games, though lacking the excitement normally associated with Olympic Games, were appreciated for their better than expected quality, from the point of view of their organisation, hospitality, the excellence of the competition, and the image transmitted worldwide. However, due to terrorism concerns, this became the lowest attended Olympics in the modern era.
The
2008 Summer Olympics are to be held in
Beijing,
China. Several new events, including the new discipline of BMX for both men and women, are to be held. For the first time, women will compete in the steeplechase. The Fencing programme will be expanded to include all six events for both men and women, the latter of which had not previously been able to compete in team foil or sabre events. Marathon swimming events, over the distance of 10 kilometres, will be added. In addition, the doubles events in table tennis will be replaced by team events.ndon]],
United Kingdom will hold the 2012 Games, making London the first city to hold the Olympics three times. The International Olympic Committee has removed
baseball and
softball from the programme, effective beginning with the 2012 Olympic Games.
List of Olympic sports
42 different sports, spanning 56 different disciplines, have been part of the Olympic programme at one point or another. 28 sports have comprised the schedule for the
2000,
2004, and
2008 Summer Olympics, though baseball and softball have been removed to give a list of 26 for the 2012 Games.
| Sport | Years | | Sport | Years |
|---|
| Archery | 1900-1912, since 1972 | Modern pentathlon | since 1912 |
| Athletics | all | Polo | 1900, 1908, 1920, 1924, 1936 |
| Badminton | since 1992 | Rackets | 1908 |
| Baseball | since 1992 | Roque | 1904 |
| Basketball | since 1936 | Rowing | since 1900 |
| Basque pelota | 1900 | Rugby union | 1900, 1908, 1920, 1924 |
| Boxing | 1904, 1908, since 1920 | Sailing | 1900, since 1908 |
| Canoeing | since 1936 | Shooting | 1896, 1900, 1908-1924, since 1932 |
| Cricket | 1900 | Softball | since 1996 |
| Croquet | 1900 | Swimming | all |
| Cycling | all | Synchronized swimming | since 1984 |
| Diving | since 1904 | Table tennis | since 1988 |
| Equestrian | 1900, since 1912 | Taekwondo | since 2000 |
| Fencing | all | Tennis | 1896-1924, since 1988 |
| Football | 1900-1928, since 1936 | Triathlon | since 2000 |
| Golf | 1900, 1904 | Tug of war | 1900-1920 |
| Gymnastics | all | Volleyball | since 1964 |
| Handball | 1936, since 1972 | Water motorsports | 1908 |
| Hockey | 1908, 1920, since 1928 | Water polo | 1900, since 1908 |
| Jeu de paume | 1908 | Weightlifting | 1896, 1904, since 1920 |
| Judo | 1964, since 1972 | Wrestling | 1896, since 1904 |
| Lacrosse | 1904, 1908 | |
List of modern Summer Olympic Games
Note: although the games of 1916, 1940, and 1944 had been cancelled, the Olympiad Roman Numerals for those games were still used as if the games were actually played.
| • 1896 | Games of the I Olympiad | Athens, Greece |
| • 1900 | Games of the II Olympiad | Paris, France |
| • 1904 | Games of the III Olympiad | St. Louis, Missouri, United States |
| • 1906 | Intercalated Games | Athens, Greece |
| • 1908 | Games of the IV Olympiad | London, United Kingdom |
| • 1912 | Games of the V Olympiad | Stockholm, Sweden |
| • 1916 | Games of the VI Olympiad | Berlin, Germany – cancelled due to World War I |
| • 1920 | Games of the VII Olympiad | Antwerp, Belgium |
| • 1924 | Games of the VIII Olympiad | Paris, France |
| • 1928 | Games of the IX Olympiad | Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| • 1932 | Games of the X Olympiad | Los Angeles, California, United States |
| • 1936 | Games of the XI Olympiad | Berlin, Germany |
| • 1940 | Games of the XII Olympiad | Helsinki, Finland – cancelled due to World War II |
| • 1944 | Games of the XIII Olympiad | London, United Kingdom – cancelled due to World War II |
| • 1948 | Games of the XIV Olympiad | London, United Kingdom |
| • 1952 | Games of the XV Olympiad | Helsinki, Finland |
| • 1956 | Games of the XVI Olympiad | Melbourne, Australia / Stockholm, Sweden |
| • 1960 | Games of the XVII Olympiad | Rome, Italy |
| • 1964 | Games of the XVIII Olympiad | Tokyo, Japan |
| • 1968 | Games of the XIX Olympiad | Mexico City, Mexico |
| • 1972 | Games of the XX Olympiad | Munich, West Germany |
| • 1976 | Games of the XXI Olympiad | Montréal, Quebec, Canada |
| • 1980 | Games of the XXII Olympiad | Moscow, Soviet Union |
| • 1984 | Games of the XXIII Olympiad | Los Angeles, California |
