Pierre de Coubertin — , a young French nobleman, felt that he could institute an educational program in France that approximated the ancient Greek notion of a balanced development of mind and body. The Greeks themselves had tried to revive the Olympics by holding local athletic games in Athens during the s, but without lasting success. It was Baron de Coubertin's determination and organizational genius, however, that gave impetus to the modern Olympic movement. Despite meager response he persisted, and an international sports congress eventually convened on June 16, He found ready and unanimous support from the nine countries.
De Coubertin had initially planned to hold the Olympic Games in France, but the representatives convinced him that Greece was the appropriate country to host the first modern Olympics. The council did agree that the Olympics would move every four years to other great cities of the world. Thirteen countries competed at the Athens Games in Nine sports were on the agenda: cycling, fencing, gymnastics, lawn tennis, shooting, swimming, track and field, weight lifting, and wrestling.
The man U. The Games were a success, and a second Olympiad, to be held in France, was scheduled. Olympic Games were held in and , and by the number of competitors more than quadrupled the number at Athens — from to 2, Beginning in , a Winter Olympics was included — to be held at a separate cold-weather sports site in the same year as the Summer Games — the first held at Chamonix, France.
In about 1, athletes from 38 nations competed at Lake Placid, N. But the Summer Games, with its wide array of events, are still the focal point of the modern Olympics. Among the standard events are basketball, boxing, canoeing and kayaking, cycling, equestrian arts, fencing, field hockey, gymnastics, modern pentathlon, rowing, shooting, soccer, swimming and diving, tennis, track and field, volleyball, water polo, weight lifting, wrestling freestyle and Greco-Roman , and yachting.
New sports are added to the roster at every Olympic Games; among the more prominent are baseball, martial arts, and most recently triathlon, which was first contested at the Games. The Summer and Winter Games were traditionally held in the same year, but because of the increasing size of both Olympics, the Winter Games were shifted to a different schedule after The ideology of nationalism, which swept the world during the early 20th century, left its mark on the Olympics.
Athletic nationalism was brought to a peak by Nazi Germany, which staged the Games in Berlin and used the Olympics to propagandize its cause.
The Germans built a powerful team through nationalized training and scientific advances and dominated the Games in terms of medals won. The political overtones of the Olympics did not lessen with the fall of Nazi Germany. In the Munich Olympics in , 11 Israeli athletes were massacred by Palestinian terrorists.
And in in Montreal, 33 African nations, to be represented by about athletes, boycotted the Games to protest South Africa's apartheid policies. The most serious disruptions to the modern Olympics, however, occurred in and In , under strong pressure from the Carter administration, the U. About 40 nations followed suit, including West Germany, China, and Japan, depriving the Soviets of their chief athletic competition and raising doubts about the future of the Olympic movement.
Fear of an openly hostile environment in Los Angeles was cited by the Soviet Olympic Committee as the reason for nonparticipation, but most commentators believed the reasons to be political: the poor state of recent U. The popularity and financial success of the Los Angeles Games were, however, greater than anticipated.
The Summer Games, in Atlanta, Ga. The and Winter Games transpired without incident. The Summer Games were held in Sydney, Australia, to great acclaim. In Sydney, politics took a back seat to the competition, although North and South Korea were temporarily reunited as their athletes marched as one country in the opening ceremonies.
Athens, Greece — site of the first modern Olympics — was the site of the Summer Games in Though it has potential for political controversies due to its rapid modernization and its communist state-Beijing, China was selected for the Summer Games. The biggest influence on the modern Olympic Games is money. Commercialism exists side by side with the outstanding athleticism and the spirit of friendship imbuing competitors from around the world.
Since the Games in Los Angeles, it has become clear that a city hosting the Games can anticipate a financial windfall, as spectators and sponsors converge for the event.
Because of the tremendous potential for profit, the process of selecting host cities has become politicized, and there is a large potential for corruption.
For example, Rio de Janeiro constructed 15, new hotel rooms to accommodate tourists. Additionally, thousands of sponsors, media, athletes, and spectators typically visit a host city for six months before and six months after the Olympics , which brings in additional revenue.
The boost in job creation for cities hosting the Olympics is not always as beneficial as initially perceived. Also, most jobs went to workers who were already employed, which did not help the number of unemployed workers. Also, income from the games often covers only a portion of expenses. As of , Los Angeles is the only host city that realized a profit from the games, mostly because the required infrastructure already existed.
Additionally, it is difficult ascertaining exactly which benefits come from hosting the Olympics. For example, Vancouver had planned many infrastructure projects before winning the bid for hosting the games. Many of the arenas constructed for the Olympics remain expensive due to their size or specific nature. At the time of the event, Montreal was undergoing a dramatic surge in terms of its global profile. The Montreal Games ended up leaving a year legacy of debt and financial disaster for the city, with the decaying, custom-built venues remaining a forlorn eyesore for decades.
The event stands as the embodiment of excess and irresponsible spending. While this is an understandable expense, the building of unnecessary and ill-conceived permanent sporting venues was extremely difficult to comprehend.
A number of these venues remain idle to this day. This lack of foresight and planning left the nation with a shortfall of 50, euros per Greek household, which has been shared among the taxpayers ever since. Health concerns over the Zika virus that was spreading in Brazil caused many athletes to withdraw from the games and many spectators to not enter the country.
The hoped-for economic benefit of hosting the games did not occur in Rio de Janeiro. According to The Associated Press, the city is late in paying teachers, hospital workers, and pensions, and crime has risen to almost record-breaking levels. But then the COVID pandemic hit in the spring of , and the decision was made to postpone the Olympics to the summer of When brought a surge of COVID in many parts of the world, including in Japan, the decision was made to bar spectators. Without fans, international tourism will not provide the spending needed to make up for the costs incurred by the Japanese government.
While the economic cost will be substantial, the health cost could be even higher. As of Aug. What health or economic impact these numbers may have on the city of Tokyo remains to be seen. Hosting the Olympics tends to result in severe economic deficiencies for cities. Unless a city already has the existing infrastructure to support the excess crowds pouring in, not hosting the Olympics may be the best option. Council on Foreign Relations. Observer Research Foundation.
Journal of Economic Perspectives. Accessed Aug. College of the Holy Cross. The Guardian. To combat this issue, there are weighted scoring models where gold is worth more than silver and bronze medals. Usually gold is worth three, silver is worth two, and bronze is worth one. Some systems choose to assign different weights. So it might be or for gold, silver, and bronze respectively. The next major type of ranking system takes into account demographic variables.
Since some countries are smaller, they send less athletes which usually leads to less medals. To deal with this difference, some people will determine the rankings by dividing a country's medal total by the country's population size or GDP.
In at the Athens Summer Olympics, the US won the most gold medals with 11 but Greece won the most medals overall with Another instance was in the Stockholm Summer Olympics where again the US had the most gold medals, 25, but Sweden had the most overall medals, Another noteworthy occurrence was at the Tokyo Olympics where the US won with 36 gold medals but the Soviet Union won more overall medals.
Most recently in , China had the most gold medals, 51, and the United States had the most overall medals, Michael Phelps , a swimmer, has the most Olympic medals of any Olympic athlete with The nearest competitor is gymnast Larisa Latynina, who has 18 Olympic medals. Phelps also leads with the most Olympic Gold medals 23 with Latyina behind him again with 9.
Latyina is a former Soviet Union gymnast who competed in three games between and The modern Olympics didn't start until In this year, the winners received an olive wreath and a silver medal. It wasn't until that first, second, and third places received gold, silver, and bronze medals respectively.
Since then, this trend has continued. The hosting country will design the medals to be given to the winners.
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