The greatest athletes of all time have their names set in stone. Every year a new star comes out of the shadows and becomes the focus of global interest. Nations back their athletes financially to ensure they receive a medal. Winning gold in the Olympics Games is seen as the highest honor an athlete can achieve because of its prestigious image. The Olympics have not always been about the athletes. Nations competing have been victims of political scandals. When one country goes against another country, some people do not only view it as a fight for gold, but as a war amongst nations. Soccer fields have become battlegrounds and players, soldiers. Swimming pools turn into bloodbaths, and tennis court nets as do territorial partitions. Since the early 1900s, governments have used the Olympics to prove that their nation is superior by spending more on athletic ability, more on Olympic stadiums, and more on defeating their rivals. At times, athletes can be pushed so far that they collapse under the pressure of chasing for gold. All of the above will be discoursed from a financial, political, and historical point of view.
The modern Olympic Games were inspired by the ancient Olympic Games in Greece that ran from 776 B.C. to 393 A.D. They were held in honour of the god Zeus who was the leader of a very popular cult in this period of time in Greece. The Olympics were viewed as a religious practice and as a form of entertainment. Athletes would compete in either wrestling, a pentathlon (the long jump, javelin throw, discus throw, stadion [short foot race], and wrestling), boxing, pankration (a form of martial art), or the equestrian events (Ancient Olympic Games, 2013). All provinces within Greece were allowed to compete in the games with ...
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Athletic events at this time were also closely related to the religious beliefs and practices of the Greek citizens. Each competition was devoted to a specific pagan god. For example, the patron of the Olympics was Zeus. The Greeks believed that the physical strength and ability of athletes was a direct gift from the gods (http://www.meiaconcerto.com/olympic/olympia/ideal_o.php, September 27, 2004). Therefore, each athlete competed not only in honor of his city-state, but also in honor of the gods.
Since 776 BCE, the Olympics have been a way for people of different cultures to come together and compete in friendly competition. In 1892 the first modern Olympics were held in Athens, although it had been over a thousand years since the last game it still had brought together an assortment of different religions and ethnic groups together. Many factors shaping the Olympic Games reflect the changes that have taken place in our world since the last game in 393 CE in Greece such changes include woman’s suffrage, global economy, world wars, and proving competency.
middle of paper ... ...A. & Co. The Olympics, A History of the Modern Games. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois. of Illinois, in 1992.
The Ancient Greek Olympics were not only sporting events, it was a celebration to honor the great and powerful Zeus. The Ancient Olympics were held every four years at the famous Olympia, a district of Elis, here all free Greek men were allowed to compete. The first record of the Olympic Games was held in 776 B.C. The main sports were the Pentathlon, the Equestrian Events, Pankration, and Boxing.
How did politics affect the Olympic Games in 1936, 1968 and 1972? In 1934, the death of President Hindenburg of Germany removed the last remaining obstacle for Adolf Hitler to assume power. Soon thereafter, he declared himself President and Fuehrer, which means “supreme leader”. That was just the beginning of what would be almost 12 years of Jewish persecution in Germany, mainly because of Hitler’s hatred towards the Jews. It is difficult to doubt that Hitler genuinely feared and hated Jews. His whole existence was driven by an obsessive loathing of them (Hart-Davis 14).
The Olympics are fabled to have originated from a Greek myth, in which Hercules won a race at Olympia, a plain in the small state of Elis, and then decreed that the race should be enacted every four years. The more likely story is that the Olympic festival was a local religious event until 884 BC, when Iphitus, the king of Elis, decided to turn it into a broader festival. To accomplish that, he entered into a temporary truce with other rulers, allowing athletes and others to travel peacefully to Olympia while the festival was going on. In 776 BC, the Greeks based their chronology on four-year periods, called Olympiads, and the Olympic festival marked the beginning of each Olympiad.
The organizer have been missing a great opportunity to celebrate their games and enjoy the festivities because masses of cheering fans and Olympics revelers would help present their country in the possible light, as the games are being televised to an estimated worldwide audience of more than 4 billion.
Host nations had always celebrate the Olympic games as the national pride in modern era. China showed to the world that China was a progressive, modern, and capable country. The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic games gave the audiences an imagination about a historical, populous, and polyhedral country with a different culture. Chinese took pride from the achievements of Beijing Olympic games and show their sustaining manner to Chinese governments. “They interpreted their Olympic ideal which showed in the immediate context of China in not only a ‘cultural expression of the persisting crises of modernity and globalization’(Tomlinson) but also an attempt to resolve the characteristic tensions between locality and globality because of the process of globalization.”(Li) The United States can show their unique culture and multivariate society. American will take pride from their advanced science and technology as well as the accomplishment on the elimination of discrimination they had strived
The Olympic Games plays a significant role in the world. The relationship between it and host countries is important to investigate for comprehending cultural studies. According to Xu and Kirby (2008), the Olympic Games has a considerable impact on the expression of national identity. For example, London applied this approach to promote its national identity. This can be discovered from the BBC video called James Bond escorts The Queen to the opening ceremony in 2012 (2012): an amiable identity is perceived by the audience through presenting corgi at Buckingham Palace. Moreover, China is no exception. There is an image about the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics, it shows a spectacular drumming performance. In addition, an article about
Modern Day Olympics are a huge tradition that sweeps the screens of televisions across the world. Competitors take the arena with uniforms that dawn their countries colors and designs that are meant to resemble their designated flag. For months the news is centered around the games; the preparation, the athletes, and of course the competition. Countries aren 't obsessed, they are inspired and full of pride seeing athletes from their country compete and show their incredible skill. This tradition dates back to ancient Greece where the games began. Tony Perrottet writes about the traditions of the ancient game in his book The Naked Olympics.
The Olympic Games, hosted in Olympia, Greece, reflected and represented many of Greece 's traditional values in their culture, politics, and social institutions. With the Olympics being the biggest event in Greece at the time, the occasion brought many new ideas and showed what the traditions and customs of Greece were really about. Through this big spectacle people learned about their own culture and went through many experiences ranging from listening to poets and praying at the Temple of Zeus to spectating the sport of “Pankration”, a combination of boxing and wrestling. They would even compete in the nude as a time-honored tradition. “...the practice [competing in the nude] also symbolically stripped away social rank, an extraordinary gesture toward a democratic sporting ideal in the status-obsessed ancient world.”(pg. 7) The Olympics
It is evident that the Olympic Games are popular and have worldwide support, but one cannot ignore the lead up to the games in which host cities spend exorbitant amounts of tax dollars to revamp areas of the city that leads to many forced evictions. While some may acknowledge that some people are indeed displaced due to new construction, and there is a lot of money spent up front for the games, they may counter that the monetary and societal rewards reaped later will be huge. But, this paper will rebuke those claims by providing examples that exhibit that the oft asserted financial gains rarely come to fruition and that the societal impact is anything but rewarding. Lastly, even though any change is unlikely, two proposals, which could curtail some of the negative impacts brought on by the Olympic Games, will be offered, which are either create a permanent Olympic site, or hold the games less frequently, on a rotating basis,...
The Olympic Games, initially originated to respect Zeus, were the most critical national celebration of the ancient Greeks, and a center of political competitions between the city-states. Olympia, in Greece is
Ancient Olympics The ancient Olympics had some differences from the modern Games. There were fewer events, and only free men who spoke Greek could compete, instead of athletes from any country. Women where not allowed to even watch the games on penalty of death let alone play in them.. Also, the games were always held at Olympia in Greece instead of being moved around to different sites every time. But also they had some similarities to our modern Olympics, winning athletes were heroes who put their home towns on the map, and became financially sound for life. The conflict between the Olympic's ideals of sportsmanship and unity and the commercialism and political acts which accompany the Games where also present in ancient times. "Sotades at the ninety-ninth Festival was victorious in the long race and proclaimed a Cretan, as in fact he was. But at the next Festival he made himself an Ephesian, being bribed to do so by the Ephesian people. For this act he was banished by the Cretans."