Olympics

The Olympics are an Ancient Greek sporting event that was held from 776 B.C. to A.D. 394 and resurrected as a world-wide modern competition in the late 19th century. The first Olympics have been said by some to have marked the beginning of classical civilization.

According to a legend, Hercules built a temple to his father, Zeus. Hercules wanted people to come and worship his father, so he made a series of games to bring the people to Zeus’s temple. This event was so unifying that people started to count time by it.

The modern Olympic Games (often simply called the Olympics) are held every two years. The games are alternated between the "Summer" and "Winter" Olympics, each featuring sports typical of the respective season. The first of the modern Olympics took place in Athens in 1896.

The Games of the 2008 Summer Olympics - Beijing 2008 took place from 8 to 24 August 2008. The Games in Beijing played host to the 28 summer sports currently on the Olympic program. Approximately 10,500 athletes participated in the Games with around 20,000 accredited media bringing the Games to the world.

Past Games

1956 Melboune

Modernity clashed with traditionalism when Melbourne, History of Australia, became host of the 1956 summer Olympics. Journalists speculated that the expected floods of American tourists, accustomed to central heating and prompt room service, would react coldly to the traditional Aussie hotel routine of getting out of bed on to the chilly linoleum, and tip-toeing across the floor to the old-time wash basin and jug. What would sophisticated Frenchmen make of a city where all bars closed at 6 PM? Melbourne, the sophisticates feared, would be regarded as a hick town, too provincial and too staid to be entrusted with the hosting of a world event. A small but vocal minority of Labor politicians and welfare workers opposed the Games as an unjustifiable extravagance; in rural Victoria the folk saw the event as yet another treat for city people. Traditional clergymen feared the approach of that iniquitous institution, the 'Continental Sunday'. However the Chamber of Commerce won the day, hailing the Olympics as a boost to tourism and investment. Modernist architects and designers embraced the Games as their chance to bring local taste before the bar of international opinion. The Olympic Pool, for example, won praise for its high originality and imagination. The hotels were modernized, upper middle class residents took in vistors, and even the Japanese--the hated foes of the 1940s, were made welcome. In the event the preparations transformed and upgraded Melbourne's self-image as a bastion of modernity, and the rest of the world paid little attention.

2000 Sydney

The Melbourne Olympic Games in 1956 were well handled, but few international tourists came to Australia for it. By contrast when Sydney, Australia, hosted the 2000 Summer Olympic Games, it gained global attention for an efficiently organized world-class event. The Queen opened the 1956 games but was not invited in 2000, as the spirit of republicanism was too strong. However, many of the hoped-for legacies failed to materialize. General levels of participation in physical activity and sport did not rise, although passive spectatorship including television watching did. Many of the costly Australian facilities built for the games remain underutilized in their wake. While in the short term, some of the economic and political goals were achieved, and a new and better method to collect and disseminate knowledge about games preparation was established, such events remain problematic in their long-term effects on local, populations, societies, and environments.

Future Games

The host city for the Games of the XXX Olympiad in 2012 will be the city of London.

See Also

• Essay:Title IX Destroys Our Olympic Team

External links

• The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad
• International Olympic Committee
• Interactive Map of Olympic Medals, New York Times