Why is the olympics so important
The historic importance of the Olympics
hey safer here
so the Olympics are coming up soon and
we all know about its pageantry and
international stakes but I wanted to
tell you guys about how the games have
been a part of world history not just
about the actual playing of them I'm not
a sports fan by any means but the
Olympics hold a different chord its
importance as an international event is
incomparable to anything else here's the
history of why that is many of you have
probably read about the ancient Olympics
they were a central event to the ancient
Greeks being held every four years from
before recorded history there until 394
AD they were the most important of the
four Panhellenic games which were games
held to celebrate one mythic tradition
or another there are a few myths about
the creation of the tradition but there
is no concrete evidence to show when or
why they came about interestingly enough
a couple ancient historians claimed that
the harrion games which was the female
component of the Olympics were the first
athletes to compete there so it's
possible that the Olympics were started
by women the Greeks so revered the games
that they based their dating system on
the Olympiad beginning in 776 BC and
measuring every four years from their of
even greater importance the Greeks would
declare a truce for all internal Wars in
order to go play the games this Olympic
truce was so important to them that they
would suspend all legal disputes and
capital punishment for the duration of
the games too bad that couldn't have
happened in 1916 1940 and 44 AD there is
a call to renew the Olympic truce but no
one's paid attention since it was
declared in 1996 of course there were
violations of the Olympic truce even in
ancient times during the Peloponnesian
War the Spartans were fine
at one point for assaulting a city
during the truce some city-states
used the games to declare their
allegiance during the Peloponnesian War
some also boycotted the games in protest
seems kind of familiar to some recent
history the ancient Olympics kept going
even after the Romans conquered the
Greeks in 146 BC heck Rome modeled her
own version called the Capitoline games
after the Greeks natural disasters and
barbarian invasions had taken their toll
on the Olympics and they dwindled over
the course of the next six centuries the
games lived on despite the troubles
until Theodosius banned them in 394 ad
because they were a pagan ritual in a
Christianized Roman Empire the games
were gone no longer of any importance
for 1500 years but they came back
coincidentally exactly 1500 years later
the modern Olympics were founded in 1894
now there had been a number of games
like this that had been held since the
1830s some in facts kind of going back
to the 17th century there was some
notable attempts at organizing them
internationally but to no significant
avail though the 1866 Crystal Palace
games were fairly close a French
historian named Pierre de Coubertin
proposed the reorganization of the
Olympics in 1892 an Olympic Congress was
organized in 1894 and they voted to
create the modern Olympics after
organizing the International Olympic
Committee or IOC for short with
Coubertin as the leader the first modern
Olympiad began two years later in 1896
the games were held in an ancient
Stadium in Athens Greece originally
built in 330 BC to symbolize the
continuity between them and the ancient
games and they went off splendidly now
I'm not going to go into the minutiae of
which games did what to implement the
modern traditions
instead let's look at a few moments that
have rocked the world since the founding
of the Olympics first let's talk about
war there have only been three Olympiads
that were skipped as I am mentioned
before the tradition of the Olympic
truce did not translate into modern
times instead the games in 1916 1940 and
1944 were skipped altogether because of
the world wars there was one other
similar instance early on when the games
in st. Louis in Paris were overshadowed
by nearby expositions the IOC decided to
hold an intercalated Olympics in Athens
that means only two years between
Olympic events they had originally
scheduled them for 1902 but because of
the local conflicts in Greece at the
time the date was pushed back to 1906
they worked well but the IOC has since
disavowed these Olympics because
Coubertin didn't like the idea of
intercalated Olympics despite now having
them because of the separation of winter
and summer olympics beginning in 1994
but the IOC is nothing if not a bunch of
stuffy old aristocrats a remnant of
Cooper Todd's time so that's a total of
four Olympiads cancelled because of war
next let's talk about the 1936 Olympics
in Berlin and garmisch-partenkirchen
during the Third Reich now there have
been two movies of recent date that have
brought the subject up one I've actually
done a review on and another I'm in the
process of researching which is kind of
what prompted this episode in the first
place this was really the first time a
nation used the Olympics to show off
their ascendancy of course now that is a
standard thing but Germany brought a lot
to the table firstly there was all the
Nazi cinematography Leni Riefenstahl
had been building her cinema repertoire
and the movie she produced from filming
these Olympics netted her quite a few
awards including a gold medal from the
IOC after its release for a while in
there
the IOC actually gave out gold medals
for the Arts Germany also broadcast the
games on television in 1936 so the games
were designed around the pageantry
for instance the running of the torch
was created specifically to show off the
ascension of Germany under Nazi rule
despite the connotation the spectacle
was too great and the Olympics has
continued doing the torch relay ever
since besides we've always had a
fascination with Nazis on film just
think of how many movies come out a year
about something that only lasted between
1933 and 1945 but funny enough this is
really where that began as a result
several countries boycotted the games
because of the Nazis Spain even went so
far as to plan a rival Olympiad but was
stopped by their own civil war we've
seen this kind of politicization of the
Olympics itself several times since but
never to this extent although one could
argue the original Athens Games were
politicized in this way as well the
Olympics continued to change but they
remain a place of statecraft and
pageantry cemented into that place
because of the Nazis so let's look at
how that role as a place of statecraft
has been usurped by jumping forward to
1968 a tumultuous year indeed the games
were held in Mexico City during what is
now called the dirty war where the
Mexican government conducted a secret
war against dissidents because of the
games a student protest beforehand was
violently suppressed killing between 30
and 300 of the protesters worldwide
issues with race came to the fore as
well African nations threatened to
boycott the games if South Africa came
because of the ongoing system of
apartheid there so South Africa wasn't
allowed to come although in 1976
because of some strange circumstances
those African nations boycotted because
of reasons related to apartheid anyways
the US would do the same thing to the
USSR during the 1980 games in Moscow
because they had invaded Afghanistan the
u.s. saw some pretty political intrigue
in 1968 itself the civil rights movement
was beginning to splinter into militancy
in the u.s. in the Olympics its
traditional to play the first-place
winners national anthem when they are
standing on the podium and when two
Americans placed first and third instead
of saluting the anthem they raised their
black gloved fist in the air in the
symbol of the Black Power movement with
the intent of raising awareness to their
cause you see 1968 was really the year
that the Olympics became a political
vehicle for protest another huge change
came in the next Olympics in the 1972
Munich Games the Israeli team was taken
hostage by a terrorist group called
Black September they were a breakaway of
the Palestinian Liberation Organization
or PLO for short
they were PLO members who remained in
Jordan after their failed attempt to
take over that country in 1970 after
taking the hostages they demanded on
live television that West Germany and
Israel released certain leadership who
had been captured in 1971 from prison
during a botched rescue attempt by the
West Germans the terrorists massacred
the team of eleven people once the
fighting was done five terrorists were
killed and one West German officer along
with three terrorists captured this
shocked the world and prompted a
campaign of anti terrorism unequaled
until 9/11 many countries created
Special Forces units specifically for
the threat and the Israelis embarked on
a campaign of vengeful assassination
before all of that could take place the
three remaining terrorists were set free
by the West Germans before the Winter
Olympics began that year because a
Lufthansa flight was captured by the PLO
in Damascus this is when much of the
world had to come to terms with the
sidious effect of terrors and it began
with the Olympics although many places
had been experiencing national terrorist
groups like The Weather Underground
Irish Republican Army anti Shah of Iran
groups and the Quebec Liberation Front
those were localized problems it took
the Munich Olympics to make terrorism
and international problem from the
bleakness of terror propaganda and
protests there's happy facets to the
modern Olympics I want to touch on even
though it was cemented in place by Nazis
using the Olympics to demonstrate an
up-and-coming country's rise to
prominence has taken shape in a
significant way
Beijing Sochi and now Rio de Janeiro
have all been used to say that the
People's Republic of China the Russian
Federation and now the Federative
Republic of Brazil hold the hope of
ascendancy to first world status they
may have achieved that to varying
degrees but the Olympics represents that
hope for them the IOC specifically has
chosen these countries to try and
promote their ascendancy the athletes
who attend these events hold the same
hopes for their respective countries we
compare countries by their athletic
achievements at the Olympics because
each athlete is representing their
country in a way that no other athletic
competition can compare to the spirit of
friendly competition is baked into the
very symbol for the Olympics the Olympic
rings were designed by Coubertin in 1912
to represent the five inhabited
continents and he took into account the
colours of many national flags from that
time later each ring was given a
specific continent to represent closely
enough now it would be called kind of
races since yellow is Asian blackest
African and red is American but
Coubertin never indicated the Rings were
supposed to be that specific instead it
is an abstraction
the same physical flag is typically
flown at the Olympics with the second
ever being flown from 1924 to 1988 and
the new one flying over Rio right now
it's a symbol of unity and belief in the
coming together to represent one's
country the eyes of the world rest upon
those competing under it's waving form
it's a weird thing if you think about it
for the most part the world is not
interested in most of these sports
outside of the Olympics the audience for
swimming track and field gymnastics and
so on is miniscule for the regular
season
by comparison hell I can tell you I'm
certainly not interested in any
whatsoever outside the Olympics then
again I don't care one bit about sports
in general for instance this last Super
Bowl I hosted a game party they watch
the game while I read a book through
most of it I'm the guy who steers the
conversation away from sports talk but
when the Olympics come on I'm glued to
the TV it's because the Olympics is more
than simple sports competition it is
important to world history a place to
celebrate our differences set global
trends make a statement worldwide resist
oppression and revel in the glory of
one's country we'll see how the next
Olympiad stacks up
you
