Olympic games movement

The Olympic Movement is all about implementing Olympism as a philosophy of life. Olympism uses sports to encourage balanced development of individuals as a vital step in building a peaceful society that attributes high place to human dignity. The Olympic Movement highlighted the bigger picture of sports in human beings lives.

In the Olympic Movement, sports became an educative tool and vehicle and not an end in itself. The Olympic Movement grew from the beliefs of ancient Greeks of a balanced development of mankind. In the Olympic Movement hence sports came to be blended with culture and education.

The Olympic Movement is the concerted, organised, universal and permanent action, carried out under the supreme authority of the IOC, of all individuals and entities who are inspired by the values of Olympism. It covers the five continents. Its symbol is five interlaced rings.

The goal of the Olympic Movement is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practised in accordance with Olympism and its values. Today's marathon was not an event in the ancient Games, though it is based on the experience of an ancient "day-runner" named Pheidippides.

A Greek soldier, Pheidippides supposedly carried news of the Persian landing in BC at Marathon to Sparta, covering a distance of many miles. No team sports were included in the ancient Olympic Games. The individual sports contested in the ancient Games included boxing, equestrian chariot or horse races , pankration a form of martial art , pentathlon a series of five events spanning running, jumping, and discus , running, and wrestling.

The Games were originally held in one day, but an expansion in the number of events eventually pushed the duration to five days. To participate in the original ancient Games, athletes had to be male, of Greek origin, and freeborn.

Each city could choose its best athletes and train them for several months before the Games. The athletes would then travel to Olympia and try out through qualifying rounds. Ancient Olympic champions were awarded olive leaf wreaths and poems, called Epinicians, written by the most famous poets of the day. The poems and the names of the athletes lived on in memory long after the day of victory.

When he returned to his hometown, the Olympic victor was welcomed as a hero and had the right to have a statue of himself erected. During the nearly 1, years of competition, the Games created legendary heroes from every facet of Greek society, from Onomastos of Smyrna, the first boxing victor, to Cynisca of Sparta, the first woman known to win an event chariot racing.

The Olympic and Paralympic Games were founded more than years ago by a single man who sought to establish a campaign to build a better world through sport.

After the abolishment of the ancient Olympic Games in AD, the site gave way to earthquakes, floods, and vandalism. It was rediscovered in , and in Germany began excavating ancient Olympia. The world was reintroduced to statues, monuments, bronzes, coins, and inscriptions of ancient Olympic victors. Fascination with the ancient Games swept over Europe and attracted the attention of an year-old boy named Pierre de Coubertin.

As an adult, Coubertin worked to reform education in France. He traveled to England and discovered something that was lacking in the French education system: recess. He saw the virtues of mixing sport with education, as well as with the peace movement, and he returned to France determined to create a new model for modern times. To make his dream a reality, Baron Coubertin called together the leaders of sport from around the world to a meeting in Paris.

An audience of 2, filled the Grand Hall of Sorbonne for the inaugural Olympic Congress and applauded in affirmation for de Coubertin's proposal to resurrect the Olympic Games, which had been lost to humanity for nearly 1, years. And so, on June 23, , the modern Olympic Movement was launched as a global platform to unite the world in friendship and peace through sport. In , the first edition of the modern Olympic Games drew competitors from 14 countries to Athens, Greece, the ancient birthplace of the Games.

There were 43 events and medals awarded. Winter sports made their Olympic debut at the London Games, when figure skating competitions were organized for men, women, and pairs. At the Antwerp Games, figure skating and ice hockey were included in the program. The event went so well that it was retroactively dubbed the first Olympic Winter Games. Thus the tradition of hosting an Olympic Winter Games in the same year as the Olympic Games was born. It wasn't until the Lillehammer Games that the IOC began alternating the winter and summer celebrations every two years.

Today, the universal truth embodied by the Olympic Movement is demonstrated by the continued popularity and relevance of the Games. The London Olympic Games drew 10, competitors from countries, 2 million spectators, and a worldwide television audience of nearly 4 billion people. More than events were contested and medals awarded. The digital universe fully embraced this celebration of humanity, breaking all records with million Tweets over the 16 days of the Games.

The inherent values of sport—discipline, perseverance, teamwork—find their highest expression in the Olympic Movement. Around the world, the Games are recognized as the pinnacle of sport because of the very values they embody. Learn more about the U.