Pierre de Coubertin: Educator, born in Paris, France. One of the first French advocates of physical education, he toured the USA and Europe to study educational methods, and visited Greece, where excavators were uncovering the ancient Olympic site. The visit inspired his proposal to revive the Olympic Games, and in 1894 the delegates at an international athletics conference in Paris voted to hold an Olympic competition at Athens in 1896. He became the first president (1896-1925) of the International Olympic Committee. Source: Biography.com
The historical origins of the Ancient Olympic Games are lost in the fog of time, but several legends and myths survive. One of these tells of the hero Heracles, who won a race at Olympia and then decreed that the race should be re-enacted every four years, while another claims that deity Zeus had instated the festival after his defeat of the Titan Cronus. Read more in Wikipedia
Olympia 1. Teil - Fest der Völker (Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations) (1938). Directed and written by Leni Riefenstahl. Documentary of the 1936 Olympics at Berlin, orchestrated as Nazi propaganda. IMDb
7: in Munich in 1972, Mark Spitz (USA) lined up for seven swimming events and won a medal count unique in the history of the Games: seven Olympic titles and seven world records. He took part in the 4x200m one hour after his final in the 100m butterfly. As for the 200m freestyle gold, it was his third medal in three days.
Olympic rings: According to most accounts, the rings were adopted by Baron Pierre de Coubertin (founder of the modern Olympic Movement) in 1913 after he saw a similar design on an artifact from ancient Greece. The five rings represent the five major regions of the world: Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania. Every national flag in the world includes at least one of the five colors, which are (from left to right) blue, yellow, black, green, and red. It is important to emphasize that Pierre de Coubertin never said nor wrote that the colors of the rings were linked with the different continents. Read more
Olympic anthem: the poem «Ancient eternal and immortal spirit» was set to music by Spyros Samaras (Corfu, 1853 - Athens, 1917) and was performed for the first time at the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896. For many years, different Anthems were played at the Olympics. The International Olympic Committee decided unanimously to adopt it as the official Olympic anthem (55th session in Tokyo, 1958).
ENGLISH LYRICS to the OLYMPIC ANTHEM
These are the lyrics sung for the Olympic anthem in English.
Immortal spirit of antiquity,
Father of the true, beautiful and good,
Descend, appear, shed over us thy light
Upon this ground and under this sky
Which has first witnessed thy unperishable fame.
Give life and animation to those noble games!
Throw wreaths of fadeless flowers to the victors
In the race and in strife!
Create in our breasts, hearts of steel!
Shine in a roseate hue and form a vast temple
To which all nations throng to adore thee,
Oh immortal spirit of antiquity.
Olympic Seoul Chicken
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The Athens Olympic Games Two thousand and Four is an anagram of Half-done temp stadia. Why huge costs to run? Moan.
Athens Olympic Games is an anagram of Lame gymnastic hopes
The modern Olympic Games is an anagram of My competing hero medals
The Olympic Games is an anagram of Mighty leaps come
The International Olympic Committee is an anagram of Theoretically, I'm incompetent, am I not?
Source: anagramgenuis.com
Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of a good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles. (Pierre de Coubertin)
The Olympic Games are not just ordinary world championships but a quadrennial festival of universal youth. . . celebrated by each succeeding generation as it arrives on the threshold of adulthood. (Pierre de Coubertin)
The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part . . . The essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well. (Pierre de Coubertin)
Olympia: one of the most important sanctuaries of antiquity, dedicated to the father of the gods Olympian Zeus. Olympia is the birth-place of the Olympic Games and also where they were held. The area, of great natural beauty, has been inhabited uninterruptedly since the 3rd millenium B.C. and in the late Mycenaean period it became a religious centre. "Anyone who has experienced a wild winter storm in the Alpheios valley and seen the sky resplendent with blinding lightning, or who has deen startled by a sudden mighty thunderclap on a stifling summer's day, will have no reason to doubt that this isolated part of the western Peloponnese is indeed the most important Sanctuary of Zeus, wielder of thunderbolts and father of the Gods".
Klaus Herrmann: "Olympia. The sanctuary and the contests" (Mind and Body, Athens 1989)
Source: Hellenic Ministry of Culture
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