Music

The rousing Olympic anthem is the simply named "Olympic Music" by John Williams, who wrote it for the 1984 Olympics, held in Los Angeles. What you hear first are the forty or so notes played on horns which form the "Bugler's Dream" (also called "Olympic Fanfare") by Leo Arnaud, first played in the 1968 Games.

The torch, fanfare and flag are clearly evident in the Opening Ceremony, when everyone formally welcomes the participants and the Games can begin. Here we find the dramatic and colourful March of Nations, in which all the athletes from each country go into the venue to the sound of their country's anthem and march behind their flags, thus becoming representatives of their countries.

Gaming to be Included in Olympics

Shortly after a group of British gamers were named the best in the world at their “sport”, they have called for it to be included as an official olympic event.

Teams from around the world have competed in the Championship Gaming Series (CGS), with a British team taking the prize of half a million dollars. The team, Birmingham Salvo, led by Michael O’Dell (no, not Michael Dell), competed against 18 other teams in the LA final, and beat San Fransisco, naming them the best gamers on the planet.

The team played a number of games from Fifa 08 to Counter Strike, and came up on top. O’Dell said: “I think there are tests going on at the moment about making gaming an Olympic sport. I would like to think that it will happen and maybe sooner rather than later.”

As much as I believe that a lot of effort is put into gaming, along with hard work, sweat and tears, I don’t think that it is deserving of being an official Olympic sport. The olympics is about passion of sport, health, fitness and pushing yourself beyond the boundries. As much passion as a gamer may have for his trade, fitness, health and ultimate traning. In my opinion, sitting on a console incorporates passion, but not fitness.

What do you think? Should gaming be an offical Olympic sport or not? Could we see gaming by the 2012 Olympics, or does it just not make the grade? What do you think of the Birmingham Salvo? Are the a deserving group? Leave a comment with your thoughts.

The ancient Olympic Games » Competition and status

At the meeting in 776 bc there was apparently only one event, a footrace that covered one length of the track at Olympia, but other events were added over the ensuing decades. The race, known as the stade, was about 192 metres (210 yards) long. The word stade also came to refer to the track on which the race was held and is the origin of the modern English word stadium. In 724 bc a two-length race, the diaulos, roughly similar to the 400-metre race, was included, and four years later the dolichos, a long-distance race possibly comparable to the modern 1,500- or 5,000-metre events, was added. Wrestling and the pentathlon were introduced in 708 bc. The latter was an all-around competition consisting of five events—the long jump, the javelin throw, the discus throw, a footrace, and wrestling.

Boxing was introduced in 688 bc and chariot racing eight years later. In 648 bc the pancratium (from Greek pankration), a kind of no-holds-barred combat, was included. This brutal contest combined wrestling, boxing, and street fighting. Kicking and hitting a downed opponent were allowed; only biting and gouging (thrusting a finger or thumb into an opponent’s eye) were forbidden. Between 632 and 616 bc events for boys were introduced. And from time to time further events were added, including a footrace in which athletes ran in partial armour and contests for heralds and for trumpeters. The program, however, was not nearly so varied as that of the modern Olympics. There were neither team games nor ball games, and the athletics (track and field) events were limited to the four running events and the pentathlon mentioned above. Chariot races and horse racing, which became part of the ancient Games, were held in the hippodrome south of the stadium.

In the early centuries of Olympic competition, all the contests took place on one day; later the Games were spread over four days, with a fifth devoted to the closing-ceremony presentation of prizes and a banquet for the champions. In most events the athletes participated in the nude. Through the centuries scholars have sought to explain this practice. Theories have ranged from the eccentric (to be nude in public without an erection demonstrated self-control) to the usual anthropological, religious, and social explanations, including the following: (1) nudity bespeaks a rite of passage, (2) nudity was a holdover from the days of hunting and gathering, (3) nudity had, for the Greeks, a magical power to ward off harm, and (4) public nudity was a kind of costume of the upper class. Historians grasp at dubious theories because, in Judeo-Christian society, to compete nude in public seems odd, if not scandalous. Yet ancient Greeks found nothing shameful about nudity, especially male nudity. Therefore, the many modern explanations of Greek athletic nudity are in the main unnecessary.

The Olympic Games were technically restricted to freeborn Greeks. Many Greek competitors came from the Greek colonies on the Italian peninsula and in Asia Minor and Africa. Most of the participants were professionals who trained full-time for the events. These athletes earned substantial prizes for winning at many other preliminary festivals, and, although the only prize at Olympia was a wreath or garland, an Olympic champion also received widespread adulation and often lavish benefits from his home city.

The ancient Olympic Games » Origins

Just how far back in history organized athletic contests were held remains a matter of debate, but it is reasonably certain that they occurred in Greece almost 3,000 years ago. However ancient in origin, by the end of the 6th century bc at least four Greek sporting festivals, sometimes called “classical games,” had achieved major importance: the Olympic Games, held at Olympia; the Pythian Games at Delphi; the Nemean Games at Nemea; and the Isthmian Games, held near Corinth. Later, similar festivals were held in nearly 150 cities as far afield as Rome, Naples, Odessus, Antioch, and Alexandria.

Of all the games held throughout Greece, the Olympic Games were the most famous. Held every four years between August 6 and September 19, they occupied such an important place in Greek history that in late antiquity historians measured time by the interval between them—an Olympiad. The Olympic Games, like almost all Greek games, were an intrinsic part of a religious festival. They were held in honour of Zeus at Olympia by the city-state of Elis in the northwestern Peloponnese. The first Olympic champion listed in the records was Coroebus of Elis, a cook, who won the sprint race in 776 bc. Notions that the Olympics began much earlier than 776 bc are founded on myth, not historical evidence. According to one legend, for example, the Games were founded by Heracles, son of Zeus and Alcmene.

Beijing 2008 Olympic Games: Mount Olympus Meets the Middle Kingdom

The Games of the XXIX Olympiad, involving some 200 Olympic committees and as many as 13,000 accredited athletes competing in 28 different sports, were auspiciously scheduled to begin at 8:08 pm on the eighth day of the eighth month of 2008 in Beijing, capital of the world’s most populous country. From the time the International Olympic Committee selected Beijing as host city, on July 13, 2001, China invested huge sums of money in urban renewal, expanded infrastructure, and construction of Olympic facilities in Beijing and the six other Olympic venues (Qingdao, Hong Kong, Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenyang, and Qinhuangdao). In the months prior to August 8, a devastating earthquake in Sichuan province, international focus on China’s pollution problems, protests over China’s human rights record and Tibet, and criticism of the Chinese government’s control of information became part of the Olympics story. Nevertheless, China was determined to show the world, also through an Olympics lens, that it had joined the ranks of the world’s most modern and influential countries.

Olympic Games

athletic festival that originated in ancient Greece and was revived in the late 19th century. Before the 1970s the Games were officially limited to competitors with amateur status, but in the 1980s many events were opened to professional athletes. Currently the Games are open to all, even the top professional athletes in basketball and football (soccer). The ancient Olympic Games included several of the sports that are now part of the Summer Games program, which at times has included events in as many as 32 different sports. In 1924 the Winter Games were sanctioned for winter sports. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition. For coverage of the 2008 Olympics, see Beijing 2008 Olympic Games: Mount Olympus Meets the Middle Kingdom.

International Olympic Committee

The International Olympic Committee (French: Comité International Olympique) is an organization based in Lausanne, Switzerland, created by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas on June 23, 1894. Its membership consists of the 205 National Olympic Committees.

The IOC organizes the modern Olympic Games held in Summer and Winter, every four years. The first Summer Olympics organized by the International Olympic Committee held in Athens, Greece, in 1896; the first Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France, in 1924. Until 1992, both Summer and Winter Olympics were held in the same year. After that year, however, the IOC shifted the Winter Olympics to the even years between Summer Games, to help space the planning of the two events two years apart from one another.