History of the Olympic MovementThe roots of the modern Olympic Movement are found in the ancient Olympic Games held in Olympia in the Peloponnese, in the sanctuary dedicated to the god Zeus. There is no certain evidence regarding the beginning of the Olympic Games, yet the oldest written record takes us back to 776 BC. However, the first known Olympic Champion, Koroibos, was Socrates’ contemporary (c. 400 BC); but closer to the truth is the estimate that the first ancient Games were held around 1500 BC. An inscription found on a disc excavated in Olympia corroborates this:“…Asclepiades, a pentathlete dedicates this disc to Zeus at the 225th Olympiad”. |
Olympic movement  |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Since the Games were held every
four years, it is obvious that they reach far deeper into the past than
776 BC when, according to Aristotle, they were established by Iphitus
from Elis. The Olympic sports in the ancient Greek were short and long distance foot races, wrestling, boxing, pankration (a combination of wrestling and boxing), pentathlon (running, long jump, discus throwing, javelin throwing, wrestling) and horse races. During the Games, the Truce was announced and all Greek states would cease warring. The Games were banned by the Roman emperor Theodosius II in 394 AD due to their pagan origin, and the renewal of the Games in modern times and the foundation of the International Olympic Committee were initiated by a Frenchman, Baron Pierre de Coubertin at the end of the 19th century. An enthusiastic athlete, pedagogue and historian, spurred to action by the excavations in the ancient Olympia and the revival of the sports movement in many countries, de Coubertin first broached the idea of the revival of the Olympic Games as periodical sports competitions of the world’s youth that would contribute to the cessation of the national rivalry and disputes of religious, political and racial vein, at a Congress of the Union of French Societies of Athletic Sports in 1892. At the Union’s Congress held the following year (1 August 1893) de Coubertin called for an International Sports Congress that, on 16 June 1894, was constituted as the Founding Congress of the International Olympic Committee. The Congress was attended by 79 delegates from 49 sports organisations from 12 countries and the representatives (in the capacity of observers) from another 21 countries. The IOC was constituted on the eighth day of the session – 23 June. It consisted of 15 members from 12 founding countries (Argentina, Belgium, Great Britain, Greece, Italia, Hungary, New Zealand, Russia, France, Czech Republic, Sweden), while the first IOC members were the founders of the Olympic Committees in their respective countries. The following members formed the first International Olympic Committee: Viktor Balck (Sweden), Ferenc Kemeny (Hungary), Demetrios Vikelas (Greece), Aleksey de Butowski (Russia), Baron Pierre de Coubertin and Ernest Callot (France), Duke Mario Lucchesi Palli and Duke D’Andria Carafa (Italy), Jiri Guth-Jarkovsky (Czech Republic), Leonard A. Cuff (New Zealand), Lord Ampthill and Charles Herbert (Great Britain), Jose Zubiaur (Argentina), William Sloane (United States of America), and Count de Bousies (Belgium). The next year a German, Karl August Willebald Gebhardt, became a member of the IOC. It was decided that the Games should be held every four years and that the first modern Games should take place in Athens in 1896. The representative of the country to host the first Games, Demetrios Vikelas, was elected the first IOC president, while Pierre de Coubertin was made secretary general (he became president of the IOC after the 1896 Games in Athens as the representative of the new host country, France, and held the position until 1925). The Olympic Rules were passed (today the Olympic Charter) at the Congress, undergoing numerous changes in the course of the last century. In a nutshell, the Rules stated the following:
The International Olympic Committee and the Olympic Movement in general, thanks to their adapting to the demands of the time, today bring together more countries and territories than the United Nations, the Summer Olympic Games are, without any doubt, not only the most significant sports event, but also cultural and commercial, and the Winter Olympic Games initiated in 1924 are following closely.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
THE IOC PRESIDENTS
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
E-mail
