ATHENA 2004: THE 28th OLYMPIC GAMES

A Brief History of Ancient Olympic Games

The decision

to select Athens as the host city of the 2004 Olympic Games

has brought the Olympiads back to their ancient birthplace. It is recorded that the sporting festival dedicated to Zeus every four years began to take place in Olympia in 776 B.C. The Olympic Games were celebrated almost 1,200 years continuously. Situated in the northern part of Greece, Olympia was not actually a town but a grouping of temples and arenas in the fields.

Known as the most important Panhellenic festival, the

Olympic Games were attended not only by athletes but also by leaders, politicians, artists, poets and dealers from every part of Greece. In praise of the glory of the festival Pindar, a Greece poet living in 518-438 B.C., fervently wrote a poem.

“ No celestial body is warmer and brighter than the sun during daylight, as no sporting event is greater than the Olympic Games.”

In ancient Greece the athletes competed as individuals, not as teams, on amateur basis. They competed in boxing, wrestling, jump, disc and spear throwing, running and four-horse chariot race. The winners received only garlands of wild olive leaves put on their heads as crowns and were glorified as heroes for life. Besides, they deserved some privileges such as exemption from taxation and front row seats to all public spectacles. In their hometowns statues were erected in honor of the victors. Unfortunately in 393 A.D. the Roman Empire Theodosius declared the Olympic Games corrupt and put an end to them.

Modern Olympic Games

Until German excavation of the 1870’s Olympia was buried owing to earthquakes and floods. Fascinated by the cultural beauty of Greek found in the sacred ground of Olympia, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, a young Frenchman , conceived the idea of Modern Olympic Games as the world’s greatest sporting event that would be held in different capital cities throughout the word every four years. In 1896 the first modern Olympic Games were staged in Athens ruled by new regulations in accordance with the need of modern time. The motto of the modern Olympic Games is “Citius-Altius-Fortius” which means “Faster-Higher

-Stronger”. Due to two World Wars the Olympic Movement failed to stage the greatest world sporting event in 1916, 1940 and 1944. From time to time the number of countries participating in the Olympic Games is growing steadily. In 1952 for the first time Indonesia took part in the Fifteenth held in Helsinki where 69different countries joined the sporting event. Mr.Coubertin and his colleagues like their heirs in the Modern Olympic Movement believed that global sport could become a global platform for peace.

Athena 2004

The 28th Olympic Games will be held on August 13-29,2004 in the Panathinaic Marble Stadium in Athens where the first Olympiads took place. The reconstruction of the historic bilding has been done under the control of Ministry of Ecology and Public Work. More than 200 countries, including Iraq and Afghanistan, will take part in the world sporting competition.