Menu
- Email link
- Read comments (39)
- Share:
Got Olympic controversy?
Each time the Olympics roll around it seems that some participating country has to throw itself into the limelight with some type of controversy....... This year's Olympics are no exception.
Spain's Olympic basketball teams have risked upsetting their Chinese hosts by posing for a pre-Games advertisement making slit-eyed gestures. The ad for a courier company, which is an official sponsor of the Spanish Basketball Federation, occupied a full page in the sports daily Marca, the country's best-selling newspaper.
The ad features a large photograph of the basketball team posing in full Olympic kit on a basketball court decorated with a picture of a Chinese dragon. Every single player appears to be pulling back the skin on either side of their eyes.
Thank God it is not an American team!
Will anything become of this incident? Your thoughts?
- Email link
- Read comments (39)
- Share:
Comments
Respond to this blog
Posting a comment requires free registration:
- If you already have an account, follow this link to login
- Otherwise, follow this link to register
The Olympic Games is an international multi-sport event. The original Olympic Games (Greek: Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες; [Olympiakoi Agones] (help·info)) were first recorded in 776 BC in Olympia, Greece, and were celebrated until AD 393. Interest in reviving the Olympic Games proper was first shown by the Greek poet and newspaper editor Panagiotis Soutsos in his poem "Dialogue of the Dead" in 1833. Evangelos Zappas sponsored the first modern international Olympic Games in 1859. He paid for the refurbishment of the Panathenian Stadium for Olympic Games held there in 1870 and 1875. This was noted in newspapers and publications around the world including the London Review, which stated that "the Olympian Games, discontinued for centuries, have recently been revived! Here is strange news indeed ... the classical games of antiquity were revived near Athens."
The International Olympic Committee was founded in 1894 on the initiative of a French nobleman, Pierre Frédy, Baron de Coubertin. The IOC has become the heart of the "Olympic Movement," a conglomeration of sporting federations that are involved in the organization of the Games. As the Olympic Movement has grown so have the profile and complexity of the Games. Participation in the Games has increased to the point that nearly every nation on earth is represented. With the proliferation of satellite communications, the internet, and the continuing trend towards globalization, the Olympics are consistently gaining supporters. This growth has created numerous challenges, including political boycotts, the use of performance enhancing medications, bribery of officials, and terrorism.
Despite these challenges the Olympics have continued to thrive and flourish. Each successive Games attempts to add more events in order to keep up with the ever-evolving advance of athletic expression around the world. The current games in Beijing comprise of 302 events in 28 sports. The most recent Winter Olympics in 2006 featured 84 events in 7 sports. While the Olympic Games do continue to evolve, they also encompass many rituals that were established during their infancy in the late 19th and early 20th century. Most of these traditions are on display during the Opening and Closing ceremonies, and the medal presentations. For its part, the Olympic Movement has made considerable progress in fostering participation among as many nations as wish to compete, as well as focusing on the Olympic motto: Citius Altius Fortius - Faster, Higher, Stronger.
You have been schooled on the Olympics!