2. Pierre de Coubertin
Pierre de Coubertin of Paris, France was the founder
of the now famous modern Olympics. His date of
birth was the 1st of January 1863. And nowadays
every athlete has a dream to participate in the
Olympics. Coubertin wanted to make sports an
important part of the personal development of young
people. He conceived of an international competition
to promote athletics. To publicize these plans, he
organised an international congress on 23 of June
1894 at the Sorbonne in Paris. Pierre also invented
the Olympic flag.
3. Olympic Flag
Pierre designed the Olympic flag in 1914 and as
you may know each colour represents a
continent. Also did you know that each flag in the
world has at least one colour from the the
Olympic flag including white (New Zealand has
three colours).
4. Mascot
Every Olympics has at least one Mascot, to
represent the games, for example: Beijing in
2008 had 5 mascots. You can buy Olympic
Mascots all over the world. London’s mascot is a
graffiti style cyclops (see above). Mandeville's
(the London Mascot) name is inspired by Stoke
Mandeville in Buckinghamshire. The Stoke
Mandeville Games, widely recognised as a
forerunner of the modern Paralympic movement,
were first held at the hospital there.
5. Olympic torch
The Olympic torch is a tradition which as been
carried out at every modern Olympics, the torch
is different every Olympics. Before the Olympics
the torch travels to many countries and every
torch bearer gets to keep a torch. The torches are
lit by gas and at the opening ceremony someone
carries the torch around the stadium. The
Olympic torch is an important factor of the
opening ceremony in the olympic games.
6. Host cities
The summer Olympics have been happening for
many years. The first modern Olympics were in
1896 in Athens. London, the host of this year’s
Olympics have hosted the the games twice before
in 1908 and 1948. There have been 29 summer
games held in 22 different citys since 1896.
7. Creed & Motto
The Olympic creed and motto was strung together by
Pierre de Coubertin, the words are the following
"Citius, Altius, Fortius" (faster, higher, stronger) is
the Olympic motto. One day, following at an inter-
schools athletics meeting, he ended his speech with
fine oratorical vigour, quoting the three words of the
olympic motto. There is also an Olympic motto and it
goes: The most important thing in the Olympic
Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most
important thing in life is not to triumph but to
struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered
but to have fought well.
8. Ceremonies
There are many ceremonies held through out the
Olympic games including the opening ceremony.
Each Olympic team has a flag bearer to carry the
flag around the stadium, becoming a flag bearer
for your country is considered a great honor. At
the opening ceremony the is also someone who
carry the torch, lots of famous people like
Muhammad Ali have carried the torch. The
closing ceremony celebrate all the athletes
achievements from throughout the games.
9. Olympic Oath
Pierre de Coubertin wrote an Olympic oath for the
athletes to recite, the Olympic oath was first
recited by Victor Boin in 1920 and the part about
doping was just added in Sydney 2000. This is the
Olympic oath: "In the name of all the competitors,
I promise that we shall take part in these Olympic
Games, respecting and abiding by the rules which
govern them, committing ourselves to a sport
without doping and without drugs, in the true
spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of sport and
the honor of our teams."
10. Murray Halburg
At Melbourne 1956 Murray Halburg failed to complete his task of winning
an Olympic gold. He had to wait four more years to compete again. Many
would consider Halburg a handicapped athlete beacause at the age of 15
Murray picked up a Rugby injury and popped a blood vessel, he nearly
died. After that Halburg could not move his shoulder. Author Lydiard
(now one of the best coaches in the world) started training Halburg.
Because of Halburg’s disability he had to run with is injured shoulder
tucked up beside him, he was literally running with one arm. Finally the
time came, the 1960 Rome Olympics. All of the Lydiard club sat around
the radio to see who was going to the games Murray was chosen. The
selectors did not like Author Lydiard training methods so he was not
allowed to go to Rome. The whole of Auckland got together and raised
money for Lydiard to go to Rome. Author camped outside the village in
Rome, but he could still whach his athletes. 1 hour after Peter Snell’s
800m victory Murray Halburg took home the Gold, but the fire was out,
that was his last Olympics.
