Summary Of The Hidden History Of The Olympic Games

The Olympic games originated in Athens in 776 B.C. The more popular modern day Olympic games began nearly 2300 years later in 1896. The games no longer represented a religious festival, but a sports competition instead. The games can be studied via multiple aspects such as political, social, and economic, but this paper will concentrate on the economic aspect of the games and more specifically, the macroeconomic impacts the games possess.

The Olympics have shown over the decades that they can be affected by political conflict. However, it seems that this is the point of the Olympics, to illustrate national pride, by competition. Bloodshed should not be the way for pride of one’s country to be shown, but it should be shown through competition, in the words of the founder of the modern Olympic movement, Pierre de

Ever since its inception in 1896, the Modern Olympics has hosted an invisible sport: politics. The Olympics calls for “a halt to all conflicts … [and to] strive towards a more peaceful world,” but politics soon spoiled its biennial message. “As the Olympics continue to dissolve into … a political competition … they no longer … justify the time and trouble,” Dave Anderson, Pulitzer Prize winner for his sports column, wrote in the New York Times in 1984. The Olympic spirit has routinely been used as an outlet for political agendas. With political and Olympic ambitions intersected, the great international sports festivity negatively affects all nations involved.

Throughout this journey, many factors had an impact on the Olympics. Some of the factors that changed the modern day Olympics are women competitors, women’s suffrage, nationalism, wars, and economic conditions. An increase of women's rights was given, pride for the nations was shown, wars still occurred, and economies have flourished. The longer the Olympic Games have aged, the closer the world’s state is to Pierre’s

Throughout the history of the Olympic games, there has been many changes on how the Olympic Games has come to be interpreted and how they are generally viewed in our modern era. These views range from, Nationalism fueled by the Olympic Games, Women trying to create equality through the Olympic Games, Economic supremacy shown by the Olympic games and the responsibilities held by countries and the self-preservation of a country when presenting the Olympic games. Each view states an interpretation of the Olympic games through the years of 1892-2002 showing a distinct view on the Olympic games depending on the times they were hosted at such as when the Olympic Games were hosted when women weren’t equal to men or who the Games were hosted

The World Fair took away from the Games (The Evolution of the …). The Olympics in Paris

As a sporting mega-event, the Olympic Games have numerous social impacts on the people, not only on those from the host country, but on individuals all over the globe.

Most people would classify the Berlin Olympic Games of 1936 as just another Olympics, and they would be right because the Games did have the classic triumphs and upsets that occur at all Olympic Games. What most people did not see, behind the spectacle of the proceedings, was the effect the Nazi party had on every aspect of the Games including the results. Despite Nazi Germany’s determination to come off as the superior nation in the 1936 Olympics, their efforts were almost crushed by the very people they were trying to exclude.

He argued that the Olympic ideal was to be a time-out from war and above politics” (Smith 4).

The 1936 Olympics were held in Berlin, Germany held from August first to August sixteenth. 49 nations showed up and 3,963 athletes represented them. Adolf Hitler was the Fuhrer at the time of the olympics and used it as Nazi propaganda. Hosting the olympics helped Germany show the world that it had recovered from the destruction and isolation The Treaty of Versailles had caused it. Adolf Hitler hid his racism towards Jewish people and Roma people and as well as its growing military. In 1931 the International Olympic Committee chose Berlin for the eleventh Summer Olympics. In 1933 Hitler was appointed chancellor and Germany became an one party dictatorship. Germany then started to go after Jewish people and blamed their problems on them.

Although the original ancient Olympic Games can be traced back to 776 B.C, Homer’s Iliad indicates they may have existed as early as the twelfth century BC. The Games were then continued for twelve centuries and were devoted to Olympian deities. Olympia turned into the site of these memorable ancient Olympic games that scattered the seeds for the largest global sporting events of current times, the Modern Olympics. The location of the Ancient Olympics is situated in the western part of Peloponnese. The Ancient Olympic Games continued until 393 A.D when Emperor Theodosius I of Rome discontinued them. There were not any more Olympic games for fifteen hundred years before they were resurrected in 1896 in the city of Athens. The man in charge of the recreation of the Olympic games was a Frenchman named Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who introduced the thought in 1894. He proposed to stage the games in Paris in 1900 but representatives, from thirty-four nations were so captivated with the idea that they persuaded him to move the Games up to 1896 and have Athens serve as the host.

In 1936, Hitler is in power in the country Germany. He believes that Germany is the most powerful country in the entire world. Hitler is using the Olympics to show that he is correct.

While there are clear contrasts between the ancient and the modern Olympics there is still the respect for the athlete striving to perform at the highest level. Today, the Olympic Games are the world's largest carnival of athletic skill and competitive spirit. They are displays of nationalism, commerce, and politics. These important elements of the Olympics are not a modern invention, as the first Olympics was in 776 BC in Ancient Greece. After 1503 years, in 1896 the Olympic Games were recreated as what we know today. The Ancient Games were once dedicated to the Olympian God, Zeus Olympios and were staged on the ancient plains of Olympia, which is also how the word ‘Olympics’ originated from. The modern Olympics is the largest international sporting event, which feature both summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of respectable athletes from over 200 different nations compete against one another. There are clear contrast between the modern and ancient forms of the Olympic Games regarding uniforms, participants, religion, events, politics and the concept of amateurism. However both the Ancient Greeks and the people in the modern world still respect and admire the athletics achievements of the participants making the Olympics the most highly regarded contest in sport.

Adolph Hitler wanted the 1936 Berlin Olympics to be a large scale national spectacle. So that the rest of the world could see the glory of Nazi Germany, he hired film producer Leni

The legacy of the 2012 London Olympic Games left a lasting impression on the world stage. After all, the opening and closing ceremonies, and the games themselves were an unforgettable experience for millions of people across the globe. However, it was the host city and the British Isles that truly benefited from this monumental event.