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Essay about The Reborn of the Olympic Games

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On April 6, 1896, the Olympic Games are reborn in Athens after being banned by the roman Emperor Theodosius I for 1,500 years. King George I of Greece welcomed the crowd of about 60,000 spectators and athletes from 13 nations into the competition with, “I hereby proclaim the opening of the first International Olympic Games at Athens.” The first Olympic Games were held in the city of Elis in 776 B.C. The Olympics were at least 500 years old at the time. Every four years, the ancient Olympics were to be held during a religious festival honoring Zeus, the Greek god. In the beginning, the events were limited to foot races, but eventually numerous events were added, including boxing, wrestling, horse and chariot racing, and military …show more content…

The first successful Olympic Games were held in Paris, including more than 3,000 athletes, more than 100 women, from 44 nations in 1924. The first Olympic Games were also held that year. In the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, 10,000 plus athletes from 200 countries competed, including nearly 4,000 women.
Athletes with disabilities did compete in the Olympic Games before the Paralympics were created. The first athlete to participate was a German-American gymnast, George Eyser in 1904, who had an artificial leg. Karoly Takacs, a Hungarian, competed in shooting events in both the 1948 and 1952 Summer Olympics. His right arm was amputated but he could shoot left-handed. Lis Hartel, another disabled athlete appearing in the Olympics was a Danish equestrian athlete who had contracted polio in 1943 and won a silver medal in the dressage event.
The first day organized for disabled athletes that coincided with the Olympic Games took place on the day of the opening of the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. German born Dr. Ludwig Guttmann hosted sports competitions for British World War II veterans with spinal cord injuries. These games were called the 1948 International Wheelchair Games, and were intended to be held at the same times as the 1948 Olympics. Dr. Guttman's goal was to create an elite sports competition for people with disabilities that would be equivalent to the Olympic Games. The games were held again in 1952, and Dutch veterans took

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