From the sporting contests in ancient Greece to the current day’s world wide athletic extravaganza, the Olympic movement has evolved. This trajectory provides an example of how ideas and actions transform over time and political eras.
The games today are not the games of old. Rather they have undergone multiple iterations in concept and competition. Their evolution may suggest parallels with the cooperative movement. Or maybe not. Anyway, the history is fun.
The Idealistic Origins: A Religious Celebration
The Olympic Games began as a religious celebration in ancient Greece, with competitions to honor their gods. But the Olympics declined once the Roman Empire replaced Greek power in the Mediterranean; the final blow came from the Christian Emperor Theodosius I, who saw the Games as a stage for paganism.
At the end of the 19th century, the modern iteration of the Games began – minus religion. This time, they were secular, with flags and patriotism replacing religious worship. (source: Presbyterian Outlook)
Reinterpreting Sport in the 20th Century
At the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, the perfect brushstroke was just as likely to win a medal as the quickest sprint. That year, Pierre de Coubertin — co-founder of the International Olympic Committee — introduced a series of Olympic events in the fields of painting, literature, music, architecture, and sculpture, with the rule that all creations must be sports-themed.
Though many of the newly eligible competitors lacked the physical prowess of traditional Olympians, some excelled at both the athletic and the artistic. American marksman Walter Winans not only won a silver medal for sharpshooting at the 1912 Games, but he also took home gold for his 20-inch-tall sculpture of a horse-drawn chariot, titled “An American Trotter.”
| In future Olympiads, the artistic events focused on even more niche disciplines. By the 1928 Amsterdam Games, architecture was subcategorized into design and town planning, while literature was divided into lyrical, dramatic, and epic works.
After a hiatus during World War II, the arts returned as official Olympic events one final time at the 1948 London Games. It was there that 73-year-old John Copley won a silver medal for his engraving titled “Polo Players,” becoming the oldest Olympic medalist in history. Unfortunately for these more right-brained Olympians, new IOC president Avery Brundage led a campaign to remove the creative events from the official Olympic program, relegating the arts to exhibition status by the 1952 Games. All 151 artistic Olympic medals that had been awarded between 1912 and 1948 were stricken from the official record books. (Source lost) |
Innovation, Money and Relevance in the 21st Century
The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris began last Saturday, with 329 medal events planned for 32 different sports, including the debut of breaking and the return of sport climbing, skateboarding and surfing. The Paris organizers said they chose these sports because they’re easy for beginners to pick up and popular with young, social media-savvy fans.
Maintaining relevance is crucial for the International Olympic Committee to justify the more than $3 billion it’s charging media companies to broadcast and stream the games. But many of the criteria that the IOC uses to select new events relate to much more practical concerns.
Games organizers dropped polo as an Olympic sport in the ’30s because it was too expensive to host — each team needs at least 25 polo ponies and matches are played on pitches about nine times bigger than a football field.
The host city of the Games also gets to weigh in on which sports get added, often at the expense of others that are less popular in its country. That helps explain why baseball and softball won’t compete in 2024, but will return for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles. Whether karate returns to future games is less clear. (Source: Bloomberg)
Movements and Change
While the modern games trace their origin to two thousand years ago, the current edition has the same longevity as the credit union movement in America.
The games have emerged from their idealistic beginnings to be revived with multiple expressions of sporting enthusiasm. Today they are big business with ever expanding participation supported by billions of dollars of underwriting to celebrate individual, organizational and national triumphs.
Look familiar?