Olympic Games

I

Introduction

Olympic Games, international sports competition, held every four years at a different site, in which athletes from different nations compete against each other in a variety of sports. There are two types of Olympics, the Summer Olympics and the Winter Olympics. Through 1992 they were held in the same year, but beginning in 1994 they were rescheduled so that they are held in alternate even-numbered years. For example, the Winter Olympics were held in 1994 and the Summer Olympics in 1996. The Winter Olympics were next held in 1998, and the Summer Olympics next occurred in 2000.

The modern Olympic Games began in Athens, Greece, in 1896, two years after French educator Pierre de Coubertin proposed that the Olympic Games of ancient Greece be revived to promote a more peaceful world. The program for the 1896 Games, including only summer events (the Winter Olympics were not established until 1924), included about 300 athletes from fewer than 15 countries competing in 43 events in nine different sports. By contrast, when the Summer Olympics returned to Athens in 2004, more than 10,000 athletes from 202 countries competed in 28 different sports.

II

International Olympic Committee

The Olympic Games are administered by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland. The IOC was created in 1894 in Paris, France, as an independent committee selecting its own members. (To begin the process, however, Coubertin himself chose the first 15 members.) IOC members are officially considered to be representatives from the IOC to their own nations, not delegates from their own countries to the IOC. Most members are elected to the IOC after serving on the National Olympic Committees (NOCs) of their own countries.

The first IOC members were all from Europe or the Americas, with the exception of one from New Zealand. The committee elected its first Asian member in 1908 and its first African member in 1910. Currently, members from European and North American countries still account for much of the IOC membership. IOC members must retire at the end of the year in which they reach the age of 80, unless they were elected before 1966, in which case they can serve for life.

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The IOC oversees such functions as determining the site of the Olympic Games, the establishment of worldwide Olympic policies, and the negotiation of Olympic television broadcast rights. The IOC works closely with the NOCs and with the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF—the international governing body for track and field), and other international sports federations (ISFs) to organize the Olympics. The ISFs are responsible for the international rules and regulations of the sports they govern.

The IOC president, who is chosen by IOC members, is assisted by an executive board, several vice presidents, and a number of IOC commissions. The IOC’s first president, Demetrius Vikélas of Greece (served 1894-1896), was succeeded by Coubertin himself (1896-1925). The other IOC presidents have been Count Henri de Baillet-Latour of Belgium (1925-1942), J. Sigfrid Edström of Sweden (1946-1952), Avery Brundage of the United States (1952-1972), Michael Morris, Lord Killanin, of Ireland (1972-1980), Juan Antonio Samaranch of Spain (1980-2001), and Jacques Rogge (2001- ) of Belgium.

III

Awarding the Games

In order to host the Olympics, a city must submit a proposal to the IOC. After all proposals have been submitted, the IOC votes. If no city is successful in gaining a majority in the first vote, the city with the fewest votes is eliminated, and voting continues in successive rounds until a majority winner is determined. Typically the Games are awarded several years in advance, allowing the winning city time to prepare for the Games.

In selecting the site of the Olympic Games, the IOC considers a number of factors, chief among them which city has (or promises to build) the best facilities and which organizing committee seems most likely to stage the Games successfully. The IOC also considers which parts of the world have not yet hosted the Games. For instance, Tokyo, Japan, the host of the 1964 Summer Games, and Mexico City, Mexico, the host of the 1968 Summer Games, were chosen in part to popularize the Olympic movement in Asia and Latin America.

Once the Games have been awarded, it is the responsibility of the local organizing committee—not the IOC or the NOC of the host city’s country—to finance them. This can be done with a portion of the Olympic television revenues and with corporate sponsorships, ticket sales, and other smaller revenue sources, such as commemorative postage stamps or proceeds from a national lottery. In many cases there is also direct government support.

Although many cities have achieved a financial profit by hosting the Games, the Olympics can be financially risky. Montréal, Québec, Canada, for example, spent a great deal of money preparing for the 1976 Summer Games due to extensive design and construction costs for new facilities. When the proceeds from the Games were less than expected, the city was left with such large deficits that residents were still paying the debt off in the early 2000s. Similar financial problems were encountered by Greece in hosting the 2004 Olympics, especially with the huge expenditures required for security at the Games.

IV

Athletes and Eligibility

Although the Olympic Charter, the official constitution of the Olympic movement, proclaims that the Olympics are contests among individuals and not among nations, the IOC assigns to the various NOCs the task of selecting national Olympic teams. In most cases the NOCs do this by holding Olympic trials or by choosing athletes on the basis of their previous performances. From the start of the modern Olympic Games, male amateur athletes of every race, religion, and nationality have been eligible to participate.

Although Coubertin opposed the participation of women in the Olympics and no women competed in 1896, a few female golfers and tennis players were allowed to participate in the 1900 Games. Female swimming and diving were added to the 1912 Games, and female gymnastics and track-and-field events were first held at the 1928 Games. Women’s Olympic sports have grown significantly since then, and currently women account for approximately half of the members of teams, except in teams from Islamic nations, where the level of female participation is generally lower.

Coubertin and the IOC intended from the start for the Olympics to be open only to amateurs. Amateurism was determined by adherence to the amateur rule, which was originally devised in the 19th century to prevent working-class athletes from participating in sports such as rowing and tennis. Because the amateur rule prevented athletes from earning any pay from activities in any way related to sports, working-class athletes could not afford to make a living and train for competition at the same time.

Olympic rules about amateurism, however, have caused many controversies over the years. Questions were raised about whether an amateur could be reimbursed for travel expenses, be compensated for time lost at work, be paid for product endorsements, or be employed to teach sports. These issues were not always satisfactorily resolved by the IOC, leading to confusion about the definition of professionalism in different sports. By 1983 a majority of IOC members acknowledged that most Olympic athletes compete professionally in the sense that sports are their main activity. The IOC then asked each ISF to determine eligibility in its own sport, and over the next decade nearly all the ISFs abolished the distinction between amateurs and professionals, accepting so-called open Games.

One of the most visible examples of the policy change came in 1992, when professional players from the National Basketball Association (NBA) were permitted to play in the Summer Games in Barcelona, Spain. Professionals from the National Hockey League (NHL) became eligible to participate beginning with the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.

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