The 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo are round the corner. They are being held this year as they could not be held in 2020 due to the corona pandemic. In this article, Imeth de Silva tells us all about this spectacular and much looked forward to sporting event held every four years.
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| The Olympic flag |
The Olympic Games is one of the most anticipated and leading sports events in the international sporting arena, featuring 35 sports. Athletes from all around the world take part in this competition and fight hard to emerge victorious and fulfill their ultimate dream of winning an Olympic medal. The Olympic Games are usually held once every four years, with more than 200 nations taking part in this prestigious event.
The Olympic flag depicts five rings on a white background. The five rings represent the five continents, united under the Olympic banner, while the colours blue, yellow, black, green and red appear on all the national flags in the world.
History of the Olympics
The Olympics, as we all know, has a very rich history, dating all the way back to 776 B.C. when the first Olympic Games were held in Olympia, Greece. But some even say that the Olympics were at least 500 years old at that time! The ancient Olympics first started off as a religious festival in honour of the Greek God of the Sky, Zeus. According to legend, it was Heracles, son of Zeus, who first named the event as ‘Olympics’. The ancient Olympics consisted of events such as foot races, running events, discus and javelin throws and wrestling. The ancient Olympics went into abeyance as a result of the Romans gaining power and due to the actions of Theodosius 1 and his successor.
Later, the Olympics gained life once again when Pierre de Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1894. As a result of this, the first modern Olympic Games took place in Athens, Greece in 1896. During the 20th and 21st centuries, several changes took place in this event.
The creation of the Winter and Summer Olympics can be seen as a main change. Winter Olympics consists of sports that can be played on ice, such as Ice hockey, ski jumping and snowboarding while the Summer Olympics took place in the Summer, supporting a greater number of sports due to the ideal weather conditions. In addition to this, the Paralympics and Youth Olympic Games were introduced in 1948 and 2010 respectively.
The Paralympic Games were for athletes with disabilities while youth aged from 14 to 18 took part in the latter event. The first Modern Olympic Games were held in the Panathenaic stadium in Athens.
It started off with 14 nations and 241 athletes taking part in 43 events. While there were many, who demanded all future Olympic Games to be held in Athens permanently, the IOC disregarded this and decided to host the event in various parts of the world. As a result of this, the second and third Olympic Games took place in Paris in the years 1900 and 1904. But, it failed to attract much attention from the world while out of the 650 athletes who took part in 1904, 580 were Americans.
However, the event started to grow quickly from its humble beginnings and by the year 2016, when the last Olympics took place in Brazil, the event was home to 11,200 competitors from 207 nations.
Sri Lankans at the Olympics
Sri Lanka made its first appearance at the Olympic Games in 1948 and has participated in every Summer Olympic Games ever since, except in 1976. Sri Lanka has never participated in the Winter Olympics. Altogether, Sri Lanka has made 17 appearances in the Olympics thus far and the athletes representing the country have won a total of two Silver Olympic medals, both in the field of athletics.
The first Silver Medalist from Sri Lanka was Duncan White, who took part in the 1948 Summer Olympics in the United Kingdom, in the Men’s 400-metre hurdles.
Susanthika Jayasinghe had the honour of winning the Silver Medal in the Women’s 200-metre event in the 2000 Summer Olympics held in Sydney, Australia.Sri Lanka is also expected to compete in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, with four competitors representing the country in four different sports.
2020 Summer Olympics
The 2020 Summer Olympics are scheduled to take place in Tokyo, Japan between July 23 and August 8. The Paralympic Games are scheduled to take place between August 24 and September 5 this year. The 2020 Olympics, as we know, were postponed last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The IOC remains determined that the show must go on, although many concerns about the ongoing pandemic will likely affect the Olympics and it is likely to take place behind closed doors.
This year, the Olympics will host 33 sports and 339 events held across 42 venues. 11,091 athletes are expected to take part, representing 205 nations. Sri Lanka will have four candidates representing badminton, equestrian, gymnastics and shooting.
Let us all hope and pray for the safety of the athletes taking part in these events and for the continuation of the rich history of the Olympics.
