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TheThe SymbolsSymbols ofof The Olympic The Olympic andand Paralympic Paralympic games

Liceul Teoretic “Grigore Moisil”

Timisoara

Coordonated by:

Mirianici LaviniaBohm CristinaIvascu Simona

Iosa Alina

INDEX•The history of the ancient olymic

games•The more recent history of olympic

games•The symbols of the olympic games•The meaning of the them•The history of the paralympic

games•The meaning of that symbols

The Story of the Olympic Games

A Journey to Ancient Greece

• The ancient Olympic Games were primarily a part of a religious festival in honor of Zeus, the father of the Greek gods and goddesses.

The festival and the games were held in Olympia, a rural sanctuary site in the western Peloponnesos.

• No one is sure how the Olympic Games really began, but the first recorded event took place in Olympia about 3000 years ago.

Athletic competition became so important

to the Greeks that the Olympic festivals

were a peaceful influence on the

warlike city-states.

• At first, the Games were strictly for Greek citizens. Eventually, however, athletes from all over the Roman Empire were permitted to participate.

! Only free men and boys from Greece were allowed to

compete in the ancient Greece Olympic Games.

Women were forbidden, on

penalty of death, even to see the

Games.

• For the first thirteen years it was said that the stade, which is a 200 ft. foot race, was the only real event of these games and after that they started to add many more events.

• The pentathlon, in which the athletes competed in five events (jumping, javelin, sprint, discus, and wrestling).

But over the years, new sports were added to the

Games. The hoplitodrome, for instance, was a

footrace the athletes ran wearing full armor.

• After the Roman Empire conquered Greece the Games continued, but their standards and quality declined.

In A.D. 393, Emperor Theodosius I, a Christian,

called for a ban on all “pagan” festivals, ending

the ancient Olympic tradition after nearly 12

centuries.

REVIVAL OF THE OLYMPIC TRADITION

It would be another 1,500 years before the Games would rise again, largely

thanks to the efforts of Baron Pierre de Coubertin of

France. Coubertin proposed the

idea of reviving the Olympics as an

international athletic competition held every

four years.

Two years later, he got the approval he needed to found

the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which would become the governing body

of the modern Olympic Games.

The first modern Olympics were held in Athens, Greece, in 1896. In the opening

ceremony, King Georgios I and a crowd of 60,000 spectators welcomed 280

participants from 13 nations (all male), who would compete in 43 events.

The olympic rings

Created by Pierre de Coubertin in 1914, the Olympic

flag contains five interconnected rings on a white background.

The five rings symbolize the five significant continents and are

interconnected to symbolize the friendship to be gained from these

international competitions.

The meaning of the Olympic rings colors is not of any important significance, but the five colors of

the Olympic rings has at least one color of every nation’s flag in it.

Educational Values

Values of Olympism:

Pursuit of excellence (blue) Joy of effort (black) Fair play (red) Respect for others (yellow) Balance between body, will and mind (green)

The olympic torch

The tradition of lighting an Olympic Flame comes from the ancient

Greeks. During the Ancient Olympic Games, a sacred flame was lit from

the sun’s rays at Olympia, and �stayed lit until the Games were

completed.

It was first introduced into our Modern Olympics at the 1928 Amsterdam Games.

Since then, the flame has come to symbolize "the light of spirit, knowledge, and life"

The way of the olympic torch

• The flame is lit in an ancient ritual in Olympia, Greece, the site of the first Olympic Games, then is carried up mountains and across rivers, down city streets, over footbridges and through national parks.

They carried it on canoes, horse-drawn carriages, cross-country skis, kayaks,

mountain bikes and tractors.

The motto

A motto is a phrase which sums up a life philosophy or a code of conduct to follow. The Olympic motto is made up of three Latin words :

These words mean Faster - Higher - Stronger.

It was the Dominican priest Henri Didon who first expressed the words in the opening ceremony of a school sports event in 1881.

Pierre de Coubertin, who was presentthat day, adopted them as the Olympicmotto.

It expresses the aspirations of the Olympic Movement not only in its athletic and technical sense but also from a moral and educational perspective.

The olympic Creed

To better understand the motto, we can compare it with the Olympic creed : The most important thing in life is not

the triumph, but the fight;the essential thing is not to have won,

but to have fought well

Paralympics Games

The Paralympic Games is a major international multi-sport event, involving athletes with a range of physical disabilities, including impaired muscle power.

Olympic-style games for athletes with a disability were organised for the first time in Rome in 1960.

In Toronto in 1976, other disability groups were added and the idea of merging together different disability groups for international sports competitions was born.

The Current Paralympic Symbol consists of three elements in red,blue and green , the three colours that are most widely represented in national flags around the world.

The symbol of Paralympics

The symbol also reflects the Paralympic Motto:“Spirit in Motion” -representing the strong will

ofevery Paralympian.

The Paralympic Symbol also emphasizes the fact that Paralympic athletes are constantly inspiring and exciting the world with their performances: always always

movingmoving

forward and never giving forward and never giving upup..

The Paralympic logo was designed to reflect the four core values of the Paralympics: courage, determination, inspiration and

equality.