A Visual Guide to the Olympics
The Olympic Games have always been a politically-charged affair, beginning life over 2 millenia ago as a series of athletic competitions held for representatives of various city-states of Ancient Greece. The games were originally held in Olympia (Greece) from the 8th century BC to the 4th century AD in honor of the Greek God Zeus. The Games became a political tool used by city-states to assert dominance over their rivals. Politicians would announce political alliances at the Games, and the Games were also used to help spread Hellenistic culture throughout the Mediterranean.
In 1894 Baron Pierre de Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) which has since become the governing body of the Olympic Movement. Since the 19th century, the Olympic Movement have implemented a number of radical changes which have shaped the Games as we know them today. These include the creation of the Winter Games for ice and winter sports, the Paralympic Games for athletes with a physical disability, and the Youth Olympic Games for teenage athletes. Adapting to the varying economic, political, and technological realities of the 20th century, the Games have experienced such growth in scale that almost every nation on earth is now represented.
In this talk, author and broadcaster David Goldblatt, art historian Mike O'Mahony, and sports historian Martin Polley - who have all written books on the Olympic Games - discuss their different perspectives of the Olympics. David Goldblatt - an associate of Watershed on the RELAYS project – discusses the ideas he introduced in 'How to Watch the Olympics', a book he co-authored with Johnny Acton. Martin Polley, author of 'The British Olympics: Britain's Olympic Heritage 1612 - 2012' discusses the history of the Olympic Games, and author of 'Olympic Visions: Images of the Games Through History', Mike O'Mahony, discusses how the images and photographs that have accompanied the games throughout history can reveal the cultural and political anxieties of their time.
Posted on Wed 18 July 2012.