Henry_Lewis_History_of_Olympics

Margaret Lyon, a visiting lecturer at Indiana University, interviews Dr. Phil Henson, who worked on the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. They discuss the history of the Olympics, which includes the ancient games that started in 776 B.C. and the modern games that started in 1896. The ancient games were religious ceremonies held in Greece, where people competed in events like foot races, long jumps, discus throws, javelin throws, and wrestling. The Romans later took over the Olympics but changed them drastically to include violent events like gladiator fights. The Olympics eventually died out until they were reinstated in 1896 by Baron Pierre Coubatin. Initially, the Olympics were meant for aristocratic individuals and did not allow professionals or working-class people to participate. Over the years, this has changed, and now anyone can be in the Olympics, leading to more diversity and inclusivity. Hello, my name is Margaret Lyon, and I'm a visiting lecturer at the School of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation at Indiana University. In order to celebrate the Olympics that are coming up this summer, I'd like to speak to Dr. Phil Henson, who worked on the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. Phil, could you introduce yourself a little bit? Yes, thank you. I'm an assistant professor in the Department of Kinesiology at Indiana University, and I was a former track and field coach here. And I had the opportunity in starting in 1994 to spend time in Atlanta, as I say, trying to put on a little track meet. So I'm happy to be talking to Margaret here, and we'll try to answer any questions that she might have. Well, Phil, I don't think the Olympics would be considered a little track meet, but before we talk about anything else, when we were walking over here, you mentioned about the history of the Olympics. So could you give us an overview of the history of the Olympics? Sure. I'm a fan of the history of the Olympics, and you really have to define which Olympics you're talking about, because there are really two. There's the ancient Olympic games, which started in 776 B.C., and went for about 1,400 years. Then there's the modern games, which started in 1896, and we've just celebrated a little more than 100 years. Going back to the ancient games, Greece, obviously, at that time, was the most advanced country in the world, and they were very religious. And, of course, this was B.C., but they had a lot of religious things, such as the mountains and the sky and the stars, and they would have, every four years, they would have people from all over Greece who would travel from the various states of Greece to worship at Olympia. And the Greeks were a very advanced society, and they believed very strongly that the mind, the body, and the spirit were all combined. And so since they were here in a religious ceremony, they felt they should do something that involved the body as well. And that led to the development of the athletic part of this religious ceremony, and where they had this worship ceremony was in a little valley, and the people would sit on each side of the valley, and they would have religious ceremonies and rituals in the center of the valley. And so they decided to have a foot race, and the foot race was the length of the valley, and that was called the state, the one state, because that's where the name stadium comes from. And for several hundred years, that was the only event they had, was this one 200-meter foot race. And then they gradually added some other events, including the long jump, or they called it the broad jump, the discus throw, and that's where you get that ancient statue, a very famous statue, the javelin throw, and then wrestling. And whoever won those five events was really considered the Olympic champion. And one of the interesting things they did is, at that time, a lot of the states in Greece were fighting with each other, and they wanted to make sure that people could travel safely to get to this religious ceremony. And so they established a policy, which became known as the truce of gods. And the idea was that anyone that was traveling to worship at Olympia was given safe passage and wouldn't be attacked on the road or something of that nature. That led some people to believe that they actually stopped the wars. They didn't stop them, but they did give people safe passage. And as I said, these ancient games went on for about 1400 years. And then finally, the Romans took over, and the Romans had a real different view of sport than the Greeks did. They liked to see a lot of violence. They liked to see people get killed, and that's what brought on the gladiators. And so the Romans took over the Olympic games, but they changed them drastically. And about this time, while the Catholic Church was coming into power, and the Pope took a look at these gladiator events, said this is no way to worship God. And so they put a stop to them. And so the Olympics died out. And in 1894, a Frenchman named Baron Pierre Coubatin saw that there was a lot of tension throughout the world, and obviously France and England had been, you know, had several wars, and World War II, or World War I was building on the horizon. And so kind of to avoid this sort of thing, and to get better communication, I think, between countries, why Coubatin decided, or proposed, that we have, reinstate the Olympic games. And he invited several of his friends from various countries, particularly Germany and England, and one professor from Princeton University. And these were all rather aristocratic type people, and they had a meeting in 1894, and decided to reestablish the Olympic games, which became known as the modern Olympic games. And they scheduled them for two years later, which became 1896, and that's where the first of the modern games were held in Athens, Greece. One of the interesting things that I like to bring out is that a lot of people today, you know, question about whether the Olympics should be amateur or professional. Pierre Coubatin had an interesting take on that, and this has been changed, I think, over the years, but he felt that the Olympics should be for the aristocratic type people, the people who had the money and owned everything, and he didn't feel that the working class people should be a part of it. And so, they established, or he established a policy that said no professionals were allowed. Well, he wasn't referring to professional athletes, he was referring to people that worked for a living, such as, you know, farmers, and laborers, and peasants. And so, in order to keep those kind of riffraff out, he said that only amateurs, meaning only people like us, could be a part of this. Well, this has changed over the last 100 years, and now, basically, anyone can be in the Olympics, and it's certainly opened up to a lot more ethnic groups and that sort of thing. And so, that's been good.