Olympics in London

By roughly 700 BC, athletic festivals were being held throughout Greece. The most famous of these was the Olympic Games, which were held every four years at Olympia, in honour of Zeus. Events in these early games included short, middle, and long ¬distance races, pentathlon, boxing, and wrestling, Most events required athletes - who were male - to compete totally naked!

The ancient Olympics were held in Greece and began in 776 BC, reaching the zenith of their glory by about 393 AD. The games of these times were enormous events by the standards of the day. However, the early were not held during settled times, many wars raged in the area and when you consider that many of the Olympic competitors were in the army and away fighting this must have had an affect on the outcome of the games. Many people believed that the wars would be stopped to accommodate the games. However, some historians argue that the wars were not stopped, but that the athletes who were away fighting in the army were allowed to leave and compete in the Olympics.

Unlike the modern day Olympics only men were allowed to compete in the Games as well as this women were prohibited from even attending the games, but females did have other athletic competitions that they could participate.

The Ancient Olympics started after a night of feasting and celebration, the third day of the Olympics began with the very solemn sacrifice to Zeus. Today we still have an opening ceremony but the sacrificing has been left well behind.

Although the ancient Games were staged in Olympia, Greece, from 776 BC through 393 AD, it took 1503 years for the Olympics to return.

THE MODERN OLYMPICS

Rome conquered Greece in the 2nd century BC, and eventually abolished the Olympic Games. But in 1892, Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin - building on the ideas of others - started to campaign for the resurrection of the event. He gave a talk to the Union des Sports Athletiques in Paris, urging them to support his vision, and emphasizing the potential of the Olympic Games to unite nations around the world under a common cause.

He continued his championing of the Olympics at the Congress of Paris - a conference on international sport - in 1894. The result was an emphatic vote in favour of the revival of the Games, The organization of the event was placed in the hands of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The first president of the IOC was the Greek Demetrius Vikelas, one of de Coubertin’s most vocal supporters.

The first modern Olympics were held in Athens, Greece, in 1896 and have been held every four years since then, with the exclusion of 1916 due to the Great War.

As with life in general, as the years have gone by the games have become more commercialised. Some would say that with more and more emphasise on the marketing of the Games that the Olympics are slowly being drowned, whatever people think the games are still massively popular and this years event in Beijing will attract bigger T.V audiences that ever before and will be seen by more people globally than ever before.

No doubt you are all aware that President Sarkozy and the French Government are refusing to rule out a boycott of the Olympics games in Beijing on the moral grounds of China’s involvement with Tibet as well as the same moral dilemma that has afflicted millions of people, regarding carrying the Olympic torch throughout London. Including an open letter by Nick ‘Cleggover’ Clegg, to the Prime Minister urging him to reconsider and boycott the welcoming of the torch into Number 10.

There are protesters that include snubbing personalities, who oppose China’s atrocities in Tibet and Darfur. Of course; any scrupulous and balanced individual would be outraged by China’s human rights record and the events they are responsible of in Sudan and in Tibet; but while snubbing the Beijing Olympic games and everything associated these moral and ethical individuals have to be careful of being hypocrites.

I don’t see how snubbing the Olympic Games will resolve or expedite a solution. Isn’t the Olympics a sporting event not a political event, I think that politics should play no part in a sporting competition.

How can these Olympic snubbers ignore the other elements of China in their lives and not snub those? I can guarantee the same people who ostensibly do not endorse the Olympic Games, happily spend their pounds buying cheap clothes and cheap toys; plying the Chinese Government with billions to invest in making the Games a reality. For example; why haven’t France imposed an embargo on Chinese products?

While I am looking for forward to the Beijing Games, everyone is entitled to have an opinion on the matter, I just wish the majority of people that don’t wouldn’t be such hypocrites about it.

The Debate Club, Troy Kennedy, Is the Olympics a sporting or political event

The Olympic Games were first held in 776 BC and were later closed down by the Roman emperor Theodosius I. Later the first modern Olympic games were held in Athens in April 1896 and since then there is nothing stopping them. Lots of countries like Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Sydney and many more have played host to the Olympics.

The 2008 Summer Olympics will be celebrated from August 8, 2008, to August 24, 2008.The Beijing National Stadium will play host to the opening ceremony. The International Olympic Committee held an extensive meticulous ballot on July 13, 2001, and it was after that, that Beijing was awarded the Olympic games.

The opening ceremony consists of traditional elements and artistic display of dance and theatre which represent the host nation. The first event to take place is the hosting of the country’s flag and presentation of its national anthem. After that there is a parade of the nations in which all the athletes who are participants march in the stadium. Usually, Greece marches in first as it was here that Olympics originated, and the nation playing host that is Beijing would march in last. All the other nations would march between the two nations that is Greece and Beijing.

Beijing’s top artists and engineers and the participants of the cultural programmes are working very hard to make this an unforgettable event. Beijing has its main elements all set. The mascots, the torch, the medals and the theme slogan.

Beijing has Fuwa which mean ‘good-luck’ dolls as their mascots for the Olympic games. The Fuwa takes inspiration from the five Olympic rings and carries a message of friendship, peace and good wishes to all the children in the world. It embodies the natural characteristics of China’s most popular animals- the Fish, the Panda, the Tibetan antelope, the Swallow and the Olympic Flame. The chinese use signs and symbols to spread good wishes. This is more of an ancient culture that they still imbibe by. The Fuwa carries the invitation of Beijing Olympic Games 2008 to every part of the world to spread prosperity, happiness, health and luck. It is the Olympic spirit that unites the whole world in peace and friendship. The mascot represents the cultural heritage of the nation it belongs to.

Then we have the theme slogan of the Olympic Games; “One World One Dream”. The slogan expresses the soul and the values of the Olympic spirit which are- Unity, Harmony, Friendship and Progress. The most interesting part of the Beijing Olympics is the emblem. It is a dancing Chinese Seal with a calliagraphic word for “jing”-the national capital. The “seal” has its arms wide open as it invites the world to the Olympics to celebrate peace and friendship.

Another very important element of The 2008 Beijing Olympics are the Medals. The inspiration for its design is taken from China’s ancient jade piece “bi” which is inscribed with dragon pattern. The medal is symbolic of nobleness and personifies honor and ethics. It is made up of gold and jade. These medals will be awarded to the sportsmen who are best in their respective fields of sports.

A lot of partcipation in lots of events is going to take place. There will be events like fencing, rowing, sailing, hockey, handball and many more. There are a total of 302 events out of which 165 will be men’s events and 127 women’s events. Each sport icon is very tastefully designed and is called the ‘beauty of seal characters’.

The Olympic Games are now divided into summer and winter sporting events. They are each held every four years (an Olympiad). They were held in the same year till 1992. Since then, they have been separated two years apart.

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In July 2005, London en masse celebrated winning the right to host the 2012 Olympics. Since then, the hosting of the games has been much discussed: this article is concerned not with the wider issues but with the ODA’s need to buy land to deliver the infrastructure.

The bid team identified a 306 hectare zone of UK land in east London to host the Olympic village and the main stadia. This was not in the traditional sense land for sale so upon winning the games, the London Development Agency (LDA) invoked compulsory purchase orders on some of the relevant UK land sites in the zone.

Through a combination of existing ownership and buying land, ninety percent of the required 306 hectare zone of UK land in east London is now in public hands primed for Olympics infrastructure. The cost of buying land was not included in the original budget (the talents of the bid team did not apparently extend to basic financial forecasting), and it is not only land for sale in the Olympics zone which has been acquired.

Additional UK land sites have been purchased in order to relocate businesses which operated in the Olympic zone: to some there is an irony that one of the main intended legacies of the Olympics is job creation whilst simultaneously displacing businesses onto UK land sites in other parts of the country. The total cost of acquiring all the necessary UK land is thought to be around £1 billion.

There have however been objections, not only to the perceived UK ‘land grab’ from powerless businesses and individuals, but also to alleged profiteering through buying land on the periphery of the zone by the LDA to benefit from future rises in the value of that development land.

The fact that this is not land for sale on the open market means that prices may not reflect the true value of the development land. The allegation, then, is that the Olympics have become a Trojan horse for companies involved in property development: there is a huge opportunity to acquire investment land with huge property and development potential at bargain prices.

The mayor’s Olympics adviser Neale Coleman disputes this claim: “…it would be absurd to be trying to buy land that is not absolutely necessary to deliver the Olympics”. A spokesman for the LDA insisted it was offering market value when buying land in the zone.

It has not at all times been plain sailing for the LDA when buying land. In February 2007 the LDA’s efforts to buy land used for allotments in the Manor Gardens area of Waltham Forest was rejected by land use planning officers at Waltham Forest Town Hall. Campaigners argued that buying land from individuals was unlike buying land from companies: the former have an emotional attachment to UK land sites which they have long used, unlike the latter (which are concerned with profit maximisation).

The 2008 Beijing Olympics has attracted negative publicity for buying land and displacing local people. As with London, this was not land for sale purchased at open market prices and it has been suggested that private property developers have made lucrative land investments in the run-up to the games in China.

Olympic Delivery Authorities are powerful agents and there is no doubt that the political will is firmly behind the on-schedule delivery of the 2012 Olympics. This means in all but the most extreme cases the LDA will be empowered to buy land in the areas it deems necessary.

So does this represent a UK land grab? Well, perhaps it does, but it was to be expected. In some cases it has caused anguish but the bulk of the 306 hectare zone of UK land earmarked for the Olympics is industrial development land. However what is certainly true is that the cost of buying land has risen substantially since the bid was won, which has contributed to the swollen Olympic budget.

Dietrich Elliot is a Land Investment exert who generously shares his expertise with novice UK Land investors. For more information about the opportunities and pitfalls in UK Land investment please visit http://olympicsinlondon.info/