The Olympics

The Beginning

The Olympics began in 776 B.C in ancient Greece. The only event for the first thirteen Olympics was the 100 and 400m sprint. Then came along the Pentathlon which had different events these were discus, javelin, jumping running and wrestling, then followed a few Olympics later the Equestrian events. The only people who were aloud to enter were people from Greece.

Greek Gods

The Olympics were held to please the Greek gods/goddesses- Aphrodite (the goddess of love), Apollo (the god of light), Ares (god of war), Artemis (Goddess of the moon, forest, childbirth and the hunt), Athena (the daughter of Zeus Goddess of wisdom and war), Hades (the god of the under world), Hephaestus (the god of fire), Hera (Queen of the gods, the wife of Zeus), Hermes (the god of business, the messenger), Hestia (goddess of home), Poseidon (god of the sea and earthquakes) and the God of the Gods Zeus.

Modern Day The Olympics have grown and become an international event, and they are now the highest level of sport in the world. We’ve come so far than just running - The events for this year’s Olympic games are- Archery, Athletics, Badminton, Basketball, Beach Volleyball, Boxing, Canoe Slalom, Canoe Sprint, Cycling- BMX, Cycling- Mountain, Cycling- Road, Cycling- Track, Diving, Equestrian- Dressage, Equestrian- Eventing, Fencing, Football (soccer), Gymnastics- Artistic, Gymnastics- Rhythmic, Gymnastics- Trampoline, Handball, Hockey, Judo, Modern Pentathlon, Rowing, Sailing, Shooting, Swimming, Synchronized Swimming, Table Tennis, Taekwondo, Tennis, Triathlon, Volleyball, Water Polo, Weightlifting and Wrestling. I have two questions for the events, Why did they drop softball as an Olympic sport? Why is Baseball not there considering that it is a worldwide sport?

Olympic Track and Field Records• The only Australian man to hold an Olympic Record in the track

and field is Steve Hooker in the pole vault when he jumped 5.96m • The only man to currently hold three Olympic records is Usain

Bolt, he has the 100m with a time of 9.69m about ten meters to go he stuck out he's chest and pounded on it and still thrashed the record by a tiny bit less than a second! He also has the 200m world record with a lightning fast time of 19.30 and he is also a part of Jamaica's 4x100 relay team which has a world record time of 37.10.

• Michael Johnson of America proved that long strides = faster times is a false theory when he broke the 400m world record with a time of 43.49.

Olympic Swimming moment of generosity

The Aussies have 8 Olympic records. The most famous is the one by Ian Thorpe when he fell into the pool at the team trials for the Olympics but the extremely generous winner of the trial gave up his spot in the team and gave his position to Thorpe. Ian Thorpe went on to break the 100m Freestyle Olympic record.

Olympic Symbols

• The five Olympic rings represent the five continents that compete in the Olympics, they were designed in 1912, chosen as the symbol for the Olympics in 1914 and adopted in the 1920 Antwerp Olympics.

• The Olympic torch is commemorating the theft of fire by the Greek god Prometheus.

Bibliography

• http://kushkm.tripod.com/ • http://www.babynamestats.com/greekgods.html • http://www.london2012.com/sport • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_symbols • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_reco

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• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_records_in_swimming

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Flame

Thanks for reading and I hope that you learnt something new about the Olympics.