The Olympic games originated in ancient Greece, in the 8th century BC. This was an ancient way of saluting their gods; involving both sports events as well as religious ritual sacrifices. Greek festivals were held every fourth year for hundreds of years, known as Olympiad from the 8th century B.C. to the 4th century A.D. The Olympic games were ended in the early Christian era, by Roman emperor Theodosius in 394 A.D The ancient Olympic games were boxing, wrestling, pankration, pentathlon, and equestrian events.

Pentathlon Event includes the following sports:

  • Discus & Javelin throw
  • Running events
  • Jumping events
  • Wrestling

PankrationEvents :

This was an ancient form of martial arts that included wrestling and boxing, along with that chokes, joint-locks, etc were also allowed. It was one of the toughest sports of that time.

Equestrian Events :

The Equestrian Event includes horse as well as chariot races.

Revival of Olympics

The revival of the Olympic Games took place in 1896, by Baron Pierre de Coubertin(1863–1937), who was a French man who promoted physical education and gave importance to both body and mind development. After visiting the ancient Olympic site, he got the idea of establishing a modern Olympic game. After that games were held every fourth year except during World War 1st & World War 2nd.

Olympics 2021

Tokyo Olympic 2020

  • Olympic 2020 is hosted by Tokyo, due to COVID-19 Pandemic, the Olympics have been scheduled from 23rd July to 08th August 2021.
  • Tokyo Olympics has 33 sports featured and a total of 339 events in which sports like skateboarding, Surfing, Karate, and sport climbing are introduced for the first time.
  • On 7 September 2013, Tokyo was selected as the host city during the 125th IOC Session in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
  • Olympics was originally scheduled to start from 24 July to 9 August 2020, the event was postponed in March 2020, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • This time the Olympics is held behind closed doors with no public spectators for safety.
  • Although postponed to 2021, the event retains the Tokyo 2020 brand name for marketing and branding. It is the first time that the Olympic Games have been postponed and rescheduled, instead of suspended.
  • Tokyo Games are protected by Lloyd’s London commercial insurance market, by global reinsurers Swiss Re and Munich Re. The IOC takes around $800 million of insurance for every Summer Olympics, with the entire amount of loss insured for the 2020 Games likely to be more than $2 billion.
  • The Tokyo Organizing Committee was originally headed by Japanese Prime Minister Yoshirō Mori, but he resigned in February 2021, due to backlash from sexist comments about women in meetings.
  • Seiko Hashimoto was chosen to succeed him. Tamayo Marukawa, Minister for the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, oversees the preparations on behalf of the Japanese government.
  • It is for the first time that the medals are constructed by materials obtained from recycling mobile phones, in partnership with Japan Environmental Sanitation Center and NTT Docomo.
  • In April 2017, the collection boxes were deployed at the public locations and NTT Docomo retail shops. A design competition to design the medals was launched in December of that year.