The 1896 Summer Olympics, also known as the Games of the first Olympiad, was a world peace event held in Athens, Greece. These games are commonly known as the rebirth of the Olympics because it was the first one in the Modern Era. Behind the rebirth, was a plan to represent the highest ideals of sport as diplomacy, and for the power of peaceful competition to rise above world politics. Unfortunately it did not succeed, nation still used the game to make political statements about the most superior nation. When the Soviet Union entered the Helsinki Summer Games, the games again took a political stand point which directly correlated with the Cold War. It became a struggle to prove the superiority in Socialism or Capitalism. The same incident occurs in Lake Placid, New York where the poorly favored U.S. hockey team battled the highly favored Soviet team. After being defeated by them previously the U.S. team pulled through and beat the mighty Soviets. The so called "Miracle on Ice" was more than a mere game in America, it was more about National prosperity and convincing the public that a democracy can produce more efficient athletes then the communist system. The 1972 summer games in Munich, when Palestinian terrorists infringed into the Olympic Village, killing two Israeli delegates and taking nine hostages. Although the attack has no direct relation to cold war politics, it showed the viewers, the games can be used by radical people to gain attention. The Cold War’s affect through sports reach a peak in 1979 when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. The invasion then trigger President Jimmy Carter's boycott of the 1980 Moscow Summer Games. The president believed to hold the games in Moscow would show approval of Russia's invasion of Afghanistan. Carter's boycott caused the Soviet's to boycott the 1984 Los Angelos summer games. By 1992 the entire cold war controversy of the Olympics had washed away, but there still lied controversy. Both possibly host countries and the International Olympic Committee became embedded in scandals that questioned if subjectivity is a fact in the process.
Tyler, I liked your topic idea however, we talked about some of the issues we brought up in class and that we saw in the movie. I think your points would have been more stronger if you had hyperlinks. You added more than we discussed in class, so that information was really interesting!
ReplyDeleteI like how you started out by saying why the Olympic games really began. The way you have the facts typed is like a time-line which helps the reader follow along with what you are saying. It is well organized, but you should try to fix the way the text appears because it is very narrow. It's a shame the video won't play. Other than that I think it is good.
ReplyDeleteTyler you mentioned some information that was already told to us, you probably could of went into more specifics with the information but overall a good blog posts.
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