Athens, the capital of Greece, is located on the west side of the Arctic Peninsula in southeastern Greece. It is surrounded by the sea on three sides and has a pleasant climate. Today, the political, cultural and economic center of Greece is one of the important sports arenas in ancient Greece. It pays special attention to cultural education, emphasizing the combination of moral education, intellectual education, physical education and aesthetic education to cultivate talents, creating brilliant Athenian culture. If Greece is the cradle of ancient European civilization, then Athens is the center of this cradle. Olympia, the birthplace of the world-famous ancient Olympic Games, is about 300 kilometers away from Athens. Therefore, it is of great historical significance to hold the first Olympic Games in this ancient city.
1894 In June, Athens won the right to host the first modern Olympic Games at the Paris International Sports Conference. After the Paris International Conference, the first president of the International Olympic Committee, Wei Ze Kaylas, brought back the good news of the first Olympic Games to Athens, but when meeting with Greek Prime Minister Trikoupis, the Prime Minister proposed to postpone the Olympic Games due to financial problems. Therefore, Khairas anxiously informed the IOC Secretary-General Coubertin of the news.
After learning the news, Coubertin was anxious. At the end of 1894 and 10, he arrived in Athens in a hurry and immediately visited the ruins of the ancient sports ground in Athens. At that time, the ruins of the sports ground were already devastated and desolate. Coubertin realized that it would cost a lot of money to rebuild the sports ground on such ruins. When meeting with Greek Prime Minister Trikoupis, Coubertin expounded his views, but Trikoupis was heavily in debt to the country. Coubertin turned to the 26-year-old Greek Crown Prince Constantine with a glimmer of hope. The Crown Prince took over all the preparations for the Olympic Games and received the public support of King George I. Under pressure, Trikoupis resigned as prime minister. It is the first time in the history of the Olympic Games that a senior official of a country resigned because of hosting the Olympic Games.
Obstacles in the preparatory work have been removed. In order to raise funds, fundraising activities were launched all over Greece, and a total of 332,756 drams were raised, but this was only a drop in the bucket. In order to make up for the shortage of funds, the Greek government allocated 400,000 drams to the Ministry of Post, which used the funds to issue a set of stamps with the theme of the ancient Olympic Games, a total of 12, with 8 patterns, which were sold at a price higher than the face value to finance the conference. Issuing Olympic stamps not only solved the problem of funds, but also set a precedent for issuing Olympic postal tickets in the future. Since then, sports have stepped onto the altar of postal service. During the period of 1982, philatelists of the World Olympic Games also set up a philatelic association and elected Samaranch as the chairman of this association. Although the Greeks raised a lot of money by collecting donations and issuing stamps, the Olympic Games were successfully held. Finally, we have to pay tribute to the1000000 drama donated by George Avirov, a wealthy Greek businessman. After the efforts of the whole country in Greece, the Athens Stadium was finally built on the ruins of the ancient stadium.
Athens Stadium is an oval building that imitates the ancient technical field. There are many white marble reliefs around the stadium, which are gorgeous and spectacular. The sports meeting was held in Malamor Stadium, which was modeled after the venue of the ancient Olympic Games. The whole runway is horseshoe-shaped. The linear length of the runway 192m, and the stands can accommodate 8,000 people. Before 1932, it was the largest track and field in the world. But from the sports point of view, this stadium also has many unsatisfactory places: the runway ground is soft; A slight turning angle will inevitably affect the athletes' performance.
1April 6, 896, despite all the difficulties, the first Olympic Games finally opened. The host chose the opening ceremony on this day to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Greek uprising against the rule of Upper Turkey. At 3 pm on April 6, King George I of Greece announced the opening of the conference. As the host, he extended a warm welcome to the guests and athletes from all over the world and praised Coubertin's efforts and contributions to the founding of the modern Olympic Games. The audience cheered and applauded for a long time to express their deep respect for Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games. At the opening ceremony, solemn classical strings were played. 1958, the international Olympic Committee designated it as the Olympic anthem. The composer of this song is Greek samaras and the lyricist is palamas. The Greeks showed great enthusiasm for the conference, and the audience attending the opening ceremony reached 80,000, which was the largest in the Olympic Games before 1932. 365,438+0 athletes from Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Britain, Hungary, Germany, Denmark, the United States, France, Chile, Switzerland, Sweden and the host country Greece. The Greek camp is the largest, with 230 people, accounting for two thirds of the total; Germany and France each 19; 14 Americans. Greece has sent invitations to countries all over the world, including China, but most countries didn't send teams because they didn't know much about the Olympic Games or other reasons. The Qing government in China received an invitation from the International Olympic Committee, but did not send anyone to attend. The host of the first Olympic Games followed the old system of the ancient Olympic Games. No daughter attended.
There are nine events in this Olympic Games, including track and field, swimming, weightlifting, shooting, cycling, greco-Roman wrestling, gymnastics, fencing and tennis. These events also follow the old system of the ancient Olympic Games. According to the ancient Greek tradition, the competition begins with track and field. In the triple jump competition on April 6th, james connolly of the United States took the lead and won the first gold medal of the modern Olympic Games with a score of 13.7438+0m, becoming the first champion of the modern Olympic Games. After his victory, star-spangled banner played and the American flag was raised. Therefore, raising the national flag of the winning athletes and playing the national anthem have become the traditional awarding ceremony of the Olympic Games. In the following competition, American athletes showed their talents and won the championship in six events of track and field competition. In the final of 100 meters. Thomas is milling outside the river. Booker adopted the new technology of "squat" first used by Cheryl in the United States, and won the championship with the score of 12 second, thus ending the history of various starting postures, and the starting postures of vertical row, bending and hand support were gradually eliminated. The discus competition is even more unpopular. The Greeks thought they could win the competition, while American athlete robert garrett was far ahead with a score of 29.15m, which was19.5m higher than the best of the Greek athletes.
The swimming competition was held in Wiltsdale Bay. Using Upright cable as the finish line, the distance is also a rough estimate, and there is no uniform regulation on swimming posture. The weather was very bad that day. It was cold, the waves were rough, and the water temperature was only 13 degrees. Some athletes had to look at the sea and sigh. Hungarian athlete A Haiao won the 1 00 m and 1200 m, becoming Hungary's first Olympic gold medal winner, and was praised as "Hungarian Dolphin" by Greek newspapers.
At that time, weightlifting and wrestling were not graded by weight. In the weightlifting competition, Lao Elliot of Britain and Vi Jonson of Denmark lifted the same weight of11.5 kg, but the referee thought Elliot's posture was not as beautiful as Jonson's, so he was awarded the second place. In the wrestling match, French little man Ka Schumann fought bravely, throwing all the players who were several tens of pounds heavier than him to the ground, and he deserved to be the champion. Moreover, Ka Schumann also participated in track and field and gymnastics competitions and won the vault championship, ranking first in the horizontal bar and parallel bars, becoming the player who won the most gold medals in this Olympic Games. At the banquet held at the court, King George I of Greece toasted him and said, "In Athens, you are more famous than me."
There are 6 events in the cycling race, of which 5 events are arranged on the track and 1 event is arranged on the expressway, with a total distance of 87 kilometers. At that time, there were no special racing cars, and the roads were rugged, so cars often broke down. The champion Greek athlete A Constance Dante Nidis completed the race with only two cars. In the 100 km race, French athlete Le Ferraman not only won the championship, but also showed good sportsmanship. In the race, he found that Ge Coletis, a Greek player behind him, stopped because his car broke down, and Ferraman got off to help him repair the car before moving on. He won. His noble style was praised by people, so Ferraman became one of the most famous athletes in the first Olympic Games.
The marathon in April 10 pushed the Olympic Games to a climax. Before the Olympic Games, French linguist Michel Brill visited Greece and expressed admiration for the legendary hero Ferdinand Peters in the marathon. In 490 BC, Greece defeated the invading Persian army in the Marathon Valley. At that time, the messenger Ferdinand Peters was ordered to inform Athens of this victory quickly. Regardless of fatigue, he ran from marathon to Athens. After arriving in Athens, he was exhausted and only said, "We won! , fell dead in the square. Feeling this heroic deed, Brill wrote to Coubertin, suggesting that a marathon should be specially added to the Olympic track and field competition, and was willing to donate a Brill Silver Cup as a reward for the champion. The route of the Athens Marathon is the route run by ancient Filipinos, and there are 40 kilometers between the Marathon and Athens. The Greeks are very concerned about this competition, because Greece has not won a gold medal since the track and field events began, and the marathon has become their only hope. At that time, 17 athletes from four countries participated in the competition, and the number of people watching the competition reached 654.38+10,000. When Spiridon Ruiz, the Greek player, ran into the stadium first, the stadium was filled with cheers. Referee constance Dante, the Greek Crown Prince, couldn't help but accompany Lu Yi to the finish line. King George I also stepped down from the viewing platform to meet Ruiz. People regarded Ruiz as a Greek hero and won the glorious title of Greek national hero. 1904, after the death of Louis, people carved the symbol of the Olympic rings on his tombstone.
After seven days of fierce competition, American athletes scored the best and dominated the stadium, winning 1 1 gold medal, 7 silver medals and 1 bronze medal. In addition to monopolizing the glans penis in the marathon they are proud of, the General Mobilization of the Greek Games also achieved excellent results in other events, winning 10 gold medal, 19 silver medal and 17 bronze medal. German athletes performed well in gymnastics, winning 6.5 gold medals, 5 silver medals and 2 bronze medals. Tennis player Fritz won half the gold medal in Germany. Traun and John Boland of Britain won the doubles championship. On April 15, the first Olympic Games closed in a peaceful and friendly atmosphere, and an award ceremony was held on the closing day. King George I of Greece presented the winning athletes with paddle cards. At that time, the International Olympic Committee was still in its infancy, and there were no strict regulations on the composition, size and pattern design of medal quality. It is said that the host thinks gold medals are tacky, and there are only two kinds of medals: silver and bronze. The champion awarded silver medals and olive rings, the runner-up awarded bronze medals and laurels, and the third runner-up only awarded bronze medals. However, for the convenience of statistics, the medals of this Olympic Games are still calculated according to three categories: gold, silver and bronze.