Adeliia Petrosian of Particular person Impartial Athletes competes throughout the girls’s determine skating quick program on the Winter Olympics in Milan on Feb. 17.
Ashley Landis/AP
disguise caption
toggle caption
Ashley Landis/AP
Practically 3,000 athletes have confronted the icy rinks and snowy ramps in Italy for the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.
The Olympic Video games are host to uncommon athleticism and nationwide delight. So earlier than we bid the Video games adieu in only a few quick days, let’s commemorate the “Olympics” for this iteration of NPR’s Phrase of the Week.
The place the phrase comes from
The phrase “Olympics” is rooted in historical Greece.
In Greek mythology, the gods would descend from Mount Olympus into the city of Olympia to assemble and socialize with people, in accordance with Matthew Llewellyn, co-director of the Heart for Sociocultural Sport and Olympic Analysis at California State College, Fullerton.
“Olympia itself was kind of a sacred space,” he stated. “It was a sanctuary.”
Mount Olympus is seen from the port of Thessaloniki in Greece on April 2, 2015.
Sakis Mitrolidis/AFP through Getty Photographs
disguise caption
toggle caption
Sakis Mitrolidis/AFP through Getty Photographs
The primary historical Olympic Video games started someday round 776 B.C.E., Llewellyn stated. Again then, athletes competed bare, observe stars acquired corporal punishment for false begins, and there have been no gold medals — solely silver and bronze, in accordance with the Worldwide Olympic Committee’s web site.
However after about 1,000 years of those video games, the competitors, together with the phrase, was misplaced throughout the Darkish Ages, or the aftermath of the autumn of the Roman Empire.
Just like the flame of the Olympic torch, nevertheless, curiosity in historical Greece and the Olympics was reignited throughout Europe’s Renaissance period. Folks had begun studying in regards to the historical Olympics and conducting archaeological excavations of Olympia, Llewellyn stated.
“Around that time period, late 1500s, early 1600s, we see a number of sporting contests that go by the name ‘Olympic Games,'” Llewellyn stated. “And this would be Olympic with a ‘c,’ sometimes Olympick with a ‘k.'”
For instance, the Cotswold Olimpick Video games in England have been taking place since 1612 and are nonetheless going robust, with occasions like tug-of-war and shin-kicking. The Zappas Olympics had been held just a few instances in Greece within the late 1800s, sponsored by businessman Evangelis Zappas.
How we bought to the trendy Olympic Video games is contentious.
“Academics are in fierce argument over this topic,” Llewellyn stated.
Some historians say Zappas petitioned Greece’s King Otto for a revival of the video games in 1856 and supplied to pay for them. Different historians, in addition to the Worldwide Olympic Committee, credit score French aristocrat Pierre de Coubertin with proposing the revival in 1894. The primary fashionable Olympic Video games had been held in Athens, Greece, in 1896.
A monument in honor of Pierre de Coubertin, broadly credited with founding the trendy Olympic Video games, stands outdoors the New Nationwide Stadium in Tokyo on Jan. 21, 2020
Clive Rose/Getty Photographs
disguise caption
toggle caption
Clive Rose/Getty Photographs
There are additionally arguments over who will get authorized rights to the phrase, Llewellyn stated.
In 2021, the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee sued Puma, claiming the corporate was infringing on the committee’s logos by submitting logos for “PUMA TOKYO 2021” and “PUMA PARIS 2024.” In 2024, the committee sued influencer Logan Paul’s vitality drink firm, Prime Hydration, claiming it illegally used Olympic logos in ads. Each fits had been dismissed.
“It’s an egregious overreach, I think, because I don’t think you can own a word,” Llewellyn stated. “And you certainly can’t own a word that was first used thousands of years ago by the Greeks.”
NPR has reached out to the Worldwide Olympic Committee and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee for touch upon the lawsuits however has not heard again.
What “Olympics” means to an Olympian
When four-time Olympian Ashley McKenzie was 11 years previous, he bought right into a scuffle over a Pokémon card.
Throughout this explicit combat, McKenzie’s opponent caught him off guard by throwing him a sure approach. It was a judo transfer, he would study. McKenzie hightailed it to the closest judo studio to search out the child and get his card again.
Ashley McKenzie of Nice Britain poses for a photograph to mark the official announcement of the judo group chosen to Crew GB for the Tokyo Olympic Video games, on July 5, 2021.
Barrington Coombs/Getty Photographs
disguise caption
toggle caption
Barrington Coombs/Getty Photographs
The coach there needed McKenzie to check out judo for himself. Listening to “Olympics” reeled him in.
“The word ‘Olympics’ to me, it opened my eyes to new doors and new things,” McKenzie informed NPR. “When I first heard it, it gave me hope.”
Ten years after that encounter, he represented Nice Britain on the Olympic stage on the 2012 London Video games.
“When I got there, it didn’t matter what I looked like,” he stated. “It didn’t matter what I was doing or how I acted. Everyone, the whole country, got behind me, and that’s when I knew it was so nice to be an Olympian.”
