Olympic Trivia

The end of the Beijing Olympics is drawing near so this may be my last Olympic trivia.



Q: What was unique about marathon Olympic gold medalist Abebe Bikila?

A: He won his first marathon BAREFOOT/ He was the first athlete to win 2 consecutive gold medals at marathon. (source:paulsquiz.com)





Bio:

Abebe Bikila (August 7, 1932 – October 25, 1973) was a two-time Olympic marathon champion from Ethiopia. A stadium in Addis Ababa is named in his honor...

In 1969, during civil unrest in Addis, Bikila was driving his Volkswagen Beetle when he had to swerve to avoid a group of protesting students. He lost control of his car and it landed in a ditch, trapping him. He was freed out of the car but the accident left him quadriplegic...

In October 1973, Abebe Bikila died in Addis Ababa at the age of 41 from a cerebral hemorrhage, a complication related to the accident of four years earlier.


Quotes:


*After the race, when Bikila was asked why he had run barefoot, he replied,

“I wanted the world to know that my country, Ethiopia, has always won with determination and heroism."


*As regards the accident that left him quadriplegic, he said:

"Men of success meet with tragedy. It was the will of God that I won the Olympics, and it was the will of God that I met with my accident. I accepted those victories as I accept this tragedy. I have to accept both circumstances as facts of life and live happily."(source: wikipedia)



When I started this Olympic trivia series, I really intended to end it with Abebe Bikila's story, because for me his attitude is worth emulating. Yes, in good times & in bad, we should maintain gratefulness to God no matter what.





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Olympic Trivia

Q: How many days do the Olympic Games last 2008?

A: 2 weeks

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Q: Why are the Olympics held every four years?

A: An Olympiad is four years in length and this is the length of time chosen to be between the Oympics in both the modern and ancient eras. Although an IOC sanctioned event was held in 1906 (but the IOC do not widely regarded this event as an Olympics) and the idea to hold events in the gap between olympics was dropped).

A: In ancient Greece they were every four years.

A: to give people time to plan where everything will be held

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source: wiki.answers.com
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Olympic Trivia

Q: What is the meaning of the Olympic rings logo?

A: The five rings represent the continents of the Americas (North and South), Australia, Europe, Africa, and Asia. The rings are interlaced to show the coming together or meeting of the continents at the Olympics.

The logo was designed by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games, in 1913. He said of the design:

"The emblem chosen to illustrate and represent the world Congress of 1914, five intertwined rings in different colours - blue, yellow, black, green, red - are placed on the white field of the paper. These five rings represent the five parts of the world which now are won over to Olympism and willing to accept healthy competition."

The rings were first introduced at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium.

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Q: What are the five ring colours on the olympic flag ?

A: Blue, yellow, black, green and red

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Q: The stadium in Athens for the 1896 games was built from which material?

A: marble

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sources: wiki.answers.com, www.paulsquiz.com,
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Where Y'at, NADIA COMANECI ?

Nadia Elena Comaneci (originally Comăneci /ko.mə'neʧʲ/; born November 12, 1961) is a Romanian gymnast, winner of five Olympic gold medals, and the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of 10 in an Olympic gymnastic event...

At the age of 14, Comaneci became one of the stars of the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. During the team portion of the competition, her routine on the uneven bars was scored at a 10.0. It was the first time in modern Olympic gymnastics history that the score had ever been awarded. The scoreboards were not even equipped to display scores of 10.0—so Nadia's perfect marks were reported on the boards as 1.00 instead. Over the course of the Olympics, Comaneci would earn six additional 10s, en route to capturing the all-around, beam and bars titles and a bronze medal on the floor exercise. source: wikipedia

Check her out now!

More : Where Y'at?

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photo source: Mail Online
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Olympic Trivia

Q: Who hosted the first Olympic games?

A: The first 'ancient' Olympic Games were held in Greece in 776 BC. The first 'modern' Olympic Games were held in Athens, Greece in 1896.

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Q: What was the first Olympic event?

A: The sport that started the Olympics is Gymnastics.

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Q: Who began the Olympics?

A: The ancient Greeks.

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Q: What city was the first to light the Olympic flame?

A: Lighting the flame has been an important part of every Olympic opening ceremony since it was first used in Berlin in 1936.

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sources: wiki.answers.com, www.paulsquiz.com,
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Sports Related Tragedies

Remember Nancy Kerrigan? She is a two-time American Olympic figure skating medalist and 1993 U.S. champion.

In January 6, 1994 at a practice session during the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, a mysterious man wielding a police baton clubbed Kerrigan on the right knee. As a result, Kerrigan was forced to drop out of the competition and her teammate, Tonya Harding, won the event and was consequently placed on the Olympic team. Kerrigan recovered in time to compete for the U.S. at the Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway; and in February, joined Harding at the Olympic Village. By this time, Kerrigan's assailant has confessed to the police that the persons who hired him were Tonya Harding's husband and her bodyguard. Tonya Harding later admitted to covering up the attack.

Is crime a part of sports strategy? Just recently, on the first day of the Olympics game, a Chinese man stabbed to death Todd Bachman while leaving his wife Barbara in critical condition. After committing the crime, the knifeman then jumped to his death from the 130ft-high second floor of The Drum Tower where the incident happen. Their daughter Elisabeth, a former U.S. Olympian, who was also there as the assault happened was unharmed but was as bewildered as the other onlookers. The Bachmans travelled to Beijing to support Elizabeth’s husband, Hugh McCutcheon, coach for U.S. men’s volleyball team. Full story...

Could this hullabaloo be a part of a plot to disorient Olympic players?

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Reference on Nancy Kerrigan attack:
www.massmoments.org
photo source: wikipedia&sports.yahoo.com

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Trivia: Ancient Olympic Games

The Ancient Olympic Games, originally referred to as simply the Olympic Games (Greek: Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες; Olympiakoi Agones) were a series of athletic competitions held between various city-states of Ancient Greece. They began in 776 BC in Olympia, Greece, and celebrated until 393 AD. The prizes were olive wreaths, palm branches and woollen ribbons.


Legendary origin


The origins of the Ancient Olympic Games are unknown, but several legends and myths have survived. One of these involved Pelops, king of Olympia and eponymous hero of the Peloponnesus, to whom offerings were made during the games. The Christian Clement of Alexandria asserted, "[The] Olympian games are nothing else than the funeral sacrifices of Pelops." That myth tells of how Pelops' overcame the King and won the hand of his daughter Hippodamia with the help of Poseidon, his old lover, a myth linked to the later fall of the house of Atreus and the sufferings of Oedipus.

A myth tells of the hero Herakles, or Heracles, who won a race at Olympia and then decreed that the race should be re-enacted every four years, while another claims that Zeus had instated the festival after his defeat of the Titan Cronus. Yet another tells of King Iphitos of Elis, who consulted the Pythia Oracle at Delphi – to try and save his people from war in the 9th century BC. The prophetess advised him to organize games in honour of the gods. The Spartan adversary of Iphitos then decided to stop fighting during these games, which were called Olympic, after the sanctuary of Olympia where they were held. Had they been named after Mount Olympus, the mountain on which the Greek gods were said to live, they would have been called Olympian games rather than Olympic. The favorite story is that Heracles celebrated cleaning the Augean Stables by building Olympia with help from Athena.

Whatever the origin, the games were held to be one of the two central rituals in Ancient Greece, the other being the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Another possibility for the actual origin of the Games is that they essentially 'evolved' from Funeral Games.

Read the full Wikipedia article....

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photo source: www.jalopata.com
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