The summer Olympics have evolved around the world since the 1800 due to a desire for more sports, more equal rights, and world conflict. The first reason the Olympics have changed was a desire for more sports, because of this several extra sports have been added to the Olympics since 1996, the first modern Olympics, this has not only increased the amount of competitors but also the crowd. Many sports from taekwondo (2020) to baseball (2020) have been added. One of these includes the 1912 Stockholm Olympics in which swimming and the pentathlon were added.
A pentathlon is an event with 5 different events including fencing, pistol shooting, 200 meter freestyle swimming, horseback riding, and the 3km run. Also,a new sport will be added is rock climbing to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, forty total climbers will participate in this new event taking the total amount of competitors from 10,500 in the 2016 Olympics to 11,000 registered competitors for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Overall, the amount of Olympic sports have burgeoned greatly due to the simple desire for more sports.
Another, interesting reason the Olympics have changed was a insatiable desire for more equal rights and racism. 1928 was the first year women were allowed to compete in the Olympics. This makes sense saying 1920 was the year women were first allowed to vote. Racism played a huge role in the Olympics. Especially, in 1936, this was around the time when Hitler began to rule. 1936 Olympic Games would not let black and Jewish athletes from participating in the games. Hitler was then threatened by boycott so he let them join. Today, the Olympics might not have much racism but there are many debates on if transgender people should compete in the Olympics. These were just another one of the many reasons the Olympics changed.
The final reason the Olympics have change is word conflict. In 1932, Los Angeles was chosen but had an very small turn out due to the great depression this made athletes unable to train because of lost jobs and unstable work. Many people were unable to pay for the expensive tickets, travel cost, and coaching fees. In 1936, the post antebellum Olympics were held in natzi Germany. This created many types of controversy among the nations. For he only wanted his german athletes to shine even though most of the teams were not that great. This caused several athletes and to decide not to compete so they wouldn’t embarrass Germany, if they did it could have meant war for several countries.
Some races were not allowed to compete due to the popular beliefs in Natzi Germany at the time; this caused a decry through the participating countries. These countries were going to boycott causing Hitler, a despot, to change his rules. Sadly, many Jews that participated in these Olympic games were later killed in concentration camps. The 1936 Berlin Olympics aberrated the Olympics interminably introducing several new events and traditions but more inportantly it introduced politics affecting the Olympics games like they do today. The Olympics have also had many boycotts for various reasons from slavery to war. In general, world conflict played a large role on the Olympic advancing.
In my opinion, the Olympics have and will continue to change greatly. I believe that by 2050 there will be new timing technology and more. I also believe there will be many new sports and the Olympics will be an increasingly popular attraction. There will probably also be several boycotts from various countries. It will change society’s standards for speed and athletic ability as people become faster and stronger. In the future, the topic of transgender people competing will be come a bigger topic throughout the nation. This could end up opening a whole new gender classification section for transgender people.
But, with genetic modifying a future possibility the Olympics may become hard to compete against “the perfect human”. Also, even though the Olympics are an extremely popular event, it is becoming very pricey many countries have decided not to bid because of the price. Even the people who would attend an Olympic event may no longer be able to afford the extreme price. This could ultimately result in the Olympics shutting down all together. Already the bids for the hosting countries have dropped with only a few even trying. Hopefully, this article has helped you learn a little bit about the Olympics and what is to come in the possibly near future.
Works Cited
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- Team USA. (2018). A Complete Look At All The New Sports And Events For The Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. [online] Available at: https://www.teamusa.org/News/2018/July/24/A-Complete-Look-At-All-The-New-Sports-And-Events-For-The-Olympic-Games-Tokyo-2020 [Accessed 17 Dec. 2018].
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- Buchanan, Kelly. ‘Laws Behind The Rio Olympics | In Custodia Legis: Law Librarians Of Congress’. Blogs.Loc.Gov, 2018, https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2016/08/laws-behind-the-rio-olympics/. Accessed 17 Dec 2018.
- Fincher, Chad. ‘Important Events In Olympic History | Optimal Home Care’. Optimal Home Care, 2018, https://www.optimalhomecare.com/important-events-olympic-history/. Accessed 17 Dec 2018.
- ‘U.S. Timeline, The 1890’S – America’s Best History’. Americasbesthistory.Com, 2018, https://americasbesthistory.com/abhtimeline1890.html. Accessed 17 Dec 2018.
