The Olympics are Greek

By Marilú Acosta

About 2,800 years ago, in 776 B.C.E., the first festival in honor of Zeus, of which there is written evidence, was held in Olympia. Olympia, a rural sanctuary, takes its name from the highest mountain in Greece, Mount Olympus (ancient Greek: Ὄλυμπος; meaning the luminous one), home of the Greek goddesses and gods, whose father was Zeus. It summoned all the male athletes of the city-states that made up the Greek world, from Spain to Turkey.

The festival was held every four years, and this period of time was called the Olympiad. Almost 875 Olympiads later, in 393, the Roman Emperor Theodosius I (Hispania, 347-395), a fervent believer in the divinity of Jesus Christ, banned the Olympic Games for promoting paganism. 376 Olympics were not held until 1896, when they were resumed and Athens was the first host of the Olympic Games in the modern era . Recognizing Greece as the origin of the Olympics.

Paris has been fundamental in this new Olympic era. In 1894 they organized the Olympic Congress in this city, where it was agreed to resume in Athens, the Olympic Games of 1896. The second Olympics were held in Paris in 1900, the first time that women were allowed to participate in the Olympic Games. Paris hosted the Games again in 1924 and this time they innovated by building the first Olympic Village. One hundred years later, Paris 2024 is again the host of the Olympic Games and again breaks the mold by making an opening outside a stadium, taking as a stage 6 kms of the Seine River and the most emblematic places of a city that dates back to the third century BC.