ANCIENT GREECE: A MARATHON TO ANNOUNCE VICTORY
In September 490 BC, a battle pitted the soldiers of two Greek cities, Athens and Plataea, against those of the Persian Empire of Darius the Great, who intended to subjugate them. It took place on a beach called Marathon, not far from Athens. Outnumbered but better equipped, the Greeks triumphed over the Persians, who then set sail again to attack a port in Athens, which had lost its defenders.
As soon as the battle was won, the Greeks had to rush back to their city. By forced march, they managed to do so just before their enemies arrived and gave up trying to disembark. The Battle of Marathon was accompanied by two other legendary races: one by a certain Eucles, who is said to have run the forty kilometres or so between the beach and Athens to announce the victory, before dying of exhaustion. The other is that of Philippides, who is said to have run 240 kilometres from Athens to ask Sparta for reinforcements after the Persian landing at Marathon.
In 1982, British Royal Air Force officers wanted to check whether Philippides could have reached Sparta "the next day", as the Greek historian Herodotus claims. It's possible: since 1984, the record for this ultra-deep water race, now an annual event known as Sparthatlon, has been 20 hours and 25 minutes.
The battle of Marathon may have given its name to a major event in the Olympic Games, but it has nothing to do with the ancient Olympic Games. Every 4 years between the 8th century BC and the 4th century AD, during a truce, they pitted athletes from the various Greek cities against each other, who were also very inclined to fight each other with weapons.
According to Homer, the hero Achilles organised the first of these to commemorate the death of another legendary hero, Patroclus. More historically, they were created by the ruler of Elidos, Iphitos, in a religious centre of his kingdom, Olympia. On this occasion, during a truce lasting from one to four months, an Olympic court was responsible for arbitrating disputes between cities, alongside the sporting events.
PIERRE DE COUBERTIN, SPORT RATHER THAN SAINT-CYR
After other attempts during the 19th century, it was a Frenchman who succeeded in "restoring" the Olympic Games: Baron Pierre de Coubertin (1863-1937). Admitted to Saint-Cyr, he eventually chose Sciences-Po and became a historian and teacher, devoting himself to promoting sport and scouting.
Overcoming the many rivalries between European states, Coubertin created the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Paris in 1894. "Wars break out because nations misunderstand each other", he declared at the founding congress at the Sorbonne. "We won't have peace until the prejudices that separate different races today have disappeared. To achieve this, what better way than to periodically bring together young people from all countries for friendly tests of muscular strength and agility?
In 1896, the first Summer Olympics of the modern era were held in Athens, bringing together 241 athletes from 14 countries. It was on this occasion that Michel Bréal, a friend of Coubertin, had the idea of paying tribute to the forced marching of the ancient Greeks by inventing the "Marathon race". A 23-year-old modern Greek, Spyrídon Loúis, became the first Olympic champion.
Obviously a great sportsman (rugby, rowing, boxing, fencing, horse-riding, multiple French pistol shooting champion), Pierre de Coubertin also saw Olympism as a good way of preparing for war. At the time of the 5th Summer Olympics in Stockholm in 1912, he declared: "Sports have brought out all the qualities that are useful in war. Carefree, good-humoured, accustomed to the unexpected, an exact notion of the effort to be made without expending useless energy. The young sportsman obviously feels better prepared to go than his elders were, and when you feel prepared for something, you do it more willingly.
"Pascal Boniface, director of the Institut de relations internationales et stratégiques (IRIS) and a sports geopolitologist, asks in his book "JO politiques: sport et relations internationales" (Eyrolles éditions, 2016) whether this is a sporting discipline or military training, citing this anecdote: "The Baron quoted the image of a liaison officer who, losing his horse in enemy territory, had to defend himself with his sword and pistol, swim across a river and run for refuge to his own camp".
1936: JESSE OWENS SLAPS HITLER'S PROPAGANDA IN THE FACE
After the First World War, the Olympic Games increasingly became a reflection of geopolitics, as well as a showcase for the nationalism of the time. Cancelled in 1916, they were held in Antwerp in 1920 as a tribute to Belgium's neutrality, which Germany had flouted during the conflict. The defeated countries (in addition to Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary and Turkey) were not invited, and Russia, fresh from the Bolshevik Revolution, did not take part.
In 1931, the 1936 Games were awarded to Berlin; meanwhile, in 1933, Adolf Hitler had seized power in Germany. The Nazi dictator saw this as a great opportunity to promote his ideas, in particular the supposed supremacy of the "Aryan race" over all others (the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws had been in force since 1935). He commissioned director Leni Riefenstahl to shoot a documentary, "Olympia" (better known in France by the name of its first part, "Les Dieux du stade"), with a team of 300 people, including 34 cameramen.
Against all expectations, Riefenstahl showed both the defeats of German athletes (who were crushed 8-1 by India in hockey, for example) and the exploits of "non-Aryan" sportsmen. Among the latter, a black American, Jesse Owens, made history. The best sprinter of the inter-war period, he won four gold medals in front of Hitler (100 metres, 200 metres, 4 x 100 metres relay and long jump).
Hitler did not shake his hand, and neither did Cornelius Johnson, another African-American Olympic champion in the high jump. The Chancellor of the Third Reich had decided to congratulate only the German athletes, not the others. Yet Owens claimed that as he passed his dressing room, Hitler stood up and waved at him, to which he politely replied: "Hitler didn't snub me, our President did. The President didn't even send me a telegram." Franklin D. Roosevelt was busy campaigning for re-election. Back home, though triumphantly welcomed, Jesse Owens returned to his native America as it was then: segregated.
At the Olympic Games in Mexico City on 16 October 1968, two other African-American athletes protested against this racial segregation, leaving one of the most iconic images of the 20th century: on the podium, Tommie Smith, gold medallist in the 200 metres, and John Carlos, bronze medallist, raised their black-gloved fists, heads bowed. Silver medallist Peter Norman, a white Australian, wore a badge from the Olympic Project for Human Rightslike his two comrades. All three were sanctioned by their federations. And it was not until 2008 that Barack Obama welcomed the two Americans to the White House.
SINCE THE 70S: THE SHADOW OF TERRORISM, POLITICAL BOYCOTTS
The 1972 edition in Munich was intended to erase the disastrous memory of the 1936 edition in Berlin. It turned into a tragedy when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict erupted in bloodshed. On 5 September, eight terrorists from the Palestinian group "Black September" took 11 Israeli athletes hostage inside the Olympic village. Poorly managed by the German authorities, the hostage-taking resulted in a terrible death toll of 16 the next day. The terrorists executed all their prisoners and a local policeman, while five Palestinians were killed.
From the next Olympics, in Montreal in 1976, security measures became drastic. This did not prevent a bomb attack at the 26th Summer Olympics in Atlanta (USA) in 1996. Centennial Park (the site of the modern Olympic Games), right in the middle of the Olympic Village, was the scene of a violent explosion on 27 July. One person was killed (another died later) and 111 were injured. The perpetrator, right-wing extremist Eric Rudolph, was not arrested until 2003, after carrying out three other attacks. He had a grudge against the federal government.
These two tragedies, followed by the attacks of September 11 and other Islamist attacks elsewhere in the world in the decades that followed, have since led each organising country to pay particular attention to the security of the Olympics, as in Paris in 2024.
At the same time, especially since the 1970s, some countries have not hesitated to boycott the Olympic Games in order to punish their rivals. This was the case with the Cold War ping-pong between the United States and the USSR: the former (and 64 other delegations, but not France) boycotted Moscow in 1980, while the latter (and 14 of their satellites) boycotted Los Angeles in 1984. Apartheid in South Africa has also led to boycotts of several editions. And, logically, North Korea did not take part in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang (South Korea).
Because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, this year the IOC is allowing Russian or Belarusian athletes to take part in the Paris Olympics only if they compete under a neutral banner.
