Talk:Olympic Games/Archive 2

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broken link and inaccurate date

"was in 1776 AD,"

is a broken link and surely this date is wrong? I have not edited it because I don't know the original value.

Gramatical Change

I am changing the sentence "A special edition for winter sports, the Olympic Winter Games, were established in 1924." to "A special edition for winter sports, the Olympic Winter Games, was established in 1924." This is a small change, to correct a gramatical error, hopefully this will not create any problems. --Ironchef8000 18:34, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Medal Count

Could someone explain the medal counting method the IOC uses vs. what's used by the U.S. (and perhaps other country's) media? Or is this / does this belong somewhere else? 128.230.233.30 02:39, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

There are two basic ways of sorting medals.

1. By gold medals, then by silver medals, then by bronze medals.
   • For 2002 Winter Olympics, this system puts Norway first (with 13 golds), Germany second (12 golds), and the United States third (10 golds).
2. By total medals, then by gold medals, then by silver medals.
   • Germany would be first (36 medals), then the United States (34 medals) followed by Norway (25).

Hope this helps. -- Jonel | Speak 05:02, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Criticism of this article from Amateur Athletic Foundation

The Amateur Athletic Foundation has recently (February 2006) published an online newsletter mentioning several factual errors in this and other Olympics-related articles. See Amateur Athletic Foundation's Sports Letter Vo. 17 No. 1. Crunch 17:24, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

{{thendoit}} It would take a lot less time for the fine folks in the Amateur Athletic Foundation to actually edit the article to their liking than it would be to publish an online newsletter outlining what needs to be edited. --Deathphoenix 17:31, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Many people are not aware that they have the ability to do this. Not everyone is a Wikipedian nor do they want to be one. They just want to make sure the content is accurate. I think their factual corrections are well-taken. Crunch 17:33, 20 February 2006 (UTC) I also think it serves a good purpose to point out the short-comings of Wikipedia which, as a work-in-progress do exist. Crunch 17:36, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I guess some confusion comes after we removed the "that anyone can edit" from our tagline. Perhaps you could send them an email (or blog comment) pointing out that they are free to edit? Or if you want, I could do it. --Deathphoenix 17:39, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Most of the points they've noted are internally inconsistent in WP -- we have it right elsewhere (heck, we have decent [er, that's IMHO] articles on the early tennis and baseball competitions, for goodness sake!). I'll work on fixing the specifics. -- Jonel | Speak 18:08, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I, for one, am glad to have this definitive source of information and these corrections laid out for us. Crunch 18:33, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

The 3rd point of the sportsletter is exactly what I asked about in my response here to User:Aliter at 02:31, on 21 Feb 2005 (it is in Archive now). I asked for sources: What "most historians" you are speaking about, sources, please?. A year have passed, but nothing was changed - nobody provided sources for it and the following excerpt is still present in the article with no sources cited: "...is further complicated since the IOC no longer recognises the Intercalated Games which it originally organised and which most historians do count among the Olympic games".

Yes, I could edit the article, but I didn't want to do this unilaterally, I waited until thinking people will support me, because citing sources is one of the stated basic principles of Wikipedia. No one did for a year. Now AAFLA pointed out to you, that this principle is violated, and your question, folks "why don't they edit the article themselves?" sounds silly to me. Think of it, please. Cmapm 22:40, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

That's a good idea, I'll do it myself. --Deathphoenix 19:03, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Done. If there's any other feedback you'd like me to recover, just let me know and I'll do it. --Deathphoenix 19:07, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I got the other instance earlier (the one which AAFLA actually quoted). Pervasive unsourced crud. -- Jonel | Speak 19:21, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I didn't want you to do this, I'm not from the AAFLA and, honestly speaking I forgot about that my discussion here until the AAFLA reminded it to me :) Cmapm 22:40, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. The 6th their point reveal, that the article, which I created USSR at the Summer Olympics was much closer to the truth, than this one. I'll adjust my article to be more precise in the nearest future. Cmapm 19:30, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Cmapm, Please DO NOT EVER edit, let alone ALTOGETHER REMOVE, another editor's post on a Talk page as you did to my post here in the Revision at 14:00 on 20 February 2006. What possibly was your reason? Crunch 20:59, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I presume you're talking about this edit? Without presuming anything, Wikipedia's database servers have been going haywire lately, some users' comments get removed due to some weird problem with the servers. Could be a bug in the servers, or a temporary glitch. --Deathphoenix 21:04, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I've restored your comment. --Deathphoenix 21:09, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

There was no reason for this. This was my fault, the only thing I can tell for sure is that it was not intentional. But I really can't say, how this happened. It's the first such case since I'm a Wikipedian. Forgive me please, if you can... Cmapm 22:40, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

No problem. It was probably just an innocent typing mistake -- looking at the history log, I doubt it was a haywire server. I'm sure now it was not intentional. All is forgiven. Crunch 13:43, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Photos

Photographs of Olympic medals would be a nice addition to this article.

Just a thought.

Closing ceremonies

Given that this is an FA, I am quite shocked that there is currently not at least a paragraph on here giving information about what happens at an Olympics Closing Ceremony, including the "Antwerp Ceremony". Zzyzx11 (Talk) 05:12, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion for a "Commemorative Items" article

see Talk:Olympic User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:24, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

First women's participation

I can understand why someone would want to make the recent edit to the introduction that added the statement "finally female participants could take part", but to just toss it in as an unreferenced sentence fragment is pretty bad. I scanned through a couple of articles looking for mention of when women first participated in any of the games and I didn't find mention of this. I do agree it's an important thing to include, but could someone flesh the addition out? For instance, the first participation in various events is mentioned in Winter Olympic Games but not the first participation of women in any Winter Olympic Games. It should be mentioned here, in this article, and on each of the Winter and Summer Olympic Games articles. There is mention in Ancient Olympic Games of the first participation of women, but no such mention for the modern games. Thanks for expanding on this some. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 16:13, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Females participated in the second edition of the modern Olympic Games. 1900 Summer Olympics featured women (see sailing, golf, few other sports). If you want to add a mention that they were barred from the first edition, please go ahead. But 1924 is completely off. -- Jonel | Speak 22:50, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I hope you understand I did not add the passage. I considered deleting it and instead opted to comment on it here. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:40, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I realize that. My comments were meant to be speaking to editors in general. -- Jonel | Speak 23:53, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Locations of Modern Olympic Games

The table here is horrible! Being a featured article, I suggest that this be split into two tables; one for the winter and summer games. This would make them both appealing, and readible (as the skipping of lines here and there throws me off, myself). If someone wants to do this, be bold and go ahead. Let me know if you can't and I'll do it myself. Thanks! --J@red ^[T]/_[+] 22:05, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I've split the tables and added some flags - hope that was sort of what you were thinking. Would be good to get it looking better though.--Nunners 23:46, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Olympics now links to another page.

See my rationale behind this change here. → J@red  14:49, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Olympic medals

I've taken a crack at rewriting/reorganizing the end of the section entitled "Olympic Champions and Medalists." The paragraph first came to my attention because it addressed the reader with a rhetorical question, but then I decided it probably needed to be improved all around in tone, organization, etc. So I added a new header, changed the link a bit, and rewrote the paragraph. Let me know what you think, and feel free to tweak it as you wish. EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 17:00, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Islamic countries

Was it or is planned any olympics in an islamic country?--Nixer 11:04, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

In order for a country to hold an Olympics, they must prove to the IOC that they have enough time, money, and devotion to create an Olympic stadum, or series of stadia, in which the events will take place. To answer your question, I can't think of a time when any Islamic country has placed a bid for holding a games, and I know that no games earlier than the 2012 Summer Olympics will be held in an Islamic country. See these articles for more on bids: Bids for Olympic Games, Bids for Olympic Games (ballots). → J@red  20:09, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Olympic bids

Is there an article or section somewhere that details the bid processes of the IOC? It would be interesting to have this somewhere for the people who would like to know how the host cities get chosen. → J@red  20:09, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Needs Editting

The information in this paragraph is important and should be stated, but at the moment it reeks of POV:

May 2006 - With two-and-a-half years to go until the start of the 2008 Olympics to be held in Beijing China, the Chinese government recently placed a $1 billion rush order for endangered rainforest timbers from Indonesia's Papua province to be used in construction for the games. A proposed timber processing factory would industrially harvest 800,000 cubic meters of the famous and threatened merbau (intsia spp) rainforest timbers, to be exported to China for the construction of sports facilities. Indonesia's Papua province on the island of New Guinea has some of the world's last remaining large intact rainforests. These rainforests are millions of years old, contain untold biodiversity and evolutionary history, and provide critical regional and global ecosystem processes including climate regulation through their storage of massive amounts of carbon. These priceless ancient rainforests have come under severe pressure from the rampant illegal logging of merbau and granting of massive logging concessions. China already consumes almost all of the estimated 300,000 cubic meters of merbau smuggled out of Papua every month.It is surely against the Olympic ideals of bringing "people together in peace to respect universal moral principles" when the events are housed in facilities constructed with ancient rainforest timbers of questionable legality and morality. [1] 06:48, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

• I completely agree that this needs editing. There will always be criticisms of the Olympics and the various countries that host the Olympics, but that passage is way too biased.
• Not to mention that the entire thing was cut-and-pasted from its source. I'll take a look at it and see if it can be fixed up a bit. Thanks for your concern, as it is obviously not NPOV. → J@red  20:36, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Unsourced

Please provide a source for this analysis if you want to add it. -- Jonel | Speak 14:55, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Symbologists and Catholic researchers also claim a different story to the olympic symbol. It is said that the planet Venus, when seen from the earth forms a pentagram(a five pointed star) every eight years. The greeks were so astonished by this phenomena that they kept the olympics every four years to denote the half cycle of this phenomena. The pentagram was very near to becoming the modern symbol of the olympics, but was changed at the last moment to the five integrated rings symbolizing the five points of the pentagram and also denoting the spirit of inclusion and harmony. A similar description has been given in the book, Da Vinci code by the American author, Dan Brown.

Changing Canoe to Canoe/Kayak

There has been an idea brought up to change pages such as Canoeing at the 2004 Summer Olympics to Canoeing/Kayaking at the 2004 Summer Olympics or something of the like. Please see this page for more on the proposal. → J@red  19:17, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Strychnine?

The Arcticle under the 'doping' section said "For example, the winner of the marathon at the 1904 Games, Thomas Hicks, was given strychnine and brandy by his coach, even during the race." If you read the arcticle on strychnine, you will find that is in fact a very deadly substance... (Andyops 11:47, 23 May 2006 (UTC))

Yes it is. Hicks received about 2 mg of strychnine from his trainer and nearly died because of it. [1] [2] [3] are a few sources. -- Jonel | Speak 12:12, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Another name change

I went to the offical Olympic website and found that the term "Yachting" was used up to the 1996 Atlanta Games. Afterwards it was changed to "Sailing". [This is my reference]. I have gone back and made some changes until I stumbled across Sailing at the Summer Olympics. Since I am a relative neophyte in wikipedia, I have no idea how to make the necessary changes. I think it would be appropriate that in each page devoted to Yachting and then Sailing in each edition of the Olympic games, a note should be made telling the reader of such a name change.

For continuity and ease of use, I think we should use "Sailing at the XXXX Summer Olympics" for all years (the IOC also does this in their medallist database). Redirects, of course, should be created for "Yachting at the XXXX Summer Olympics" for all years (including recent ones). I'll do the legwork in a couple days, if no one objects. -- Jonel | Speak 04:12, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Needs Work

I have removed the paragraph

"In 1968 (Montreal), alot of African nations boycotted the Games because New Zealand were continuing to play cricket with South Africa, who still had apartheid. The boycott was in opposition to any kind of sporting interaction with the country with apartheid."

This needs work. Montreal never held the Olympics in 1968. Mexico City did. Or was the writter in fact refering to the Montreal Olympics, but didn't get the year right? How much is "alot of African countries"? Any exact figures?

I'm guessing that paragraph was about the same thing as the second paragraph in the Boycotts section (beginning "In 1972, and 1976,...). The Montreal Olympics in 1976 were the ones boycotted by African nations protesting South African apartheid; as the existing paragraph says, 21 African nations and Guyana eventually boycotted. Also, the sport in question was rugby rather than cricket. Reinstating the paragraph with correction would be redundant with what's already there. -- Jonel | Speak 22:51, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

5-8th

victory diplomas for seventh- and eighth-place finishers were added, presumably to ensure that all losing quarter-finalists in events using single-elimination formats would receive diplomas, thus obviating the need for consolation (or officially, "classification") matches to determine fifth through eighth places (though interestingly these latter are still contested in many elimination events anyway)

I personally assume the reason 5-8th is necessary is in case of doping and other problems. If two are disqualified, then there will be no bronze without 5 (depending on how many are disqualified of course). To be fair, the necessary of 7 and 8 seems low but I guess it's just more convinient. It is also useful for countries (esp less successful ones) etc to have classifications I guess Nil Einne 15:01, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Prefontaine vs AAU - effect on Olympics

This is my opinion, but this point of view is missing from all articles about Steve Prefontaine, Bill Bowerman, Avery Brundage, Nike, the AAU and the Olympic Games.

Like it or not, Steve's winning case against the AAU set a precedent for the Olympics that inevitably led to several things, among which: The inclusion of professional basketball players as US team members, The fierce competition for titles as a means to make large sums of money, The sponsorship of players by corporations (notably Nike), The attack on Nancy Kerrigan by Tanya Harding, spurred on by lust for fame and money

The last item is admittedly a controversial statement. I believe Harding wouldn't have gotten as far if there were no financial rewards at the end of the journey.

The sad part is, Americans under the Avery Brundage rules were 'pure athletes', and we constantly complained about having to compete against athletes from nations that sponsored their athletes in a manner we weren't allowed to. In spite of that, we had a lot of winners.

The other sad part about it is Brundage's stand for amateurism was tainted by his support of the Nazi regime before WWII, and for his lack of recognition of the felled Israeli athletes in Munich. In this way Brundage's taint and Prefontaine's court case against the AAU destroyed the spirit of the Olympics.

I would appreciate someone with knowledge adding this footnote to the above articles.

Unfortunately, the German national flag in 1936 was the Nazi flag, as you can see in the article Flag of the Nazi Germany. I have edited the image.

Beijing 2008: Why Hongkong is the only co-host city?

For Beijing 2008, why do we only put Hongkong as the co-host city? There are other co-host cites too, such as Qingdao and Shanghai. http://en.beijing2008.com/21/65/column212006521.shtml

Hong Kong is mentioned because of the unusual nature of splitting the equestrian events to a seperate city. This has only been done once before, in 1956, when the equestrian events were held in Stockholm due to quarantine restrictions. The same reason was used when the equestrian events were transferred to Hong Kong. For many Olympic games, events such as football (soccer) and sailing have been competed in seperate cities, but this would make this list too long. I think it would be appropriate to just have the main host city, with additional considerations toward cites hosting events where they wouldn't normally be held. Perakhantu 17:31, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Olympic Flag

is repeated. --Howard the Duck 09:11, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Misspelt title

There is a title in the uppermost region of the article which is called "==somethingsomething==", thus with the quotes not displayed as a full headline. I can't seem to be able to edit this - might someone else remove the quotes? 213.161.190.228 08:10, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Why is "doping" illegal?

What about people who have access to better nutrients, or access to better training equipment, or cleaner environment, or stable homes, etc. That would also tip the scale to that persons favour. You can't 'even' everyone one out. It's an impossibility. Drugs should be no different then a person in one country who get's to eat more vitamins than a poor athlete who get's none.

-G

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 134.117.157.66 (talk • contribs) 05:15, 3 December 2006 (UTC).

(moved to bottom) You bring up a fair argument, in my eyes. I think you are right to say that not everyone is the same to start off with, so why ban drugs? Well, I think the main argument against this is that most are illegal, so regardless, you'd be breaking the law. I think it would be too hard to regulate everything else in an athlete's life, so the cut off point is doping. That's just my thoughts. → JARED ^(t)  13:39, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

National Participations in Summer Olympics

The opening paragraph to the article states that Australia and Greece are the only counntries to have participated in all Summer Olympics. However, searching through the individual pages for each games suggests that France and Great Britain have also been ever-present. Does anyone have an objection to including this information? Parslad

Thanks for catching that! France's participation in 1904 is dubious at best, but certainly Great Britain should be included. -- Jonel | Speak 16:57, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Switzerland ought to be mentioned too. They boycotted the 1956 Games in Melbourne, but the equestrian events in 1956 were held several months earlier in Stockholm due to Australian equine quarantine laws, and Switzerland won a bronze medal there. Andrwsc 06:34, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Shouldnt there be any mantion

shouldnt there be any mention of the Alaskan olympics, (the PROBABLY now defunct) Martial Arts Olympics, and the Special Olympics the one for Handicap people, as well as many other official alternate olympics? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.76.96.12 (talk) 06:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC).

That's what the Olympics (disambiguation) page is for. Perakhantu 06:50, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

but, that page dont have any info on that either. i think you should put some mention of them in the SEE ALSO section.