Talk:Summer Olympic Games

Olympic achievements

This article does a really good job of highlighting the organizational history of the games. I was tempted to add information about some of the athletic achievements that highlighted some of the games (e.g., Mark Spitz's 7 gold medals in 1972, Nadia Comaneci's perfect 10 gymnastic performance in 1976), but it doesn't really seem to fit the general tone and purpose of this article. So I let it pass, but I am wondering if these achievements do belong in this article or in a different article.

Well, as the author of the bulk of the original article, I think adding the greatest athletic feats, such as Spitz and Comaneci, is a good idea. I mentioned some, (Redgrave and Zatopek), and any omissions were due to ignorance, rather than planning -- GWO

Another option would be to create a separate article called Achievements of the Olympic Games, or something similar. --Stephen Gilbert

Thats an option, but I don't think it will be the right one unless the present article gets much bigger (which I don't think it will, for now). Sometimes the sport and politics are difficult to untangle, anyway (Ali, Tommy Smith) --GWO

Good idea. A start: all-time medal winner's Ray Eli (US), with 10. Trekphiler 19:36, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

marathon

regarding the marathon, Summer_Olympic_Games says "The final yards were added on at the request of British royal family in order to improve the view of the finish from their box" while Marathon (sport) says "race organizers added 385 yards to the course in order to have the runners start in front of Windsor Castle." which is it? Kingturtle 05:42, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Well, there is of course no way to tell whether the extra yards lie at the start or at the end. However, the story which I've encountered the most is that the 25 mile race was extended to start in front of Windsor castle, after which it had become a 26 mile race to the entrance of the stadium, after which it was extended another 385 yards to end in front of the royal box. And quite a memorable 385 yards they proved to be. Aliter 01:38, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Stylistic concern

The modern Olympic Games were founded in 1894 when Pierre Fredi, Baron de Coubertin, who sought to promote international understanding through the sporting competition.

When Pierre Fredi did what? This is merely one example of a stylistic error: the introductory section of the article is full of them. To make things worse, they were copied without correction to the main page when this article was 'featured'. Is good style not a criterion for becoming a featured article? Victor Gijsbers 14:52, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Popularity

For those who may doubt it, the 1994 soccer/football World Cup had an estimated 32 billion "cumulative viewers" while the 1996 Summer Olympics figures 19.6 billion "cumulative viewers". Rmhermen 15:14, Mar 24, 2004 (UTC)

Winter torch

It seems odd that the main image on 'Summer Olympic Games' is of a winter games torch runner. Is there a similarly public-domain image of a torchbearer from Atlanta or Sydney? When does Athens start its torch run? I'd suggest replacing it as soon as feasible. Radagast 00:07, Mar 25, 2004 (UTC)

It was the only PD image I could find. I made my own logo (with the 5 rings), but that ended up on the copyright infringments listing so fast it was scary. If you can find a public domain image to replace it, you have my blessing and my support (not that yo need it). →Raul654 00:23, Mar 25, 2004 (UTC)

Can we find images about the first few games. One would expect some of those should be in the Public Domain by now. Aliter 01:38, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

---

Why do we have an image on the Summer Games page that features a torch being carried to the Winter Games (by a guy wearing a Winter Games outfit)? - Montrealais

Wow, that's service. - Montrealais

all time medal count

We need an all time medal count for the summer gamesAndyL 04:57, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

this link has breakdown by medal type. AndyL 05:33, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have now updated the table with the 2004 medals, though I'd appreciate if someone would double-check. Eritrea, Paraguay and the UAE appear for the first time. Matthewmayer 17:38, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Another thought, I was going to add some flags to the medal count table, but looking at the other medal count tables you need an awful lot of repetitive markup like [[Image:china_flag_large.png|20px|<nowiki>]]</nowiki> which makes the table hard to edit. Maybe we should have templates like Template:flagFRA, Template:flagGER, Template:flagAUS etc, so a mini-flag would be inserted with a simple {{flagFRA}}, {{flagGER}} etc in the markup. The abbreviations would be the IOC ones. Matthewmayer 17:54, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Good job completing the list! --Cantus 23:39, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

What is Wales doing on this list? The Welsh do not have their own NOC, as far as I know. Aliter 01:38, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Wales won some medals separately at a few of the early Games I believe. Matthewmayer 18:46, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

1906 Intercalated Games

The following fragment of the article:

There followed a smaller "tenth birthday" games in Athens in 1906. This celebration is not commonly accepted as being Olympic Games, but they certainly positively contributed to the success of future games after the less successful 1900 and 1904 Games.

was replaced by:

There followed a smaller games in Athens in 1906, the first of an alternating series of games to be held in Athens. As it also turned out to be the last, the reason for the games is now sought in the "tenth birthday" of the games. These gamesare not currently recognised as being Olympic Games by the IOC, though most hisotirans do see them as such. Anyway, they certainly positively contributed to the success of future games after the less successful 1900 and 1904 Games.

on 02:14, 26 Sep 2004, without any concretization of those "most historians". Could it be done now? And sources, please! Cmapm 02:52, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Request for references

Hi, I am working to encourage implementation of the goals of the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. Part of that is to make sure articles cite their sources. This is particularly important for featured articles, since they are a prominent part of Wikipedia. The Fact and Reference Check Project has more information. Thank you, and please leave me a message when a few references have been added to the article. - Taxman 19:05, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

This should not be a featured article

Or at least under this heading. I came here to find out what the 26 Summer olympic Sports are, surely a pretty basic point, and it doesn't tell me. This is just a History of the Summer Olympics. It also needs something on the facilities required for a Summer Olympics and the costs of staging them, and probably other things that don't spring to mind right now. It is nowhere close to being a complete article.

Olympic medals?

(I also posted this on Talk:Winter Olympic Games. You can respond at either of these pages, or on my talk page.)

With the unveiling of the new Turin, Italy Olympic medals (see this link from Sports Illustrated), I thought it might be interesting to make a Wikipedia page about the history of the Olympic medals, which could obviously be a full length article with a lot of good history (i.e.- more than just a collection of pictures). Is anyone up for a collaboration to create this kind of page? And where should it be located? Olympic medal or Olympic Games medal, perhaps? EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 04:26, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Trivial

Dunno if it's worth including, but, according to tradition, Summer Olympics' last event is the M marathon. Trekphiler 01:44, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

What is the correct name of the UK's Olympic team?

Is the UK's Olympic team "Great Britain" or "Great Britain and Northern Ireland"?

see Cfd discussion: Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion#Category:Great_Britain_at_the_Olympics_to_Category:Great_Britain_and_Northern_Ireland_at_the_Olympics --Mais oui! 22:19, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Why call it summer?

Why is olympics referred to as 'summer olympics'? Brittanica doesn't even have a 'summer olympics article and to the best of my knowledge the official name is 'olympics' and not 'summer olympics' as reffered everywhere in wikipedia.

More incorect usage On this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_the_Olympic_Winter_Games there is link to the "1912 summer olympics" which is obviously incorrect because in 1912 there was no such thing as winter games. Doesn't this represent a biased western view instead of the correct one??

The IOC itself refers to the games as "summer" ones (specifically, Olympic Summer Games) on its website, [1]. Stockholm 1912 is definitely in the "summer" section. The official names are "Games of the A Olympiad" for summer games and "B Winter Olympic Games" for winter ones. -- Jonel | Speak 21:03, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

The IOC site always uses the official name (Games of the A Olympiad) for the "summer" editions. The term "Summer Games" is only used when dealing with both editions (summer and winter), specially on the list of all games linked above. The Wikipedia page itself informs the official name Games of the Olympiad, so the this should be the page title, being redirected by "Summer Olympic Games" (and not the opposite, as it is today). After all, the term "Summer Olympic Games" seems to be used mostly by countries where winter sports are common, so its usage may not be culturally neutral. -- rsnetto74 00:28, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

In fact, the Games of the Olympiad have not always been held in the summer. For instance, the Games of the XXIV Olympiad (Seoul 1988) continued into October (autumn), and the Games of the XVI Olympiad (Melbourne 1956) began in November (southern spring) and ended in early December. The name "Summer Olympic Games" is a misnomer, it's not the official name of the event, and in some cases it's just plain incorrect. The title is wholly innapropriate, which may be strangely appropriate for Wikipedia. An example of the persistence of bogus information in the 'pedia.

Two years after my earlier comment, and with some more users' opinions about it (see below Summer/Winter) nothing was done about this issue. Will someone ever review these titles? Call the Games of the Olympiad "Summer Games" is not only not NPOV, but also essentially wrong. There is no such "summer" sports/games, the term only makes sense informally, and when opposed to "winter sports" which are in fact seasonal/climate-related sports. The term should be banned from Wikipedia titles. If I were an adminstrator, I would take this task myself. Rsnetto74 (talk) 03:35, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Erroneous info in the FA

I reworded the following excerpt:"The Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci won the women's individual all around gold medal with a succession of perfect scores, thus giving birth to a gymnastics dynasty in Romania." She earned only two of four possible 10s in the all-around: see Gymnastics at the 1976 Summer Olympics. Cmapm 19:55, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

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  19:16, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Fencing Programme

The section that deals with the Bejing Olympic programme needs to be edited. Women are now allowed to compete in team competitions for both sabre and foil but NOT epee. Men are going to competing in team epee and sabre. This is applicable ONLY to the Bejing Olympics. Federation Internationale D'Escrime has decided to rotate the team competitions after each Olympic game giving each weapon a chance to compete after a certain interval. The individual events will not be affected. Please refer to this document for reference: http://www.fie.ch/download/letters/2006/urgent/09/en/decisions%20ANG.pdf

I noticed that, too, and it is also apparent in (the section that I wrote) the section on sports on the 2008 Summer games page. If someone could get around to adding a foot note to the bottom explaining this rotation process on both pages, or just fixing it up, that'd be great. Otherwise, I'll get to it eventually. → J@red  21:28, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Prisoners

I have modified this sentence:

The terrorists demanded that Israel release numerous prisoners.

to:

The terrorists demanded that Israel release numerous terrorists from prison.

While all 234 people who they demanded the release of may very well be terrorists, the label is always contentious and we need to have sufficient widespread consensus before applying it. I doubt we have that for all 234 people. As such, implying all the 234 people who they demanded the release of is against the NPOV. It's far better to just call them prisoners. It would equally be wrong to call them political prisoners for example. Just calling them prisoners is sufficiently neutral IMHO. Note that even the Munich massacre doesn't go as far as to call all the prisoners terrorists. Indeed it doesn't talk at all about the crimes of the prisoners which IMHO is the best thing. If you really feel the need to mention the crimes of the prisoners, it might be acceptable to say something like ", some of who are generally considered terrorists" or something like that. provided you can establish consensus on the crimes of these people. Wikipedia articles on a prisoner considered a terrorist would help... However if you do mention such a thing, bear in mind you open the door to people establishing a consensus that the some of the prisoners imprisonment may very well have been injust in which case you'd also have to mention that as well. Personally, I see it as unnecessary. You don't need to know about the crimes (or lack of said crimes) of the prisoners to establish that the action of the Munich terrorists was very wrong. And if you really feel the need to go in to detail on the crimes of any prisoners, the best place would surely be in the main article, not this brief summary here... Nil Einne 15:30, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm slightly confused. Do you mean to say you modified it to "release numerous prisoners" from "release numerous terrorists from prison"? That would seem to jive more with your explanation, which I completely agree with. -- Jonel | Speak 22:12, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Hockey and field hockey

Subject to this topic, all the article which listed as hockey were changed to field hockey. However, after i checked IOC page, it shown "Hockey", [2] FIH official website always called it as hockey and not "field hockey". So, because IOC listed as Hockey as well as FIH, the official name should be hockey, why is field hockey? I know that is another hockey call Ice hockey but also, IOC named it as Ice Hockey [3], so no clash about the name, if someone agree my point, i move soon. Thanks --Aleenf1

Why would the French name of FIH be "...Hockey sur Gazon," literally translating as "Field Hockey" if they refer to the sport just as "hockey?" That doesn't make sense. → JARED ^(t)  17:42, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

According to the FIH statutes and bye-laws, the official name of the federation is the International Hockey Federation, and its initials are "FIH".

There are currently 116 member association of the FIH. The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) has 65 members.

The wikipedia entry on hockey notes that "the dominant version of hockey in a particular region tends to be known simply as hockey, other forms being more fully qualified." Looking at things globally, the FIH seems to have the upper hand in terms of membership and global reach, which suggests that when describing a global event like the Olympic Games, "hockey" could be used to describe "field hockey" with "ice hockey" retaining the qualifier. This would also, as Aleen points out, bring the article into line with the IOC terminology. (Much as it pains me, as a Canadian, to say that.) Eron 17:58, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Comment

I don't mean to be nitpicky, but the first Summer Olympic Games of the new millennium actually took place in Athens, not Sydney. 2000 was the final year of the last millennium (1001-2000).Politician818 01:43, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Summer/Winter

It should be noted somewhere that some countries dont use the term "Olympic 'Summer' Games"; tropical countries have virtually no interest/athletes/competitions in so called 'Winter' sports, thus calling the "Olympic 'summer' Games" just Olympic Games.201.53.56.134 19:56, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Simmilarly in this note, as the first Winter Olympic Games were held in 1924, were the games held befor this really 'Summer Olympic Games' or not? After all there were sports in these programs (Ice Hockey and Figure Skating) which are now winter sports. TJ 26 01 08 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.144.151.135 (talk) 13:22, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I have commented twice on this issue above (Why call it summer). The term "Summer Olympics" is simply inappropriate and reflects a regional bias. It is never used in official terms. But it seems the Wikipedia administrators are not aware of (or worried about) this. Rsnetto74 (talk) 03:45, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Why is it called the Summer Olympics? Look its the Olympic Games (full stop) and the Winter Olympics 81.156.2.196 (talk) 23:17, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Participating countries

There should be a list indicating in what year each country joined the Olympics. If there is a list please tell me.--F3rn4nd0 ^{(Roger - Out)} 01:25, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Questionable statement

The statement "On the bright side, drug testing and regulation authorities were catching up with the cheating that had been endemic in athletics for some years" is not particularly helpful to the topic nor is it objective, at least to me anyway. Should the statement be edited or removed? (Psychoneko (talk) 02:06, 4 April 2008 (UTC))

Vandalism by 69.38.75.237 on 17:49, 16 April 2008

I undid the edits to the previous version by Martin451, the vandalism was created by 69.38.75.237 and also, I believe, 168.216.221.169. Silica-gel (talk) 18:40, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

16 Days

Is it worth mentioning

• that the length of the Games is fixed at 16 days (with the Opening Ceremony on the evening of Day 0 and the Closing Ceremony on the evening of Day 16)? cf:
  • 16 Days of Glory
  • [4] "The 1932 Olympics were the first to last 16 days. The duration of the Olympics has remained between 15 and 18 days ever since. Between 1900 and 1928, no Summer Olympics was shorter than 79 days.",
  • [5] "It was agreed that the current number of 16 days of competition should be confirmed for the future Olympic Programme."
• that since at least 1992, the Olympic football tournament (and possibly other events?) has started before the opening ceremony?

jnestorius^(talk) 10:50, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

What countries attended all of the summer Olympics - article disagrees with itself

From the lead:

Five countries - Australia, France, Great Britain, Greece and Switzerland - have sent teams to every single Summer Olympic Games.

From a later paragraph:

Notably, Greece, Great Britain and Australia did not withdraw, and remain the only nations to have competed in all summer games.

The articles France at the 1980 Summer Olympics and Switzerland at the 1980 Summer Olympics state that both those countries competed, but that to show support of the American-led boycott they did so under the Olympic Flage rather than their national flags. However, as the article 1980 Summer Olympics shows, thirteen other countries did the same, including Australia and Great Britain. All this to say, the later paragraph is wrong - or at least incomplete. I'll remove it. -Eron^Talk 20:28, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Spelling fixes

Just ran through and fixed a bunch of spelling errors. 68.102.180.134 (talk) 08:04, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

List of Nations finishing at the top of the medals tables

This list has been removed twice, but I don't really understand why. The first reason given was "There is no Olympic games "winner", the IOC does not officially recognize medal counts", and so I replaced the list, rephrasing it to remove the word "winners"; it was then removed again, the reason given was "Removed winners list. It is original research and goes against the IOC because there is no winner of the games.". The list no longer claimed to show "winners", so I don't see what the problem is; it simply summarises the medals tables shown on other Wikipedia pages for the individual Olympiads. The same information is available elsewhere on Wikipedia, this simply put it all in one place. If this table is to be removed because "the IOC does not officially recognize medal counts", then why are all the other medals tables not removed too? Lukens (talk) 13:50, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it would be handy to have a single list showing the top medal-winning countries - that is the sort of thing people like to see. While it is arguably original research, as it is synthesizing material from another source into a new table, it is no worse than many of our other Olympic-related lists (e.g. List of multiple Olympic gold medalists) and just as useful. That said, I am not sure that it needs to be included in this article; why not create a new article for it? - Eron^Talk 14:01, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Just put a disclaimer that the IOC does not recognizes Medal Ranking by Country, because they really don't. They do not put this in the Olympic Record Books. What they put are individual records like Phelps 8 Gold medal in one Olympics etc etc. Olympics is all about Individual Achievements and NOT by Nation, and it has always been like that since the the creation of Modern Olympics. I guess the real interest in this tallies started when the Soviet Union joined for the first time in 1952.68.127.152.38 (talk) 04:34, 23 August 2008 (UTC)