Реферат: Olympic Games Essay Research Paper

decision led to decades of boycott by the government of mainland China, which

did not send a team to the Olympics until the Lake Placid Games in 1980. Another

political issue arose in 1949, because of the formal political division of

Germany that year into East Germany and West Germany. This division created the

question of whether there was to be one German team or two. The IOC tried to

solve this problem by insisting on a combined German team. Negotiations lasted

several years, and this solution was first tested at the Melbourne Games in

1956; it lasted until the Munich Games in 1972, for which two teams were formed.

There continued to be two German teams until 1992, by which time the countries

had reunited. The IOC also had to cope with racial segregation in South Africa.

The IOC voted in 1968 to exclude the South African team from Olympic competition

in order to bring pressure on the government to give up its policy of apartheid.

The South Africans were not readmitted until the Barcelona Games in 1992-by

which time apartheid had been discontinued. Violence has also occurred at the

Olympic Games. In the midst of the 1972 Munich Games, the Olympic movement

experienced its most tragic hour. A band of Palestinian terrorists made their

way into the Olympic village, murdered two members of the Israeli team, and took

nine hostages. When the IOC, meeting in emergency session, learned that a

gunfight had broken out and that all nine hostages were dead, along with five of

the terrorists, the Games were suspended for a day. The IOC’s controversial

decision to resume the Games that year was endorsed by the Israeli government.

Having survived a century of warfare and political turmoil, the Olympic Games

have become very successful in recent years, gaining more popularity and

generating more money than ever before. A great deal of this popularity and

wealth is due to the development of satellite communications and global

telecasts. Not only can more and more people see the Games, but the opportunity

developed to sell television rights to the Games for hundreds of millions of

dollars. With their share of this income, organizing committees can now stage

spectacular Games without fear of the huge indebtedness incurred by Montreal’s