The Olympics — History Reading Comprehension Lesson

Reading Passage

The Olympics

The Olympic Games are the world’s largest international athletic competition, bringing together athletes from more than 200 nations every four years to compete in dozens of sports. The Games take their name from Olympia, a sacred site in ancient Greece, where athletic competitions were held in honor of the god Zeus beginning around 776 BC. The ancient Olympics were held every four years — a period the Greeks called an ‘Olympiad’ — and were so important that warring Greek city-states would observe a sacred truce to allow athletes and spectators to travel safely. The Games included running, wrestling, boxing, chariot racing, and the pentathlon.

The ancient Olympic Games continued for more than a thousand years before being abolished by Roman Emperor Theodosius I in 393 AD, who viewed them as a pagan festival incompatible with Christianity. For fifteen centuries, the Games were forgotten. Then, in the late 19th century, a French educator named Pierre de Coubertin became convinced that international athletic competition could promote peace and understanding among nations. He worked to revive the Olympics and organized the first modern Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, in 1896. Fourteen nations sent 241 athletes — all male — who competed in 43 events.

The modern Olympics grew rapidly. Women were first allowed to compete in 1900 at the Paris Games. The Winter Olympics — featuring ice and snow sports — were added in 1924. The Games were suspended during World War I (1916) and World War II (1940 and 1944). Politics have sometimes intruded: the United States led a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; the Soviet Union boycotted the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics in retaliation. The 1972 Munich Games were marred by a terrorist attack in which 11 Israeli athletes and coaches were killed by Palestinian militants.

The Olympic motto is Citius, Altius, Fortius — Latin for ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger.’ The five interlocking rings on the Olympic flag represent the five inhabited continents of the world joined by the Olympic movement. The Olympic torch relay — in which a flame lit in Olympia, Greece, is carried by relay runners to the host city — has been a tradition since 1936. The Olympic Games have produced legendary athletes: Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics in front of Adolf Hitler; swimmer Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time with 28 medals; and gymnast Simone Biles, widely considered the greatest gymnast in history.

Today the Summer Olympics feature more than 300 events in more than 30 sports, and the Winter Olympics include about 100 events. Paralympic Games for athletes with disabilities are held in the same host cities immediately after each Olympic Games. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) selects host cities through a competitive bidding process, and hosting the Games is a source of enormous national pride — and significant logistical and financial challenge. Despite the pressures and politics that sometimes surround them, the Olympic Games remain a powerful symbol of human athletic achievement and international cooperation.

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