2024 SUMMER OLYMPICS

Anyone watch yesterday's opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics?  This is the first time it was held outside a stadium. 

Photo I took of USA in Boat Parade

The thought of our world nations gathering together, put me in research mode for today's blog.  Here are some tid-bits about the Olympic Games.

• 
  The Olympic Flag has 5 intertwined rings on a white background.  The 5-linked rings symbolize the unity and solidarity of the continents of Africa, America (North and South), Asia, Oceania and Europe.  (In most non-English-speaking countries, Oceania is treated as a continent in the sense that it is one of the parts of the world, and Australia is seen as an island nation.)  The ring colors on the white background represent the nations of the world.  Every country in the world has at least one of these colors on their flag (might be a different shade).  The colors are from left to right:  blue, yellow, black, green and red.
  
• In the opening ceremony, the athlete procession is always led by the Greeks and ended by the host team.  The others go in alphabetical order as labeled by the host country's language.
• The Paris Olympic Opening Ceremony took place along the Seine River, with more than 6000 athletes on the water, 3000 dancers and comedians along the river banks and bridges, with famous Paris monuments as a backdrop.  A parade of 85 boats transported the athletes.  
• Games Wide Open is the motto of the 2024 Summer Olympics.  It relates to delivering Games that are more responsible, more inclusive, more equal and more spectacular than ever before.  The opening parade was in keeping with this theme.

• 

  Phrygian Caps

  The Phrygian Cap (pronounced FRIH-jee-un) is the mascot for Paris 2024.  The Phrygian Cap is a symbol of freedom and has been part of French history since ancient times.
• The games were originally held to honor the god Zeus.  The gods played a great part in ancient Greek society, and the Olympics came from a festival that was originally organized to honor Zeus.
• The last time gold medals were made entirely of gold was in 1904.  Now they're made of silver and finished with gold.  In ancient times, the winning athletes were awarded with an olive wreath.  The leaves and olives in the wreath were taken from a sacred tree by the temple of Zeus at Olympia.  This made the prize all the more important and precious to the Greeks.  
• The games were held every four years, or Olympiad, which became a unit of time in historical chronologies.  The originating Olympic Games are dated back to 776 BC in Ancient Greece.  The Games were named for their location at Olympia, a sacred site in southern Greece.
• 
  Every 2 years the Olympic flame is lit at Olympia before going to the host nation.  The host nation then displays the flame around the country before it is used to light the Olympic Cauldron at the opening ceremony. 
  
• There were no team sports at the ancient Olympics.  The games initially started as short foot races to keep men fit for war.  Greek men actually ran these races naked.  

Think I'll stop here to allow that last image to soak in.