A wartime olympics?: geopolitical tensions, international ambition, and IOC’s vision at Paris 2024

Daily practice shows that educators, teachers, and children find it interesting to jointly organize sports events and competitions that they call "small Olympics, athletic Olympics - in the world of competition and the like". For example, similar to this was the final event of preschoolers in the primary school "Mladost" from Belgrade in June 2023. It is interesting to emphasize that before the new era, the Olympiads represented a unit of measure of 4 years between two Olympic Games. The Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games will be held in Paris in 2024. This paper is intended, primarily for those who are interested in the Olympic Games as the largest sports competition in the world, which is held every four years. In this paper, all members of one family can find something interesting, both the youngest and the oldest. The purpose of this paper is to acquaint readers of different ages with the origin of the Olympic Games, both ancient (Olympia before the new era) and these modern (renewed) ones that were created inspired by the ancient Olympic Games. This paper can serve as a good starting point, primarily for educators, but also for teachers, for planning project and teaching activities on the topic of the Olympic Games, sports competitions, mythology, winter and summer sports, Paralympic competitions, various symbols that are dominant before some planetary events in the near future such as the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024, as well as nations, continents and cities that at least briefly unite the idea of the Olympic Games.

Considering the main difficulties in training track and field athletes for the national team: the country is in a state of war, many sports facilities have been destroyed or become unusable, the main funds go to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the military-industrial complex of Ukraine. Under these conditions, the preparation of the Ukrainian national team athletes for the Games in Paris had certain difficulties in the system of organizing the training process, the conditions and venue of the training process, as well as in recruiting the team with athletes who had to show the Olympic standard during the selection, which gives the opportunity to perform at the Games. Considering the above-mentioned prerequisites for the preparation of athletes of the Ukrainian national team in athletics for the Olympic Games, which are shown in the article, it should be noted that the main qualitative components of the effectiveness of the performances of athletes of the national teams are the methodologically correct approach of the personal trainers of the athletes, who in their majority showed practically their best sports results at the Games, which indicates the correctness of the influence of the national team coaches on both the personal trainers of the athletes and the athletes themselves. The research results show that the result does not depend on the quantitative composition of the team of athletes, but on the quality of knowledge and skills and understanding of the situational situation of both the coaches and the athletes in which Ukraine finds itself, whose honor they defended at the Olympic Games in Paris.

Sport has historically played a significant role in spreading positive values and connecting cultures and nations worldwide, but it can also be exploited for political, religious, and ideological motivations. Sporting events have become targets of terrorist attacks in recent years. Terrorists and extremist groups may use sports events as means to propagate their ideologies or to attract attention through acts of terrorism. The threat of attacks during sporting events poses a serious risk to the security of the civilian population and, consequently, a significant challenge for its protection. The most notable sporting event in 2024 will be the Summer Olympic Games in Paris. France has experienced the highest number of terrorist attacks in Europe, making the Olympics a major security concern. The study analyzes terrorists' strategies related to attacks on sports events and potential attack scenarios at the 2024 Olympic Games. The insights gained can contribute to strengthening the security of sporting events and the protection of participants and spectators against potential threats.

In this article, the authors research the legal aspects of ensuring the State security of Ukraine with the help of artificial intelligence, taking into account the experience of the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024. The relevance of the research is due to the growing challenges to the use of artificial intelligence in public life and the need to respect the right to privacy. It is established that after lengthy discussions, the technology of face recognition using artificial intelligence was not introduced at the Olympic Games in Paris. It is substantiated that the main areas for improving the current regulatory framework in Ukraine for the use of artificial intelligence and ensuring the privacy of citizens and avoiding possible human rights violations are as follows: in the context of the introduction of face recognition technology, it is important to have detailed rules governing the scope and application of measures, as well as reliable safeguards against the risk of abuse and arbitrariness (the need for legal safeguards is much greater when it comes to the use of real-time face recognition technology); the processing of personal data in the application of face recognition technology must be justified and require a high level of justification; the use of face recognition technology for forensic identification of suspects. It is proved that when identifying real threats to the state security of Ukraine at the present stage in the context of the possible introduction of face recognition technology, it is important to have detailed rules governing the scope and application of measures, as well as reliable guarantees against the risk of abuse and arbitrariness. The inevitable need for legal guarantees for the implementation and protection of citizens’ privacy, especially when it comes to the use of real-time face recognition technology, is derived from the content of the State Security Strategy.

IntroductionAmong the 43 venues of Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games (OG) and 33 venues of Paralympic Games (PG) were held, the heat island effect was highly expected to cause heat-related illnesses...

Zika virus and the 2016 Olympic Games – Editors' reply

The Olympic Games have grown to be the largest, gender-equal sporting event in the world, and the International Olympic Committee is committed to gender equality in sports encouraging and supporting the promotion of women in sports at all levels and in all structures with a view to implementing the principle of equality of men and women (IOC, 2023). Women competed for the first time at the 1900 Olympic Games in Paris, and the number of women competing has grown exponentially over the last 100 years, so an estimated 5494 female athletes (48 %) competed in the Summer Olympic Games 2021 in Tokyo. Supporting women (alongside men) in achieving optimum performance is crucial, and understanding that there are sex and gender gaps in sports nutrition research is important. One reason for this gap is the historical bias in sports and exercise science research towards male participants. This has led to a poor understanding of the unique physiological and nutritional needs of female athletes. In summary, a balanced approach is crucial to address the nutritional needs of both male and female athletes. Researchers should continue exploring this important area to optimise performance and health for all athletes. The aim of this review is to summarise current sports nutrition literature and highlight research that seeks to understand and address where the gaps are with respect to several key areas in sports nutrition recommendations that can impact advice and practice with both males and females.

According to the view point of the peaceful philosophy of Olympism, it is one of the very important tasks to examine how the peace movements were developed on the occasion of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, especially in relation to the global torch relay and the UN Olympic Truce Resolution. The purpose of this study is to clarify the validity and problems of these peace movements of the 2008 Beijing Games.1. The Olympic Truce Resolution by the General Assembly of United Nations was approved as usual, and the appeal for the observance of this resolution was proclaimed by the Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon on the occasion of the 2008 Beijing Games. Nevertheless, the resolution was not observed again, because of the outbreak of the Georgia conflict on the day of the opening ceremony, the on-going Iraqi war, and so on.2. The global torch relay of the Beijing Games could not play an important role as the messenger for the transmission of the world peace, because it met route changes and the restriction on the torch viewers in some cities, mostly due to conflicts between the anti-Chinese movement and the advocates of free Tibetans against the sacred fire defense runners supplied by the Chinese Government.3. The International Olympic Truce Center had the artistic exhibition, “From Ancient Olympia to Beijing: Greek and Chinese artists discuss truce, fair play, war and peace” at the Hellenic House in central Beijing, and placed the signature board for the approval of the Olympic Truce at the Olympic Village as the joint peace movement of the IOC and BOCOG.4. As to the peace appeal at the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Games, several activities took place including: the Olympic Truce appeal by the secretary-general of the UN, Ban Kimoon was mentioned, doves were symbolically released, the appearance of children's smiles of the whole world were broadcast, and so on. Though these performances were well known in recent opening ceremonies, they were overshadowed by the impressive performances of the historical and pictorial aspects of Chinese culture at the Opening Ceremony.5. As for actual international politics, the resolution of the “Olympic Truce” was not observed again, and the outbreak of the Georgia conflict, continuous Iraqi war, the war in Afghanistan, and the trouble in Tibet and Uighur still remained. The IOC could not operate any strategies to address these international problems, and the UN only appealed to countries to keep the observance of the Olympic Truce resolution.In order to develop these peace movements effectively according to the lofty peace ideal, a more advanced strategy would be needed by the critical organizations including the IOC and the UN. It would be probably necessary that the peace movement be formally linked with Olympism and be recognized more deeply. To help accomplish this, activities to publicize the peace movement and Olympic Education should be supported by the mass media. Especially, expecting the effective execution of the Olympic Truce, it would be necessary for the IOC to adapt more strict decisions so that it would be able to bar from the Olympic Village those countries and districts which would not observe the resolution, or even to refuse those NOCs to participate in the next Olympic Games. Nevertheless, this last suggestion is actually a very big issue to consider since, for example, the IOC would currently have to reject the USA which is one of the countries at the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will be a very important task for the IOC, UN and the peace movement organization to be able to enhance their influence in this 21st century.

In the period between the two world wars, the Sokol movement played an important role in the physical culture of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In order to further develop the Sokol movement, King Alexander donated a sword as a transitional prize for the most successful Sokol team in certain national competitions. The competitions for the Sword of King Alexander took place in 1925, 1930, 1933, 1937 and 1939. The most successful team in all competitions for the Sword of King Alexander was the team of Sokol movement of Ljubljana. Their high quality was confirmed by numerous successes as members of the Yugoslav national team. As members of the Sokol Society of Ljubljana, the winners of the Sword of King Alexander helped to represent the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in gymnastics. They helped the team to a silver medal in the all-around event at the World Championships in Ljubljana in 1922, a fourth place in the team event at the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris; a silver medal in the team competition at the 1926 World Championships in Lyon, a bronze medal in the team event at the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam, a bronze medal in the team event at the 1930 World Championships in Luxembourg, a sixth place in the team event at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin and a bronze medal in the team event at the 1938 World Championships in Prague. The competitions for the transitional award "Sword of King Alexander I" contributed significantly to the development of the Sokol movement, sports gymnastics and physical culture in general in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes/Yugoslavia.

Why did we reinstate the Olympic Games? Coubertin asked himself, "To ennoble and strengthen sports, to ensure their independence and vitality and thus make them capable of better fulfilling their educational role in the modern world. For the glorification of the individual athlete, whose existence is necessary for the muscular activity of the collective and whose performances are indispensable for maintaining the general emulation." Olympism is neither a religion, nor an ideology, nor a political doctrine, nor a socio-economic system . It is a state of mind, a value of life. A vision of man: "A school of nobility and moral purity", a school of character; the cult of the disinterested ideal, the effort to raise our conception of honor and dignity to the altitude of physical vigor. Olympism encourages the establishment of relationships of respect and friendship between people, in order to strengthen peace and understanding between peoples. Can it be a nobler ideal? Unfortunately, sports sometimes have a tendency to get out of control. Violence in many stadiums has become a problem today. Complications of all kinds in international life affect sports competitions, which become a field of confrontation and a reason for crisis. Victory or defeat become causes with which entire communities identify, going up to the national level. The stadiums look more like volcano craters in full eruption; firecrackers are thrown, the decibels increase breaking the eardrums, there are fights that are difficult to moderate by the law enforcement officers; tribunes are set on fire or destroyed, streets become scenes of fights, people live nightmares. Olympism can penetrate the younger minds, can influence the behavior of students, establishing itself along with other social components as an educational factor, if the actions to promote and understand the Olympic spirit, would become a constant concern of physical education teachers. Starting from these premises, the objective of the research was to carry out a number of four activities, through which to promote the Olympic spirit in the municipality of Bacău, with the support of the Bacău Branch of the Romanian Olympic Academy, the County School Inspectorate, the Traffic Police of the municipality of Bacău, as well as the Sports Directorate of Bacău County. The methods used in the research were the following: the method of studying the specialized bibliography, the historical method, the survey method and the mathematical statistical method of data recording and processing. The proposed actions to achieve the proposed objective, respectively: The establishment of Olympic Circles in schools, the Literature and Journalism Competition - " A pen called fair - play", The painting competition - "Olympic Games in children's imagination", the theoretical knowledge competition "Who knows Olympism, wins", and the Cross-Country of the Olympic day, that have respected the registration and implementation regulations of the Romanian Olympic Academy. Following the study carried out, we can state that the objective was achieved by obtaining results on the basis of which we formulated the following conclusions: the dynamism of the existing Olympic circles and the establishment of four new Olympic circles in schools, had the first effect of engaging a number of 115 students in the organized actions. The literature contest - "A pen called fair-play", was an action in which 85 students from schools in the municipality of Bacău participated. Organized by three age categories, the works of the participating students were corrected by Romanian language teachers (Specialist inspectors from ISJ Bacău). The theoretical knowledge contest "Who knows Olympism, wins", involved four educational units, by designating a crew made up of five students, who possess a good and very good general culture. This presupposed, on the one hand, the holding of competitions at school level, in order to select the best students, and on the other hand, the determination of a large number of teaching staff (not necessarily physical education) to get involved in the Olympic activity. The Olympic cross-country race held on May 28, 2023, gathered at the start over 550 students, from all the schools and high schools in the city, and only. We also believe that we have managed to change the idea that Olympism only means sport and we propose to transform this initiative into a priority activity for the year 2024, especially since the holding of the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024 could constitute an important adjunct to our efforts.

With the recent Olympic Games in Paris 2024 coming to an end, the status of women is becoming more and more significant, with the ratio of male and female athletes competing reaching 1:1. Meanwhile, even after reaching gender parity, the female perspectives in the Olympics is still lacking. This paper will analyze the history of women’s struggle to participate in the Olympic Games as a starting point, by using literature research method, the final results show that: although women’s power is gradually displayed in the audience’s vision, they are still facing many difficulties in the sports arena. At the same time, it needs to be admitted that the Olympic Games do provide a way for women to show their power, and to some extent, bring benefits to women. However, the restrictions wrapped up in these benefits have always had a component that full of male gaze, involving the categories of dressing and career planning.

The fact that the Romanian national rugby team participated in the Olympic Games in Paris 1924 is widely known, mentioned only in the brief remarks of participants of the games. Therefore, the circumstances of Romania’s participation in the 1924 Olympic Games, the efforts to create a national team that was sent to Paris, the significance of the Romanian presence in this competition requires a deeper evaluation. Over time, this moment has become one of the most important points of reference for Romanian Rugby and the Romanian sports movement due to the bronze medals won by the Romanian rugby team. But the relevance of these medals was different in the interwar period compared to what was assigned to them later and today. This situation can be explained in the historical context and terms of the re-evaluation in Romania of the interwar Olympic Games.

Every year more and more new sports appear in the world, which are rapidly developing and becoming popular. Among them is beach handball. Due to its spectacularity, it attracts more and more people and arouses great interest around the world. Scientific research is necessary for its development, as it is an under-researched sport, although the number of studies has recently increased. The purpose of the study. To study the history of origin and prospects of development of beach handball. Research methods: in accordance with the purpose of the study, the methods of theoretical analysis and generalization of scientific and methodological literature and information resources of the Internet were used. Results of the research and their discussion. The first idea about the creation of beach handball arose in the Italian Olympic committee in 1990, which tried to create a kind of handball on the sand, based on the success of beach volleyball. On June 20, 1992, beach handball was first played on Isola di Ponza, a small island in southern Italy. The idea of beach handball as a sport was realized gradually, over many years, by players and coaches. A huge step in the development of the discipline was the participation of beach handball in the Youth Olympic Games in 2018 in Buenos Aires (Argentina). And this year, beach handball made its debut at the Summer Games in Paris, where the world stars of the sport were present within the framework of an exhibition event. Conclusions. Beach handball originates from classic handball. Today, beach handball is represented at almost all sporting events of global importance, which indicates the growing popularity of the sport in the world. The main goal is to be in the official program at the Olympic Games and become an Olympic sport.

BackgroundThe Olympic Games are an example of a mass gathering that involves a complex and large crowd composition, with a large number of illnesses and injuries occurring at previous Olympic Games, and the Olympic Games also becoming a target for terrorist attacks.ObjectiveWith the help of mass-gathering medicine as a guide, this study aims to critically summarize and analyze the state of illness, injury, and terrorism during the Olympic Games in order to reduce the incidence of illnesses and injuries in crowds and to offer lessons for the organization of major international sporting events such as the Olympics.MethodsThe procedure for this scoping review followed the 5-step methodological framework of Arksey and O’Malley. We searched electronic databases such as PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus. We extracted, summarized, and categorized general information on each study, game characteristics, illness and injury profiles, terrorism characteristics, preventive measures, and surveillance paradigms.ResultsWe conducted a database search and retrieved a total of 9587 studies on 2 occasions. After removing duplicates and screening, we included 120 studies. Only 12 studies on the Summer, Winter, and Paralympic Games published before 2000, and 108 studies from 2000 onward, comprise the 120 studies, marking an unprecedented number of studies in this field of research, particularly in recent times. Of the 120 studies, 80 were illness-related, 81 were injury-related, and 2 were terrorism-related. Nine studies explicitly assessed body parts, including shoulders, feet, and dentistry; 26 studies specifically investigated certain illnesses and injuries, such as COVID-19 disease, heat-related illnesses, and concussions. Of the 120 research studies, 18 specifically analyzed sports such as gymnastics and weight lifting, with 11 studies focusing especially on COVID-19 disease. The most studied games were the Tokyo 2021 Olympic or Paralympic Games, the London 2012 Olympic or Paralympic Games, and the Rio 2016 Olympic or Paralympic Games. The system of injury and illness surveillance in the Olympic Games goes through 3 stages of development: the first trial of information technology, the construction of networks, and the enhancement of intelligence.ConclusionsA critical summary of studies of illness, injury, and terrorist attacks at previous Olympic Games is important for injury and terrorism prevention at major sporting events such as the Olympic Games. Surveillance methods require improvements in surveillance technology, data sharing, and privacy protection.

This paper explores if and how Ekecheiria, or Olympic Truce, can contribute to the development of a global culture of peace. Olympic Truce was the basis for the Olympic Games in ancient times. In a period of constant war, it became necessary for Greece to establish the Ekecheiria, or truce, to ensure that competition would take place under conditions of fairness and the order of administered rules. This paper examines two modern case studies, one of the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympic Games and the other of the OLOS Foundation in Italy, to examine the role the ancient Olympic Truce plays in contemporary diplomatic relations. It is argued that the first case study offers an example of the Olympic Truce's application in Mary Kaldor's theoretical old war, whereas the second case study points towards how the Olympic Truce could potentially open a robust peacekeeping theater for the United Nations.