Olympic Motto Research Articles

Analysis of sports records evolution and limits based on integrated features

Sports records play a crucial role in understanding the limits of human achievement in sports. However, a thorough exploration of a comprehensive analysis of various sports records utilizing the existing statistical model has been lacking. This study introduces a framework for analyzing the integrated features and evolutionary trends of 23 sports records for men and women. It includes world records and intercontinental records from six continents, covering 6440 athletes from 2001 to 2020. Our findings indicate that human beings have not yet reached sports limits in athletic performance, suggesting a continuous improvement over time. Furthermore, we have investigated the contributions of our model’s parameters to the integrated features, emphasizing their robustness and convergence in handling data flow and information entropy. Additionally, our model underscores the significance of integrating various sports for ongoing advancement, in line with the Olympic motto “Together,” thereby promoting coordinated development.

Life from the Crisis: The Value of the Times and the Path to Realization of the New Olympic Motto

Life from the Crisis: The Value of the Times and the Path to Realization of the New Olympic Motto

EDITORIAL

Dear friends,
 
 We are all eagerly waiting the Olympic Games in Tokyo. In the meantime, you can enjoy our first issue of Science of Gymnastics Journal this year. We have entered the thirteenth year of publication. Let’s hope this number will bring us good luck!
 
 In this issue we have many interesting articles. The first is by William Sands and his colleagues. They tried to answer the big question whether gymnastics is rising or sinking. It opens questions we need to consider, including whether to pursue the Olympic motto Faster, Higher, Stronger or perhaps “a healthy mind in a healthy body” is a worthy goal too.
 
 There is a wide spectrum of other important research projects that our authors from many different parts of the world contributed. We are proud of our diversity and the range our authors cover.
 
 We also have a small anniversary, i.e., this issue presents Anton Gajdoš’s 20th short historical note, introducing two German gymnasts, Alfred Schwarzmann (Olympic all-around champion ) and Walter Stefans, who were both members of the winning team at the OG in Berlin 1936.
 
 From our June issue onward, we will add a DOI number to each article as the University of Ljubljana and our Faculty of Sport have been authorized to generate DOI.
 
 We strongly recommend all authors to use Grammarly or Instatext (you can find them using any search engine on the internet) before sending their manuscript to the editor. Both tools are free and can improve your writing.
 
 Just a reminder that if you cite the journal, its abbreviation in the Web of Knowledge is SCI GYMN J.
 
 I wish you enjoyable reading and many ideas for new research projects and articles,

The Olympic motto through the lens of equestrian sports.

The Olympic motto through the lens of equestrian sports.

Passing on the exercise baton: What can endocrine patients learn from elite athletes?

As elite athletes demonstrate through the Olympic motto ‘Citius, Altius, Fortius‐ Communiter’, new performance records are driven forward by favourable skeletal muscle bioenergetics, cardiorespiratory, and endocrine system adaptations. At a recreational level, regular physical activity is an effective nonpharmacological therapy in the treatment of many endocrine conditions. However, the impact of physical exercise on endocrine function and how best to incorporate exercise therapy into clinical care are not well understood. Beyond the pursuit of an Olympic medal, elite athletes may therefore serve as role models for showcasing how exercise can help in the management of endocrine disorders and improve metabolic dysfunction. This review summarizes research evidence for clinicians who wish to understand endocrine changes in athletes who already perform high levels of activity as well as to encourage patients to exercise more safely. Herein, we detail the upper limits of athleticism to showcase the adaptability of human endocrine‐metabolic‐physiological systems. Then, we describe the growing research base that advocates the importance of understanding maladaptation to physical training and nutrition in males and females; especially the young. Finally, we explore the impact of physical activity in improving some endocrine disorders with guidance on how lessons can be taken from athletes training and incorporated into strategies to move more people more often.

Stillness to rescue the Olympic Movement: exploring opportunities in the postponement of Tokyo 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the decision of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to postpone the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, which is an unprecedented decision that is bringing about colossal challenges to every institutional stakeholder in the Olympic System. The IOC has launched a robust taskforce to assess the reach and impact of the postponement, and provide guidance to adapt the project of the Games to a new timeline, which is addressing the logistical, managerial and financial aspects of this endeavor. This paper, however, aims to approach this unprecedented challenge from a perspective that privileges the opportunities it creates to shift the course of the Olympic Movement towards a better alignment with Olympic ideals, based on some recommendations of Agenda 2020 as well. References 1 IOC. Olympic Charter [cited 13 Apr 2020]. Available at: https://bit.ly/30vBIEQ. 2 IOC. Olympic Motto [cited 13 Apr 2020]. Available at: https://www.olympic.org/the-olympic-motto. 3 IOC. Tokyo 2020, Here We Go: New Dates, Same Commitment [cited 13 Apr 2020]. Available at: https://www.olympic.org/news/tokyo-2020-here-we-go-new-dates-same-commitment. 4 Morgan L. Athletes asked for preference on new dates for 2021 FINA World Championships [cited 13 Apr 2020]. Inside the Games; 2020. Available at: https://www. insidethegames.biz/articles/1092846/fina-athlete-committee-survey-2021. 5 Reid HL. Why Olympia matters for modern sport. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport. 2017; 44(2): 159-173. 6 Coubertin P. The Olympic idea. Discourses and Essays. Schorndorf: Hofmann; 1967. 7 AWAKE! The Olympics?—Where Are They Headed? [cited 13 Apr 2020]. Awake!; 1977. Available at: https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/101977081#h=4.

New strategies in sport nutrition to increase exercise performance

Despite over 50 years of research, the field of sports nutrition continues to grow at a rapid rate. Whilst the traditional research focus was one that centred on strategies to maximise competition performance, emerging data in the last decade has demonstrated how both macronutrient and micronutrient availability can play a prominent role in regulating those cell signalling pathways that modulate skeletal muscle adaptations to endurance and resistance training. Nonetheless, in the context of exercise performance, it is clear that carbohydrate (but not fat) still remains king and that carefully chosen ergogenic aids (e.g. caffeine, creatine, sodium bicarbonate, beta-alanine, nitrates) can all promote performance in the correct exercise setting. In relation to exercise training, however, it is now thought that strategic periods of reduced carbohydrate and elevated dietary protein intake may enhance training adaptations whereas high carbohydrate availability and antioxidant supplementation may actually attenuate training adaptation. Emerging evidence also suggests that vitamin D may play a regulatory role in muscle regeneration and subsequent hypertrophy following damaging forms of exercise. Finally, novel compounds (albeit largely examined in rodent models) such as epicatechins, nicotinamide riboside, resveratrol, β-hydroxy β-methylbutyrate, phosphatidic acid and ursolic acid may also promote or attenuate skeletal muscle adaptations to endurance and strength training. When taken together, it is clear that sports nutrition is very much at the heart of the Olympic motto, Citius, Altius, Fortius (faster, higher, stronger).

Coubertin’s humanism facing post-humanism – implications for the future of the Olympic Games

The idea of human perfection and progress, expressed by the Olympic motto swifter, higher, stronger, one of the core concepts of Coubertin’s humanism, will probably foster all kinds of performance enhancement and sooner or later engender post-human athletes. The ideal of harmonious education that had a moderating effect on the ambition of permanent progress was more or less abandoned when the IOC had definitely to choose between what Coubertin called the market and the temple. Since then, the moral discourse on doping has replaced the discourse on amateurism/professionalism. But the quixotic anti-doping fight will perhaps end like the combat against professionalism as the doping issue seems to be an aporia. The rapid progress and convergence of the so-called NBIC technologies and sciences (nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science) will help to create numerous and powerful tools and methods that will allow enhancing human (sport-) performances and probably even transform human evolution. Sooner or later, the IOC will face the problem of athletes who could be characterized as cyborgs or post-humans in the sport arenas. To prepare this future, the IOC needs visions for the mid and long term to lead the Olympic movement in a proactive manner.

The future of forensic DNA analysis.

The author's thoughts and opinions on where the field of forensic DNA testing is headed for the next decade are provided in the context of where the field has come over the past 30 years. Similar to the Olympic motto of 'faster, higher, stronger', forensic DNA protocols can be expected to become more rapid and sensitive and provide stronger investigative potential. New short tandem repeat (STR) loci have expanded the core set of genetic markers used for human identification in Europe and the USA. Rapid DNA testing is on the verge of enabling new applications. Next-generation sequencing has the potential to provide greater depth of coverage for information on STR alleles. Familial DNA searching has expanded capabilities of DNA databases in parts of the world where it is allowed. Challenges and opportunities that will impact the future of forensic DNA are explored including the need for education and training to improve interpretation of complex DNA profiles.

Barbed Olympic Motto

Although there are many positive meanings in the Olympic motto, its improper use and understanding will also lead to some negative effects. It makes sports that build our body become seeds that corrode the health of athletes. Excessive compliance with its value ethics will result in positive deviation of athletes, and a variety of tides to set up records in the society and may ignore the rights of survival of the weak. As a matter of fact, the Olympic motto itself is not a problem. The problem is that human being has not realized the other side of its duality. According to this, its application field is pointed out.

The Aesthetic Appreciation of the Epochal and National Character of Competitive Martial Art Routines

With the temporal aesthetics as the mainstream background, the aesthetics appreciation of competitive martial art routines reflects obviously the characteristic of aesthetic globalization, which is just as same as the aesthetic characteristic of the programs mainly based on skills. While the competitive martial arts also inherited the essence of Chinese traditional aesthetics，that’s to say, pursuing artistic conception and the beauty of skills. After 2008, in order to promote the Olympic process of competitive martial art routine, we must enhance the aesthetic values of it in the whole world. When facing the two distinct characteristics of competitive martial arts’ fixed routine—epochal spirit and nationality, whether we choose just one or both is worthy of thinking. Zhang Dainian, Cheng Yishan pointed out in the book the Debate of Chinese Culture and Culture Theory that culture has both the characteristics of epochal spirit and nationality and the relationship between the two characteristics is general and specific. Cultures of different ethnic groups in the same era have the same epochal characteristics, which is general. And different ethnic groups have their own national features in the same era, which is specific. With the changes of the needs of current time, the aesthetics of martial arts becomes more and more important and especially the aesthetics for the fixed routine of competitive martial arts should adhere to the Olympic motto, “higher, faster, stronger” and it should also attract more audience, make more people appreciate its beauty and embodies higher aesthetic value. Competitive martial arts was not a formal program in Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, however, it doesn’t mean that it will never enter the Olympics. This article analyzes the aesthetic situation from the perspectives of temporal spirit and nationality, searching further for a breakthrough of the development of competitive martial arts’ fixed routines.

Citior, altior, fortior … accuratior? Metrology in Sport

Citior, altior, fortior - faster, higher, stronger. The Olympic motto underlines the eternal emphasis on improving performance in the quest for records and sporting achievement. Every sport (can you think of an exception?) involves measurements of one kind or another. Quite apart from the determination of the distance travelled and the time taken, the dimensions of pitches, the heights of barriers and the properties of accessories must all be known. The most demanding measurements, however, are those made in testing laboratories far from the pitch and the track. The biggest challenges, in addition to the historical difficulty of determining when an athlete crosses a line or where a ball lands, are those associated with ensuring the use of validated test procedures and preventing the contamination or substitution of samples.

There’s Nothing to Winning, Really

“There’s nothing to winning, really,” said Alfred Hitchcock. “That is, if you happen to be blessed with a keen eye, an agile mind, and no scruples whatsoever” (1). W.C. Fields put it a different way, “A thing worth having is a thing worth cheating for” (2). Another Olympic year is here. Although neither of the aforementioned was referring specifically to the Olympic Games, one need not look far to find athletes, trainers, coaches, and sports executives who subscribe to a win-at-all-costs philosophy (3). As in the past, the idealism of this year’s Olympics will likely be diminished by disqualifications and revocations of medals for the use of prohibited substances and practices (4). For more than a century, the modern Olympic Games have fueled a quest for excellence through a quadrennial pageant of athletics and nationalism, providing the world a transient common focus while turning the victorious into enduring heroes. Winning is no longer the domain of discipline, effort, desire, and innate ability—it also takes science. Scientifically driven improvements in training, facilities, equipment, and nutrition have such an impact on performance that world records now seem to have a shorter half-life than many RIA laboratory isotopes. Unfortunately, science is also the basis for doping and for activities designed to thwart its detection. Well might the Olympic motto “Citius, Altius, Fortius” (swifter, higher, stronger) apply to doping activists (5). After a highly publicized doping scandal in cycling in the summer of 1998, the International Olympic Committee convened the World Conference on Doping in Sport. An outcome of this conference was the establishment of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)1 in 1999, a foundation operated with the support and participation of the Olympic Movement, public authorities, governments, and other …

The Citius End: World Records Progression Announces the Completion of a Brief Ultra-Physiological Quest

World records (WR) in sports illustrate the ultimate expression of human integrated muscle biology, through speed or strength performances. Analysis and prediction of man's physiological boundaries in sports and impact of external (historical or environmental) conditions on WR occurrence are subject to scientific controversy. Based on the analysis of 3263 WR established for all quantifiable official contests since the first Olympic Games, we show here that WR progression rate follows a piecewise exponential decaying pattern with very high accuracy (mean adjusted r2 values = 0.91±0.08 (s.d.)). Starting at 75% of their estimated asymptotic values in 1896, WR have now reached 99%, and, present conditions prevailing, half of all WR will not be improved by more than 0,05% in 2027. Our model, which may be used to compare future athletic performances or assess the impact of international antidoping policies, forecasts that human species' physiological frontiers will be reached in one generation. This will have an impact on the future conditions of athlete training and on the organization of competitions. It may also alter the Olympic motto and spirit.

Results or Participation?: Reconsidering Olympism's Approach to Competition

In spite of the privileged position that Olympism arguably occupies within the Olympic Movement, its understanding and implementation have been a challenging task. This is due to a lack of specificity, conceptual lacunas, and inconsistencies in the interpretation and elucidation of Olympism. One inconsistency pertains to the meaning and emphasis of results in Olympic contests. In this regard, the Olympic creed and the Olympic motto seem to send contradictory messages. This paper investigates the role that results should have in Olympic contests and, more broadly, in an enlightened sporting life. It argues that the most developed approach to the sporting and Olympic life is one in which the process of contesting and its ensuing results come together to form a meaningful unity.

Den olympiske pengemaskine

Artikel om de moderne olympiske leges økonomi.The Olympic money machineOver a century after their start, the modern Olympic games constitute nothing less than the greatest regularly recurring global event. The modern Games are an event which attracts a great deal of attention and creates and consumes large quantities of resources, which also stem from public sources of finance and therefore from the ordinary tax-payer – in the first instance the citizens of the city in which the games are held. Over and above their role as a unique sporting event, the modern Games are the driving force in a comprehensive transnational concern, which from an analytical point of view is positioned at the intersection between the private market, the public sector and civilian society. Such a situation makes it relevant to shed light on the background against which the finances of the Olympic games as a business come into being and are distributed. This article considers the Olympic idea first and foremost as a sales object. This is simply because when the day arrives when the modern Games and their pregnant symbols – the Olympic logo, the Olympic flag, the Olympic motto, the Olympic hymn and the Olympic torch – no longer sell, many of the problems that currently grow out of and with the Olympic money machine will be a closed chapter. In this context sharp scrutiny is directed at the IOC, the organ which makes up the Olympic movement’s highest authority and which has a overriding influence on everything that takes place around the Olympic games enterprise. These two fixed points – the Olympic idea as a valuable marketing object and the IOC’s role as manager of that object by virtue of its position as leader of the Olympic movement and holder of the property rights to the modern Games – are grounded in a record of a series of events, which in 1998 and 1999 seriously shook the sustainability of the positive narrative about the Olympic games and of the Olympianism which was the philosophy of life superimposed on it. It is precisely the drawing power of that good narrative that makes it worthwhile for a multitude of companies of all sizes to pay large sums for the use of distinctive

Sports Medicine: A Century of Progress

According to the International Olympic Committee, it is the responsibility of the sports medicine profession to care for the health and welfare of Olympic athletes, treat and prevent injuries, conduct medical examinations, evaluate performance capacity, provide nutritional advice, prescribe and supervise training programs, and to monitor substance use. Implicit in these functions is to assist Olympic athletes in achieving the objectives of the Olympic Motto (Citius, Altius, Fortius), which is to become faster, higher, and stronger. During the past Olympiads, athletic performance has increased, as indicated by times for the men's marathon (−28%) or by the distance covered in the women's javelin throw (+80%). However, the fulfillment of these responsibilities was a slow and protracted process, as demonstrated by the facts that medical examinations were not required until 1920, that 28 years elapsed before an official team physician was appointed, and that women had to wait until 1984 before sanction was given to compete in the marathon race. Doping was not defined until 1964, and monitoring of substance abuse did not materialize until after 1972. Although individuals have prepared for athletic competition since the ancient Olympics, the scientific foundations for various training prescriptions were not firmly established until the 1960s and 1970s. It was speculated that performance records will continue to improve in the next century because more scientific sports medicine information would be available and because such information would be better disseminated to athletes.

The Olympics and Sports Medicine

No athlete is crowned but in the sweat of his brow. St Jerome, c 342-420 In July 1996, more than 10 000 of the world's finest athletes representing nearly 200 nations will compete in the Games of the XXVIth Olympiad in Atlanta, Ga. In recognition of the centennial of the modern Olympic Games, the editors ofThe Journalwill devote an issue to the Olympics and sports medicine. This issue, which will be published to coincide with the 1996 Summer Games, follows previous JAMA Olympics issues published in conjunction with the 1968, 1 1972, 2 1976, 3 and 1984 4 Olympic Games. The modern Olympic motto, Citius, Altius, Fortius (swifter, higher, stronger), accurately describes the progressively superior performance accomplished by successive generations of Olympians. 5 In competition during the 1996 Olympic Games, elite athletes will test themselves in supreme physical, mental, and emotional challenges that, for some, undoubtedly will culminate