Essay on the Olympics
The Olympics play an important part not only the sport life but also in the cultural life of the global community. the Olympics involve nations from all over the world and they are the major sport events in every four years in the entire world. At the same time, the Olympics attract not only sportspersons but also spectators, who are interested in sports and who either attend Olympics in the area, where they take place, or watch the Olympic Games broadcasts.The Olympics have a considerable impact on the development of the personal, national and global identity of people because the Olympic Games are the major event in the sport life of the world and people get involved into the Olympics at all level, from individual participation or involvement into the Olympics to the national and global level when people form and support their national teams and compete with other teams and sportspersons from all over the world. Therefore, the Olympics are socially important events that take place every four year and shape the individual, national and global identity.
Historically, the Olympics were internationally significant event that unite people from all over the world. The Olympics are the major sport event that takes place every four years. The Olympics is the ultimate manifestation of the greatest achievements in the field of sport since every sportsperson participating in the Olympic Games. There are winter and summer Olympic Games which are conducted in winter and summer every four year respectively. The Olympic Games include all the sports registered by the International Olympic Committee as Olympic sports. Sportspersons and teams are qualified for the Olympic Games in the course of the competitions which take place prior to the Olympics during four years period.
Moreover, the Olympics have a considerable symbolic significance. For instance, historically, the Olympics were associated with the time, when all wars either ended up or stopped for the time the Olympics ran. The Olympic Games become a unifying event that unites people on the ground of their love to sport and healthy lifestyle.
At the same time, the Olympics have a considerable impact at all levels from the individual level to the global one. However in spite of the level of the impact of the Olympics, the Games contribute to the formation of the imagined community which allows people to shape the imagined identity, which though is short run and fades away, when the Olympics end. People perceive the Olympics in different ways but they can hardly stay indifferent or unaffected by the Olympics.
In addition, it is possible to distinguish participants of the Olympics and the spectators, i.e. those individuals, who attend the competitions as well as those, who watch broadcasts of those competitions (Chomsky, 1997). Sportspersons participating in the Olympics develop their identity feeling their unity as the community of sportspersons. Even though this community is imagined in a way, because they may never encounter each other in their life before or after the competitions, but during those few weeks of the Olympic Games, they live like a sort of family or community, where all sportspersons feel their belongingness to that community, no matter how short run the existence of this community is (Bagdikian, 2000). The audience of the Olympics comprises another large group of people which may unite in imagined communities and develop their identities within those communities. These communities may exist at the local level, as well as at the national or even international level.
People can unite into small communities and change their identity while being a part of those small communities at the local level. For instance, people attending a sport bar on the regular basis develop their identity. They may not even know each others’ name and they may invent their new identity being united by their passion to sport and the Olympic Games.
At the national level, people can also unite in imagined community of fans supporting their national teams and sportspersons representing their countries on the Olympics. In such a situation, people feel their unity as the nation but they have the authentic feeling of the belongingness to the community, where they can feel being a part of the nation. In such communities, they develop their identities that may be different from the identity, which they have in their everyday life. For instance, the Olympics may raise patriotic feelings and emotions that contribute to the unity of members of the imagined community consisting of fans of sports and people interested in the Olympics.
Moreover, individuals can develop broader communities, at the international level, when each person attending the Olympics feel being members of one community that unites people, who like the Olympics so much that they have abandoned everything and came to watch the major sport events of the Olympics. They may create their small communities in social networks, where they create new imagined identities (Bagdikian, 2000). New communities unite people interested in the Olympics. They can use social networks to establish social relations and communicate with each other and steadily form the international community of people, who are interested in the Olympics and who want to attend the Games.
At the same time, they can shape their imagined identity to spend a few weeks in their imagined community. If they use social networks to establish friendly relations with other community members, they can create new identities and other users will never know, whom they really communicate with. Such a freedom of the development of the imagined community allows users and people interested in the Olympics they construct their new identities feeling the unity of their community (Chomsky, 1997).
The formation of the identity at all levels among both sportspersons and spectators occur under the impact of the Olympics and its media presentation. In this regard, it is worth mentioning the fact that the identity of people united by the Olympics occurs under the impact of the Games. The media of the Olympics contribute to the formation of the original atmosphere of the Games that make them a distinct sport event. The Olympics are the brand that always attracts many people from all over the world. For instance, the Olympics is one of the main sport events for professional sportspersons, who view the win on the Olympics as the major achievement in their professional sport career.
As for fans and spectators at all levels, they also are vulnerable to the impact of the Olympics. In this regard, the impact of the traditional perception of the Olympics as the exclusive sport event and the past of the Olympic Games that dates back to the time of ancient Greece is particularly strong. Spectators view their presence on the Olympics as if they are present on the important historical event.
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