INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC ACADEMY 7th JOINT - IOA

In the play the actors, in the form of athletes, are great stars,
potential stars and supernumeraries who do not have a realistic chance
of winning. However, they experience it as the biggest thing in their
sports career. The passes off over sixteen days and every day there
will be new sports participants, new settings and new bodily
fascinations, which all together make the play an aesthetic and
fascinating life experience.
Audience following the drama intensively, meanwhile millions of
TV viewers around the world follow the setting, which is carefully
organised in the sense of shortening the time by, cut, prolonging it by
slow motion, etc. (Dyhr, 2004)
The athletes interaction at the unique Olympic level
Today the Olympic Games are the world’s biggest event and the
five rings are the second most known symbol in the world after the
cross of the Christ. Charles Handy (1985) describes an organisation in
general as a micro-society that has its own culture.
In order to look into this micro-society and characterise the
specific organisations the following part of the assignment will deal
with the setting of an organisational level.
In a sporting context the Olympic Games do not appear to be
essentially different from other major events like European- or World
Championships (EC/WC); it is to a great extent the same competitors,
the same top-level sporting standard 4 and apparently just another
championship in sequence. But realities are different.
According to the interviews, is it particularly the special
atmosphere that exists in the Olympic Village, where all the athletes
are accommodated mixed among the different sports and living next
door to athletes from other nations that separates the Olympic Games
from other international competitions?
“The Olympic Games is one of my greatest experiences. It has
meant a lot to me espacially the social aspect meant a lot to me.
To be together with a lot of other sports, taking part in something
common and share the same intense atmosphere. It is probably the
greatest experience of them all.
(Torben Grimmel, marksman and participant in the Games in Athens
2004 and Olympic participant for the third time)
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