At the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics on July 23, the Chinese delegation, with women's volleyball player Zhu Ting and men's Taekwondo 68 kg athletes as flag bearers, ranked 111th. So why was the Chinese delegation determined to enter the 111th venue? How is the order of entry of athletes from all over the world determined in the Olympic Games? The Olympic Games originated in ancient Greece in 776 BC. Since then, the city-states of ancient Greece agreed to hold a sports meeting in Olympia every four years. After Greece was conquered by the Roman Empire, it still maintained the tradition of hosting the Olympic Games every four years.
In 393 AD, Roman Emperor Theodosius I declared Christianity the state religion. The Olympic Games were abolished because they were regarded as a pagan activity. After the ancient Olympics were abolished for more than 1,500 years, the first modern Olympics was held in Athens, Greece in 1896. At that time, the rules of the Olympic Games were not as mature and complete as they are now: from the first modern Olympics in 1896 to the eighth Olympics in 1924, there was no order for the entry of athletes from various countries. It is swarming in.
At that time, the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games was like a race: whoever ran ahead entered the field. Since the Ninth Amsterdam Olympic Games in 1928, the International Olympic Committee has formulated the rules for the entry order of athletes from various countries at the opening ceremony. The admission rules set by the International Olympic Committee are not static. The admission rules have been revised several times in the nearly 100 years from 1928 to the present. After several revisions, this rule has gradually formed: the Greek team enters the stadium first, the host enters the stadium last, and the other teams enter the stadium in the order of the strokes or initials of the host country.
Some people say that the Olympic Games is a product of Western culture, so admission is in alphabetical order. This statement is actually groundless: the Olympic Games has long developed into a sporting event on the five continents of the world. The order of admission for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games has never been fixed in alphabetical order. The teams in the 2000 Sydney Olympics and the 2012 London Olympics indeed entered the stadium in alphabetical order. This is because Australia and the United Kingdom are both English-speaking countries.The Olympics held in non-English-speaking countries are not entered in alphabetical order.
The 2004 Athens Olympics were arranged in Greek alphabetical order. 2008 Beijing Olympic Games is entered in the order of the simplified strokes of the Chinese characters of each team name. At the 2016 Rio Olympics, the teams entered the stadium in Portuguese alphabetical order. Of course, Greece and the host country do not follow such admission rules: Greece, as the birthplace of the ancient Olympics, is always the first to enter in the previous Olympics, and the host is always the last to enter the stadium. This is out of respect for Greece and the host.
The first and last in the admission sequence have special meanings: people generally have the mentality of striving for the first place, and the last admission represents the heavyweight character that is the finale. These two positions with special meanings were assigned to Greece and the host. In 2019, the International Olympic Committee revised the admission rules again. This revision does not change the tradition of Greece's first entry, the host's last entry, and the other teams' entry in the order of the strokes of the host country or the alphabetical order.
The main changes in this revision are as follows: the refugee team is fixedly arranged in the second place to enter the stadium; the next Olympic Games host country is arranged to enter the bottom third; the next edition The host country of the Olympic Games is arranged to enter the penultimate place. In 2015, the President of the International Olympic Committee Bach announced at the 70th United Nations General Assembly: The International Olympic Committee welcomes high-level refugee athletes who cannot represent their country or region to participate in the Olympic Games in their personal capacity. The first refugee delegation in history entered the stadium in the second to last place at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
In 2019, when the International Olympic Committee revised the entry order of athletes, the refugee delegation was placed in the second place in the order of entry. Before 2019, only the host of the current Olympic Games will be arranged for the last admission.The host country of the next Olympic Games and the next Olympic Games will enter the stadium in the same order as other teams in the order of the strokes of the host country or the alphabet. After the 2019 admission rules are revised, the host country of the next Olympic Games will be arranged to enter the bottom, and the host country of the next Olympic Games will be arranged to enter the third bottom.
This year's Tokyo Olympics follow the revised admission rules in 2019: the Greek team enters the stadium first, the refugee team enters the stadium second, and the host Japan enters the stadium last, the next one France, the host country of the Olympic Games, is the second from the bottom to enter the venue, and the United States, the host country of the next Olympic Games, is the third from the bottom to enter the venue. The Japanese kana syllabary is a chart that arranges Japanese kana (hiragana, katakana) according to the classification of vowels and consonants. The entry order of the Chinese national team in this chart is 111th.
In fact, the order of admission is more a manifestation of etiquette: the first entry of the Greek team is to show respect for Greece as the origin of the Olympic movement; the second entry of the refugee team The venue is to show respect for the refugee group; letting the host enter the venue first is to reflect the finale role played by the host, and the other is to reflect the host’s hospitality and the etiquette of the host before the host. In fact, it doesn’t matter who enters the stadium first and who enters the stadium later, because the Olympic Games is never the order of admission. What’s more important is who gets more gold medals and medals.
There is no need to compete for the first place in the order of admission. This order is a rule established by everyone. Even a country like the United States that wants to be the first in everything does not require it to be the first to enter. There is nothing to be proud of for the first entry, and the last entry will not hurt your face in the slightest. In fact, medals are not the only goal we pursue. Since the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, some countries and the media have been doing nothing but spreading rumors. However, we in China have always emphasized that mankind must unite as a community of destiny to overcome this epidemic.
The Olympic Games is the largest international sports event held since the outbreak of the new crown epidemic.The participation of the Chinese Olympic delegation in itself represents China's support for the gradual restoration of the original international sports, cultural and economic exchanges in the context of the global fight against the epidemic. The most important thing for the Chinese delegation in this Olympics is to do a good job of self-protection, because this is directly related to the safety of Olympic athletes and the safety of our country’s anti-epidemic situation. It is of course the best to achieve as much better results as possible under the premise of safety first, and it is completely unnecessary to compete for a meaningless entry.
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