Thursday, May 10, 2012

Binning the so-called Olympic traditions

Well, the Olympic torch is lit and will now commence a tradition that dates back to Hitler. The Olympic torch run was an invention by one of Hitler's cultural advisers to show the virtue of German peoples in the run up to their games in 1936. Whoops!

It's on a par with Royal Mint putting Roman gods on their commemorative coins rather than the gods of Greece (who were, after all, the original benefactors of the games). Whoops again.

Is this a result of the modern history curriculum? Are we not learning the basics of Western culture in school any more? It's a shame because if we don't know where we've come from, how will we expect to know where we are? As someone once said people who don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

So, lets get back to the Olympics as a race meet, a place where athletes come and compete against each other and we watch on in awe at their prowess - like it was in 1948 - and drop the cod history and vacuous razzmatazz.

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