[MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO]. Hello, in the first part of this lesson we will see what the Olympics are, and how and who governs the International Olympic Committee and finally, we will present some issues regarding the Olympic Charter. It is very difficult to define quickly what the Olympics are. In fact, the Olympics Games are a complex reality and we'll devote the following five weeks to deepen into this subject. More precisely, we will focus on one particular aspect of this issue, the relationship between the Olympic Games and the media. To start with, we are going to use an official definition. The Olympic Games are the most important and complete international sporting competition in the world. And besides the most important global event nowadays. They Olympic Games are held every four years, with the summer and the winter games alternating, meaning they each occur every four years, but two years apart. The first Olympic Games were celebrated in Athens in 1896, first games of the Olympiad. And the first Olympic Winter Games took place in France, in Chamonix, in 1924. About 10,500 athletes from more than 200 countries compete in 28 different sports, and during the Summer Olympic games. On the other hand, the Olympic Winter, the Olympic Games, features seven sports in more than 2,500 athletes participated from around 80 different countries. But the Olympics are not only a sport competition. They are much more than that. They have a number of so called values, ideals and culture of peace, respect, effort and self-improvement that we will mention in depth afterwards. The Olympics are a festival with the best young people in the world trying to show their excellence in the fields of sport and values. The Olympics are a celebration of the best of the humanity in a contest of peace, respect, and friendship, and an inspiration for the youth all around the world. The former International Committee president Jacques Rogge highlighted that the current Olympics maintain the spirit and values of the first modern Olympics, inspired and bolstered by Pierre de Coubertin. Rogge underlined their exceptionally, they are not frequent and therefore, relevant. At the same time in the Olympics it is experienced the unity of time and action, like in the Greek tragedy. The better athletes compete in the most important sports all together at the same time in only one city and during two weeks. From the material point of view the Games have a great capacity of transforming the city that organizes the Olympics, promoting the creation of new infrastructures, sporting venues. mutating the cities for the benefit of their citizen. Even though not everybody has a so idealistic and positive conception of the Games. Along the history and probably in the future, there will be a great controversy about the Olympics in issues such as they are not always positive changes in the hosting cities, the polemics of corruption and so forth. Even though, this is not the main subject of this course. For many cities, the Olympics are a unique opportunity to be allocated in the map of the most important cities in the world. This was the case of Barcelona. A city which not only took advantage of the 1992 Olympic Games to improve its infrastructures, to create new neighborhoods, to transform the deteriorated industrial zones, or to create the main traffic rings of the city. The Games also allowed Barcelona to conquer the sea. Before that, the city had lived without looking at the sea. Most important is that in Barcelona is currently visited by almost 10 million people every year, and is an attractive tourist and business destination. Without any doubt, the organization of the Games was very positive for the city of Barcelona. Therefore, the Olympics are an important element for that process, which is currently called branding cities. The process of constructing an international positive image of the city, and it is here where the media's role is fundamental. As we will discuss during the following days, since the middle 1960s, the introduction of the satellite permitted to offer a live broadcasting of the Opening and Closing ceremonies of the Games, and of an important part of the competitions. That turned into global what was a local event, taking the images of the effort to homes around the world. In this sense, the collaboration or that symbolic relationship between architectural and media, mainly audio visual media television, was crucial in order to shape that positive image of the city that the experts call branding cities. But what does make different, the Olympics to other sporting competitions? The Olympic Games have a philosophy and series of ideals that give them an added value. These values and philosophy give transcendence, brevity to the Olympism in a world in which we lack of these kinds of manifestations. The Olympics represent the aspiration of improving the world thoughout sport. [BLANK_AUDIO]
