Talk:Olympiad

Start and end of modern Olympiads

 * The article claims: "The modern Olympiad is a period of four years, beginning on the opening of the Olympic Games (in summer sports) and ending on the opening of the next Olympic Games (summer)." Consequently, the start and end dates of the Olympiads in the chart are based on the days when summer games were opened. For instance, the current XXXIst Olympiad is said to have begun on 5 August 2016, the day of the opening ceremony of the Rio games earlier this year.
 * This is not correct, however. The bye-laws to the Olympic Charter are very clear in saying: "An Olympiad is a period of four consecutive calendar years, beginning on 1 January of the first year and ending on 31 December of the fourth year. [...] The Olympiads are numbered consecutively from the first Games of the Olympiad celebrated in Athens in 1896. The XXIX Olympiad began on 1 January 2008."
 * As a result, the XXXI Olympiad began on 1 January 2016, not 5 August 2016 (and will end on 31 December 2019; the following day, 1 January 2020, will be the start of the XXXIInd Olympiad). The same applies to all other Olympiads in the chart. The chart is consistently wrong. SchnitteUK (talk) 09:38, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * For some time (1991–2003), the opening of the Games was considered the beginning of an Olympiad. However, in 2004 the official definition was changed. See historical versions of the Olympic Charter. Burzuchius (talk) 22:39, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
 * OK, I can see that. But it seems the IOC intends that change to apply retroactively - after all, the bye-laws refer all the way back to the beginning of the first modern Olympiad. SchnitteUK (talk) 16:13, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Start of the year
This article states as fact, without citing sources, information about the start of the year which is identified as conjecture at Attic calendar. If this is actually a known matter, please site your source and also make the correction there. -- Jmabel 00:22, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)


 * I hope you're not asking for the original source to mention the Olympic year started with the Olympics. The reference in the Attic calender, on the other hand, I would expect to either refer to the Attic year, or to the civil year. The former, I think did start at the summer solstice, the latter I believe started at the summer equinox. (Both subject to calendar peculiarities.) For these, checking the literature should not prove to difficult. Aliter 14:41, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Is there a source that the Olympic year before 432 BCE started at full moon? According the Wikipedia article about the Attic calendar, the year started at new moon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.176.83.19 (talk) 19:41, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Mystery edit
"Timaeus of Eratothenes" changed anonymously without citation or edit summary to "Timaeus of Tauromenion". I have no idea what this is about: subtle vandalism or a correction? -- Jmabel | Talk 01:30, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)
 * A correction, apparently. Eratothenes is a person, another historian, not a place. I can recall there was something unusual about naming Timaeus in this article, but I can't now recall what it was. Maybe just that I wanted to add his origin in the link (Timaeus of Tauromenion), to avoid Timaeus of Locri (Plato's Timaeus), but found his article didn't use it. It appears, while editing I some how placed the wrong name there. Aliter 13:21, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I was the one who changed it. I used the German spelling though, because I couldn't find any other. The English is Tauromenium (modern Taormina in Sicilly, see Oxf. Classical Dict.). I may try to add an article on Tauromenium now... Prater 13:02, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Modern Cultural Olympiad
When did this begin? My memory says it began with the Los Angeles Olympics, but I have no source to cite. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:27, May 1, 2005 (UTC)
 * Good question, but I think it started right with the Baron de Coubertin, who insisted that culture was as much an important part of his concept as sports, and deserved as much attention....there should be a Cultural Olympiad article - that's currently a redirect to a subsection of this article. The Vancouver Cultural Olympiad's website is, I think, http://www.vancouver2010.com/cultural-festivals-and-events/ ; it may already be in a post I made about this on WikiProject Olympics.....but for now check this out - the passage that begins "Olympics' Artist 'Muzzle Clause' Causes Uproar" .... I wouldn't be surprised if a similar contract was applied to the Beijing Cultural Olympiad participants...this falls under the rubric of "negative coverage" and "excessive controversy" that POVites have insisted be removed from 2010 Winter Olympics, though to me it's wikipedia-worthy.Skookum1 (talk) 17:55, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Inconsistency between "Olympiad" and "Attic Calendar" articles
The Attic Calendar article specifies that the intervening years belong to the Olympiad of the following games, while the Olympiad article specifies that they belong to that of the preceding games. Also, the Attic calendar article gives the first year of an Olympiad as being the year following the games, while the Olympiad article give the first year as the year of the games. The issue is critical to converting Greek dates to B.C. dates. The answer to this is important to me, though I have utterly no competence to comment on it. Aftermath 01:04, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Reply:

Please read Herodotus and/or Pausanias. Both give a good deal of information about Olympiads, the victors in many cases, and when the Olympic games were held in coordination with the Olympiad itself. Polybius also deals in Olympiads, but I don't recall off the top of my head whether or not he mentions any of the games or victors, or whether he specifies the time of the games.

It is my understanding from Herodotus and Pausanias that the Olympic games coincided with the start of each new Olympiad and were, in fact, the landmark event occassioning each new period. (A. Frazier) 16 Jan 2006

What does this mean?
"During the early years of the Olympiad, any physical benefit coming out of a sport was banned." What does this mean? - Jmabel | Talk 05:33, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Financial. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 04:55, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Language question
Shouldn't this article include the fact that Olympiad is what the actual games are still called in most other languages? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.44.48.4 (talk) 10:55, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Extrapolated date of the beginning of the "First year of the 700th Olympiad"
Someone has written near the top of the page that "By extrapolation, the 1st year of the 700th Olympiad began (or will begin) around June 21, 2021." without any explanation or motivation. I suppose that this might be an error for "July 21, 2021.", but even so it is wrong by one day. The "First year of the 700th Olympiad" (or "Ol. 700.1") began on 22 July 2021 C.E. (11th day of the Attic month Hekatombaion). This reconstruction of the ancient date is based on the well-known assumptions that: 1) all the Hellenic months began - in principle - when the youngest Crescent New Moon was visible soon after sunset from Greece, 2) the classical Olympic games were held during five days around the Full Moon, from the 11th to the 15th day of the Hellenic lunar month, and, 3) this "Olympic" Full Moon was always the second Full Moon after the Summer Solstice. If someone knows better, please give a full motivation for the given date in June. /Erik Ljungstrand (Sweden)
 * Whatever the date is for the start of the 700th Olympiad, it needs a reliable source. Canada Jack (talk) 17:49, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
 * An, at least as far as I can understand, "reliable source" for my computations was given by Stephen G. Miller, in: Miller, S. G. 1975: The Date of Olympic Festivals. -- Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung 90: [215]-231. /Erik Ljungstrand (Sweden)

Needs careful overhaul
to dig into the actual sources and important bits of the mess involved in the actual record. Especially see Pamela-Jane Shaw's Discrepancies in Olympiad Dating or as much as you can get in preview, anyway. — Llywelyn II   10:27, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

See also here. — Llywelyn II   10:30, 5 April 2022 (UTC)