| With less than a year to go before the Olympic Games kick off in Athens, Coca-Cola and Samsung have unveiled their co-presenting partnership for the first international Olympic Torch Relay. The torch relay will also be the longest ever, running across five continents, as represented by the famous Olympic rings, and supposedly uniting communities worldwide in a global celebration of the Olympic values of friendship, participation and exercise.
The Olympic movement has the emblem and flag confirmed by the IОC as suggested by Cuebertin in 1913. The emblem is the Olympic rings. The motto - Citius, Altius, Fortius (faster, higher and stronger). The flag - a white panel with the Olympic rings is hoisted from 1920 at all Games.
Traditional rituals of Games:
The ignition of the Olympic fire at the opening ceremony (the fire is lit from solar beams in Olympia and it is delivered by a torch relay race of sportsmen to the venue city of the Games);
The pronouncement by one of the outstanding sportsmen of the country in which there are Olympic Games, an Olympic oath on behalf of all participants of the games;
The pronouncement on behalf of the judges and an oath of impartial refereeing;
Awarding medals to the champions and prizewinners of the competitions;
The raising of a national flag and the performance of a national hymn in honor of the winners.
From 1932, the city-organizer builds the Olympic village which is a zone for the premises for the Olympiad participants. According to the charter, instead of national teams competing with each other, sportsmen contest among themselves in these games. However from 1908, the so called total team off-set, that is the place occupied by the teams, and the quantity of received medals and gathered points in the contest, had gained wide spread popularity (points are allotted for the first 6 places according the system: 1st place - 7 points, 2nd - 5 , 3rd - 4, 4th - 3, 5th - 2, 6th - 1). The title of the Olympic champion is the most honorable and desired one in the career of a sportsman in those kinds of sports in which Olympic tournaments are held.
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